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BlueHost Review – How Reliable is BlueHost as a Shared Host?

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lueHost is a very, and I mean very popular name in the web hosting space — if it's not the most popular shared hosting company on Earth. But, as is the case with many other fields other than web hosting, the most popular option isn't necessarily the best one in terms of quality. Is this true for BlueHost as well? After reviewing InMotion Hosting, I decided to find that out in this unforgiving BlueHost review.

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Table of Contents
Introduction to BlueHost
The BlueHost Advantages
Speed - Testing Load Times
Uptime Stats
Price – BlueHost's Shared Plans Compared
Support

Concluding this BlueHost Review
Introduction to BlueHost
​BlueHost first started operating in 1996, primarily offering shared hosting services. It was founded by Matt Heaton, who was the CEO from 1996-2011. In 2010, amidst much controversy and speculation, EIG (Endurance International Group) acquired BlueHost. Since 2011, Dan Handy operates as the CEO of the company.

BlueHost specializes in shared hosting to this date, but they’ve now started offering additional types of hosting like VPS, dedicated servers, and managed WordPress hosting. BlueHost claims to host over 2 million websites worldwide, making them one of the top hosting companies on the basis of hosted sites volume.​

The BlueHost Advantages
BlueHost have been around in the shared hosting game since more than 20 years since they were originally founded in 1996. Not only have they managed to stick around all these years while becoming one of the most well-known shared hosts worldwide, they've also successfully managed to keep their quality of service consistent through all these years, while overcoming a few minor hiccups along the way, like aggressive CPU-throttling and the likes.

BlueHost is your typical budget-friendly web host that offers a standard cPanel and LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) setup for people who’re not looking for too many features. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what all features that they have on offer:

Free domain (for 1 year) along with your shared hosting plan.
Feature-packed cPanel – integrated with CloudFlare, Page Speed Grader, Google Apps and a lot of other tools. Their custom user interface looks a lot better than the regular cPanel default skin.
Premium anti-spam solutions built right in cPanel.

Free, unlimited email accounts for the top-end plan. Email storage is within your total account storage. There are some limits as to how many emails in an hour you can send, so if your site is demanding in terms of sending emails, use some third party solutions like EmailOctopus.
Automatic daily backups for all your website data, and stored files.
Highly configured servers. Regular hardware upgrades. Replacement parts always ready for quick replacement in case of failed hardware.

​24×7 Live Chat & Phone Support. The latter, especially, isn’t offered by most shared hosts out there.
Hassle-free scalability allows you to upgrade your plan to a VPS or a dedicated server without having to face the hassles of moving your website.
Account isolation technology isolates accounts having websites that consume too much resources, to ensure that the overall performance of the server doesn’t degrade and affect all customer sites on that server.

Decent level of customization for a shared hosting plan – including SSH (Secured Shell Access), Server Side Includes, PHP.ini and .htaccess modification support.
Multiple user-access control mechanism to assign multiples users and restrict their access to specific sections of the same hosting account (like one account may access only the billing section).
Built-in CDN (Content Delivery Network) support with CloudFlare integration. Hassle free setup ensures that all your static resources load faster from CloudFlare’s worldwide CDN network.
Unique IPs, SSL, and SiteLock protection are some optional features that are handy to have.
30-day Money-back Guaranty

Other features which I probably haven't noticed yet.
Check out the FULL list of BlueHost's s




In my testing, I've found BlueHost's servers to be fairly fast. It's certainly not the fastest among all shared hosts, neither does it manage to make the test site load under 500ms unlike InMotion Hosting, but at that entry-level price point, the performance is more than you'd expect. Not only the total page load time, the initial server response time (<300 ms on average) was pretty impressive for a shared host, too.

It seems like BlueHost have upgraded their server hardware greatly and thereby improving performance for the end-user. This is good to know, considering they were at one point in the past accused of overselling and overcrowding their servers.

Bluehost Review

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Last updated: Friday, August 5, 2016 by Coty Lance

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If there is one name you know in the world of web hosting, it’s probably Bluehost. It got its start back in 1996, which makes it ancient by web standards, but I like them none the less.

They have built a solid reputation over the decades, particularly when it comes to WordPress hosting.

