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Step 3 - Hosting

In order that people can get to your Web site you must have it "hosted". That means, paying a company to use their servers that are connected to the Internet. Your personal computer won't work. It's connected to the Internet, but your private computer is not designed to allow others into your computer.

Generally, you can find hosting for $3 to $8 per month. But, that's just a "first year" price and you need to pay for 12 months hosting in advance in order to receive that pricing. From the second year and beyond, plan on about $10 per month for hosting.

Hosting companies that do not increase their rates over that $5 per month are inferior hosting companies. The support is poor, the hardware is poor and the speed of the servers is slow. How else are they going to be able to afford hosting at such low rates?

So make sure you are using a quality hosting company, and I recommend A2Hosting.com

I recommend the "Start Up" plan from A2Hosting. That will work well for most any platform, but you may also wish to consider a plan specifically for WordPress platforms. The pricing is the same, but the servers for WordPress have special settings to assure your WordPress site runs very well. A2 knows WordPress well and makes sure you have the right server.

Remember, if you are not using A2Hosting you will need to ask if the hosting company has servers specifically designed for WordPress, and ask if they charge additional for using them.

Once you have made your choice for hosting and have the server all set to go (A2 will make sure of that for you), you are ready to install your platform. A2 usually has the server prepared in a matter of a couple of hours in order that you may begin the platform installation.

NEXT: Install Your Platform