How to Register for Website Hosting (And 5 Reasons Why I Love Hostgator)

I get asked often about how to register for website hosting. We aren’t a hosting re-seller here at Powersful Studios, so clients typically need to register with a new host before we can get a project started set up their new site. I wanted to walk you through how to register with my favorite hosting company, Hostgator, and tell you a little bit about why I prefer to work with them.

This post contains affiliate links. If you use them, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products and services I use and love, so I know you’re in great hands. 

Just so it’s easy to find, I have two coupon codes available just for you! 
Get the first month of hosting for just a penny with code: “Powersful1Cent”
or
25% off your hosting plan purchase with code “Powersful25” 

5 Reasons Why I love Hostgator

I have been using Hostgator for website hosting for a little over 10 years now, so that should already say a lot about them. If I trust them for all my personal and professional sites and have used their customer service (a lot) for that long, then you may want to take my advice. I would especially prefer that you work with them if I’m going to be building your site for you because of these top 5 reasons:

1. Fast and solid customer service. I hope on chat with support or a phone call with customer service and I’m connected with a person almost right away. They also assume I know what I’m talking about rather than talk down to me. As a developer, I love this!
2. 99% site up time in my experience. “Up time” is the amount of time that a website is being displayed on the web. Downtime (the opposite) would be time that the server that hosts the site is not available to display the site. Downtime is bad if people want to visit your site, so the fact that I’ve never had an issue with a site being unavailable because of my hosting provider is awesome!
3. Faster WordPress sites. In my experience, WordPress sites hosted at Hostgator have regularly loaded 10-15% faster than those identical sites previously hosted at BlueHost. I had data for this at one point, but seem to have misplaced it. If I had a BlueHost account I’d test it to get an exact measurement, but until then you may have to take my word for it.
4. Monthly billing. Most hosting providers require you to commit to a contract and pre-pay for at least a year up front. Hostgator offers an affordable recurring month to month option which is great for anyone on a small budget who might have trouble with a $150 lump sum payment. You’ll still get a much better deal with a pre-paid plan (~$11 month to month vs ~$6/month pre-paid for 2 years), but I love that it’s an option for my clients!
5. A temporary URL for developing your site. It’s super convenient to have access to a temporary URL when building a new website where the new domain is already in use. You can build and test the new site as long as you want and then only switch the name servers once you’re ready. I was recently told by BlueHost customer service that the don’t offer temporary URLs any longer, so this is definitely a big selling point.  (By the way, your temporary URL at Hostgator is your server ip address from your cpanel followed by a /~yourusername for example: http://12.34.567.890/~cooluser/ )

How to register with Hostgator

So now that you’re (hopefully) on board with me about Hostgator, let me walk you through how to register with them. It’s not complicated, but it’s easy to get lost in all the options available. Before you get started, you want to make sure you’ve chosen and registered your domain name since it’s cheaper to do that elsewhere. Here’s a tutorial for how to register a domain name if you need it!

1. Pop over to the Hostgator site and click the “Get Started Now” button.
   
   
2. Scroll down and choose the “Baby” plan on the left. 
3. Choose the “I already Own My Domain” tab at the top and type in the domain name that you own or that you just registered before you got started. (Registering a domain using these instructions is cheaper, so I prefer to register there instead of with HostGator.)
4. Make sure the “Hatchling” (or Baby) plan is chosen and decide on your billing cycle. I usually go with at least 24 months to get the best rate and I have a special coupon code for you below that you’ll enter at the bottom of the signup page.Price (as of 11/1/15):
   $10.95/month for monthly + First month for just a penny with code: Powersful1Cent
   $80.55 if you pre-pay for 1 year at once and use coupon code: Powersful25 for 25% off
   $143.10 if you pre-pay for 2 years at once and use coupon code: Powersful25 for 25% off
5. Fill in all the user name, address, billing info, etc.
6. Un-check all the “additional services.”
7. Enter the “Powersful1Cent” or “Powersful25” coupon code and click validate.
8. Review your order, read and check the box for the the terms of service and click “checkout” to finalize your purchase!
   

That’s it! You have a web hosting provider! You’ll receive a few important emails from Hostgator with your login info, account url, etc. Save those somewhere safe, and be sure to forward that email to me if I’m going to be working on your site.