They are listed as one of the official recommended hosting providers for WordPress blogs and offer an abundance of great tools, bonuses, and resources to WordPress customers.

Ready to find out more? We’re going to delve deep into the details in our Bluehost review. But let’s get started with a few quick facts first.

Plans appear cheap at first glance, but not all of them are as cheap as they seem. You can get started for as little as $3.49 per month with shared hosting if you snag a deal like this. Otherwise the Starter plan usually costs $7.99 per month, which is still quite reasonable. But WP plans are pretty expensive, starting at $12.49 monthly.

Get unmetered bandwidth with all accounts.

The starter plan comes with 100 email accounts. The Plus and Business Pro plans offer unlimited email accounts.

Get up to $200 in marketing offer bonuses.

Enhanced cPanel makes it easy to configure and control your sites.

Plans and Pricing

Bluehost offers five main types of hosting plans:

Shared hosting

VPS hosting

Dedicated hosting

WordPress hosting

Cloud Sites

If you are looking for something inexpensive and basic, shared hosting is probably what you need. This is what most beginners and small businesses are shopping for. Dedicated hosting is the most expensive option, appropriate from large commercial businesses that need full control of their resources.

With dedicated hosting, you are essentially renting a physical server. VPS hosting is a middle-ground option where you share a physical server with others, but you have your own virtual operating system, so the server functions as if it is physically yours. WordPress hosting is of course what it sounds like—hosting optimized for WordPress customers. Let’s take a look at the plan tiers for each.

Shared Hosting

Starter: Beginning at $3.49 per month, this plan jumps up to $7.99 per month at the regular price.

Plus: This plan is regularly $10.49 per month.

Business Pro: This plan is $23.99 per month.

These prices are all pretty good. But with this deal, you can make sure you get the best price! At the Starter level you get one website, 100GB of space, and unmetered bandwidth. You also get one domain, five parked domains, and 25 sub-domains. Additional features include 100 email accounts with 500 MB of storage each, and $50 in marketing offers.

With the Plus or Business Pro plans, you get unlimited websites and unmetered space and bandwidth, which is awesome. You get one domain included, and you can have unlimited parked domains and sub-domains.

Email accounts and storage are unlimited, along with $200 in marketing offers. Plus includes Global CDN and one SpamExperts (over $24 per year in extra benefits).

The Business Pro plan includes up to $180 in annual extra benefits, including two SpamExperts, one SSL, one dedicated IP address, domain privacy, enhanced performance, and SiteBackup Pro.

VPS Hosting

Standard: $14.99 your first month, up to $29.99 after that

Enhanced: $29.99 your first month, up to $59.99 after that

Premium: $44.99 your first month, up to $89.99 after that

Ultimate: $59.99 your first month, up to $119.99 after that

These prices are in line with typical costs for VPS hosting industry-wide. The speed for the first two plans is 2 CPU cores, up to three and four cores for the top two plans. You get 30GB SAN storage at the lowest tier, up to 240GB at the highest tier. RAM ranges from 2 GB up to 8 GB. You get 1 TB of bandwidth at the Standard level, up to 4 TB at the Ultimate level. Each tier includes one domain. The Standard tier includes one IP address; you get two with the rest. Every plan is backed by 24/7 support and a money-back guarantee.

Dedicated Hosting

Standard: $74.99 your first month, $149.99 per month after that.

Enhanced: $99.99 your first month, $199.99 per month after that.

Premium: $124.99 your first month, $124.99 per month after that.

With the Standard plan or Enhanced plan, you get a 4 x 2.5GHz CPU. The Premium plan offers you a 4 x 3.3GHz CPU. Storage is 1 TB (mirrored), and RAM starts at 4 GB at the Standard level, ranging up to 16 GB at the Premium tier. You get 5 TB of bandwidth at the Standard tier, 10 TB at the Enhanced tier, and 15 TB at Premium. One domain is included with every plan. You get three IP addresses at Standard, four at Enhanced, and five at Premium. All plans are backed by 24/7 service and a money-back guarantee.

WordPress Hosting

Blogger: $12.49 your first month, $24.99 after that

Professional: $37.50 your first month, $74.99 after that

Business: $60.00 your first month, $119.99 after that

Enterprise: $85.00 your first month, $169.99 after that

These plans are actually quite expensive compared to what some competitors offer (many hosts actually sell WordPress hosting plans at the same prices as general-purpose shared hosting plans).

WordPress hosting on Bluehost is a big deal, however, and one of the company’s most popular services (with more than a million sites hosted by the company).

Features include at the Blogger level include 100 million visits per month, 30 GB of storage, 30 GB of backup space, 2 GB of RAM, and up to five sites. You get one included domain and one IP address. Additional features include enhanced cPanel, SiteLock CDN, and SiteLock Pro for added security.

The top-level Enterprise plan gives you unlimited monthly visits, 240 GB of storage and backup space, 8 GB of RAM and up to 30 sites. You get one included domain and IP address. Along with enhanced cPanel and SiteLock CDN/WAF Pro, you get SiteLock Enterprise and Positive Wildcard SSL.

All plans are backed by 24/7 service and a money-back guarantee. These plans also include automatic plug-in updates and regular backups.

These are all excellent features, but still, you may be asking, “Why would I pay this much for WordPress hosting?” Bluehost plays a very active role in the WordPress community and has a core staff of developers. That means that Bluehost can offer first-class customer support and troubleshoot even complex problems which are specific to WP.

This is not to say Bluehost is your only or best option however – hosts like InMotion can easily compete, and at a lower cost.

eCommerce Features

It is easy to set up an online store with Bluehost, which offers a number of different shopping carts: Zen, Cube, Agora, and OS Commerce. You get SSL security for your transactions, a certificate generated for free, and OpenPGP/GPG Encryption.

The fact that you get unlimited storage space starting at the Plus level with shared hosting means you are good to go adding as many products as you want to your shop. Unmetered bandwidth means your costs are steady and predictable even if you have months where you get a great deal of traffic (maybe over the holidays, or as your business is growing).

The $200 in free marketing credits is also a big help if you are a store owner. You can use these to promote your business through Google, Facebook, Bing, and Twitter.

All of that having been said, Bluehost is not particularly known for eCommerce, and there are sites that make it easier and faster to set up a shop. But Bluehost is an economical choice, and you will get access to a ton of great features to help you sell online.

Security Features

Security is definitely an area where Bluehost excels. You get three layers of anti-spam protection in the form of Spam Experts, Spam Hammer, and Apache Spam Assassin. You get protection for your inbox as well; it is easy to set up filters. Your directories are all password-protected.

If you need to block access to your site, you have the option to blacklist IP addresses. Another top-notch feature is secure shell (SSH) access. This allows you to access configuration files individually and securely.

Bluehost also offers single-click integration with CloudFlare, which provides even more excellent security features and speeds up your site! CloudFlare is particularly good for thwarting DDOS attacks.

You also get a lot of options to upgrade:

Refund Policy

Bluehost covers its plans with a 30-day money-back guarantee. That means if you cancel within the first 30 days, you will get a full refund. If you choose to cancel after that, you will get a prorated refund for the period of your hosting term which you have not used. Domain fees are not refundable.

Ease-of-Use

Bluehost makes it a breeze to set up your website and manage it. The enhanced cPanel interface is as easy to use as it gets—you just click on the icons to get to where you need to go.

You can take care of everything with your websites and email addresses in one central location. You can customize the layout of the control panel to your needs. That way you can get quick access to your favorite features.

Customer Service

Here is an area where Bluehost gets mixed reviews. There are many customers who report positive experiences with fast, helpful, friendly customer service agents. Unfortunately there are also a lot of customers who report that they were unable to get the help they needed even with numerous phone calls.

Another problem with Bluehost is excessive upselling. This is a company that loves to try to sell you on add-ons and upgrades, and there are a lot of areas where you flat-out need add-ons for full functionality. That is a problem if you are on a tight budget.

Who is Bluehost Best For?

Customers who are looking for a reliable web host with a strong reputation. Bluehost is one of the oldest names in the business and has established trust.

WordPress customers who are able to pay extra in order to get access to more features and a dedicated support team of WP experts.

Owners of both large and small businesses. Bluehost is fine if you are on a budget and just want general-purpose shared hosting. Just watch out for the upselling.

Pros of Bluehost:

Most plans include unlimited disk storage, domain hosting, email addresses, and bandwidth.

You get a free domain name for a year included with your purchase.

The enhanced cPanel is really easy to use and offers fast access to features.

The security features on Bluehost are flat-out excellent.

Numerous databases are available, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, CGI-BIN, PHP 5, Phython, Perl 5, Ruby on Rails, and much more.

Tons of free website scripts are available, including social networking scripts, blog support, mailing lists, message forums, Joomla and Drupal and Tikiwiki.

eCommerce features are good with multiple shopping carts available and SSL security.

Most customers report that Bluehost is fast. Integrate with CloudFlare and you’ll get even better performance.

If you can afford it, the WordPress hosting on Bluehost is considered to be top-notch.

Cons of Bluehost:

While there are many useful add-ons available, unfortunately you need to install many of them to get the full functionality you need.

The customer service team gets mixed reviews.

Bluehost loves to try to up-sell its customers, which can get to be annoying if you are on a tight budget.

The WordPress plans, while very nice in terms of features, are also very expensive compared to plans offered by many competitors. InMotion for example incredible WP plans starting at just $4.89 monthly. That’s less than half of the starting price for the lowest tier WP plan offered by Bluehost.

Conclusion

Bluehost has a strong reputation, and they do appear to offer some great services and benefits, but they are not without some substantial drawbacks. There does not seem to be any one absolutely amazing standout feature either that would cause us to recommend Bluehost above a competitor like InMotion.

If you are looking for reasonably priced shared or VPS hosting from a company with a lot of industry experience, Bluehost may be a good choice. But if you want to save money on top-shelf WordPress hosting, we recommend checking out InMotion.

Visual Value

March 7, 2016 by Devin Sears
We all know a picture is worth a thousand words. Surprisingly, we don’t apply that knowledge to improve the quality of our small business websites. Not only do images say more than words, in many cases they are much better at communicating emotion, setting a mood or delivering a message. There’s a huge array of visual elements to work with; photos, video, illustrations, charts, infographics all have a place and can help you bring your small business story to life.

Great photography

We’re all walking around with amazing cameras in our phones and yet somehow still seem to struggle to find decent images to use in our small business marketing and  websites. Even if you’re not the DIY photography type there are dozens of stock art websites that offer a huge selection of reasonably priced images. There are also sites like Twenty20 or Imagebrief if you have something more specific in mind but would like to explore alternative sources. Regardless of the source you leverage, spend some time to make sure your site provides powerful, relevant images to help bring your message to life.

Video is the new black

Video is quickly becoming a must-have communications tool for marketers of all sizes. Again, the solution may be as close as your smartphone. It’s easy to shoot a basic overview or introduction video on your phone, edit together with one of the many video editing software packages and have something ready to add to your website or blog.

Video is typically more engaging than still images, makes it easier for your to allow your business personality to come through and can make it easier to explain products in more detail or in a more interesting style. Not every video is intended to be the next viral sensation and attempting to create something viral is almost a sure bet it won’t be. There is value in smart, basic, relatively simple video so don’t be afraid to experiment.

Charts and graphs

Who wants to see charts and graphs? Well, it turns out a lot of people love information presented in a visual format. This can work no matter who your customers are. Maybe you showcase the savings your product or service creates or the performance increase of your product versus a competitor? Simple, but intuitive graphics can help you communicate in a focused, visual style that can much greater impact.  

Up your marketing game by using more and better photographs, utilizing video and testing out some graphics.

FAQ: How do I backup my website?

February 8, 2013 by Brittany Warnock
If you’re a Bluehost customer, chances are you’ve called our support staff at one time or another. After all, they’re there to help! But with tens of thousands of people now signing up for a Bluehost account every month, we wondered if there weren’t a few particular questions our support reps received more often than others. Sure enough, there are! So we’ve put together several posts to answer these “frequently asked questions.” We hope they help our new customers, and perhaps even you long-time Bluehost experts.

How do I backup my website?

One of the most important things you can do is make sure all of your data and content is regularly backed up. Websites take a lot of time, energy, and even money to develop, so you want to make sure your investment is protected. Most Bluehost customers seem to understand this, as they frequently call in asking how to best ensure a proper backup of their websites.

First, some good news: At Bluehost, we perform complimentary backups of your entire account data on a monthly, weekly, and even daily basis! So you can rest assured your data is protected against loss. Should you ever need or want a prior version of your files, here’s how to access and restore these automated backups.


Access system backups with these simple steps:

Log into your Bluehost control panel.
Go to the “Files” section and select “Site Backup and Restore.”
Select from the list which aspect of your website you wish to backup or restore.
Choose which system backup or restore option you prefer, either a daily, weekly, or monthly version.
From the download window, select a format in which to save your backup and click “Start Archiving”.


These automated backups can serve as a great safety net against loss. But to truly protect your data, you should perform regular manual backups, particularly after any significant work has been done on your account. Fortunately creating a manual backup is simple. Here’s how to do it:

Create your own backup with these simple steps:

First, if you are using a CMS, blog, or eCommerce platform, make sure you create a backup of your database.

Log into your Bluehost control panel and open the phpMyAdmin tool.
Identify the relevant database on the left-hand side.
Select the “Export” tab.
Make sure the format is “SQL”
Click “Go.”
Once the download is complete, save your exported files in a safe place, such as an external hard drive or cloud storage solution.
Once you’ve backed up any important databases, the final step involves backing up any website content.

Create an FTP account from your Bluehost control panel if you don’t already have one.
Open your preferred FTP program (e.g. Filezilla or Cyberduck) and connect to your account with your FTP information.
Download all your website files.
Save your files in a safe place, perhaps along with your saved database files.


Backing up files is one of the most important aspects to building and maintaining a successful website. Unfortunately, not many people take a proactive role in this process. We’ve made a video to accompany these instructions so you can follow along to back up your site!




And if you ever need help backing up your site, visit the Bluehost Help Center for detailed instructions, or just give our support team a call 24/7 at 888.401.4678. Stay tuned for our next post about how to speed up a slow website!

FAQ: How do I transfer my domain name?

March 13, 2013 by Brittany Warnock
Transferring a domain name is one of our most commonly asked questions. Because every domain registrar is different, it can be confusing to know what to do. Thankfully at Bluehost, we make it as easy as possible to transfer your domain registration to your account so you can manage all your domains and files under one, well-maintained roof.

While we can’t imagine every possible system out there, the actual steps are almost always the same. (You can also visit our Transfer Help Page for specific instructions on many of the most common domain registrars.) Transfer any .com, .net, .org, .info, .us, or .biz domain to Bluehost by following these simple instructions.



How do I transfer my domain name?

First, you’ll need to access the domain registrar where the domain is currently registered. From here you will prepare the domain name for transfer. Every registrar is a little different, but you should be able to follow these general steps:

Login and access the domain manager tools of your current registrar.
Update your contact info (particularly your e-mail address) so that Bluehost can reach you with important information both during and after the transfer process.
Ensure privacy options are disabled for the transfer process. Don’t worry, you can re-enable them when your domain is successfully transferred to Bluehost.
Update the nameservers to point to Bluehost. Use the following: NS1.BLUEHOST.COM and NS2.BLUEHOST.COM. (This indicates that your site is hosted at Bluehost.com. The DNS change can take anywhere from a few hours to several days to propagate. Once it is finished you will be able to complete the transfer process.)
Unlock your domain name.
Acquire your “transfer EPP code,” or authorization code. This should be provided to you. Copy this code down and login to your new registrar (Bluehost) to initiate the transfer.
Once you’ve prepared your domain for transfer, all that’s left is to initiate the transfer from the new registrar (Bluehost).

Visit the Domain Manager tab in your Bluehost control panel.
Select “Transfer a new domain to your account” from the Shortcuts menu on the top left-hand side.

Type in the domain you wish to transfer and click continue.
Enter the EPP code you received from your previous registrar and click continue.
Bluehost will e-mail a second verification code to the administrator e-mail associated with the domain. (Which is why it’s important to update your contact information before you start the transfer process.) Enter this verification code and click continue.
And that’s it! There’s a lot of behind the scenes work that goes on to make the transfer actually happen. It typically takes between 5 to 10 days to complete.

If you need extra help with a domain transfer, contact our support team at any time, 24/7 by calling us at 888.401.4678 or talking to us via live chat. Stay tuned for our next post to learn how to move your WordPress website to Bluehost with almost zero downtime!

Putting Words to Work

March 3, 2016 by Devin Sears
There’s a lot to consider as you continually improve your business website. There’s overall design and layout, photography, graphics, search engine optimization, support for mobile devices and integration of video and other content types. Ironically with all the focus on website content assets, the one area that is often overlooked or approached as an afterthought is the actual website copy.

Clarity converts

At the most pragmatic level effective website copy helps your site perform better. Whether you run a commerce site or a site designed primarily to capture leads, providing clear, focused messaging directs visitors to the content and actions that ring the register for your business.

Voice and tone

Humans are the primary audience for most websites and humans like to feel like we’re reading and interacting with other humans. We also typically prefer copy that has some warmth, texture and personality, not copy that feels like it could have been generated by a machine or lifted from a technical manual. Most website content is copy, written words. These words allow you to define the voice and tone of your business, to share your business personality and engage in a more personal and engaging style. Get this right and people will be more likely to read what you have to say and respond to the directions and incentives you provide.

Tell your story

Stories are powerful vessels for your business message. The ability to tell a story with your copy improves the impact of your message and ultimately makes your story more memorable. Everyone loves a good story and most stories begin with great copy.

Speak to specific audiences

Most businesses, even small businesses, have multiple buyer profiles. Each of these audiences will have specific needs they would like addressed, specific concerns or desires associated with your product or service. Your website copy should speak to each of these audiences and address their unique needs. This includes adapting your voice and tone where applicable and potentially shifting terminology to support unique industry or market needs. Something as simple as creating content adapted to a target audience can have a significant impact on the performance of your website.

Tee up other assets

Done right, all the elements of your website work together. Clever, effective copy does a better job of driving engagement with other website assets. Things like overview videos, slide shows, infographics and product demonstrations perform better when the surrounding copy drives visitors to interact. Inversely, other assets can be used to encourage visitors to “learn more” and drive them to informative copy.

The most beautiful website in the world without effective copy will not be an effective website. A poorly designed website can be dramatically improved with strong, well-crafted copy. A beautiful website with compelling copy can help your business take over the world.

What You Need to Know About SSL Certificates

February 22, 2016 by Eric Ross Anderson
When was the last time you purchased something online? If you can’t remember, how about someone you know? Odds are the answer is one of the following: today, yesterday, or the day before yesterday. Now let’s hold onto those answers, we’ll need them later.

Online marketplaces, purchases, and transactions are a part of our everyday routine. In addition to that, we live in an age which allows anyone with a little time on their hands to set up shop and participate in online business. When you sign up for a hosting account, it’s usually for a personal hobby, such as blogging, or blogging, or blogging. Or it’s because you have a great product/service and you want to share it. Now whether you’re brand new to hosting or a veteran of the web, you know there are many terms to learn. We’ll help you hone in on one of the most important ones to your business, an SSL Certificate. But first, let’s review some factors that influence online transactions.

Why should I get one?

There are several factors that go into making an online purchase, such as price, quantity, and quality. Those values are usually associated with the product itself, right? Getting someone to trust in a product is one thing, but how can you get visitors to trust in your website? The answer is your SSL certificate. Having one allows you to process credit card and other personal info safely and securely. It allows you to become PCI compliant, which is also a must for online business.

What is an SSL Certificate?

To summarize, an SSL certificate on the front end is the badge that let’s all of your visitors or potential customers know that the information they submit via your site is safe. Security is important, privacy is important, trust is important! That’s the beauty of an SSL certificate. It lets your site’s visitors know those things are important to you too. Without one, you will not succeed in getting your products and services to the people that want them. The symbol that appears when your site has an SSL takes care of half of the battle for you.

How does it work?

We know that on the front end, an SSL certificate is represented by a badge; a symbol that your site is the place to be. But how does it work exactly? The main function of an SSL certificate is to encrypt the information that’s submitted via your website in a way that only the actual recipient of the data can utilize it. In short, no one, except for the person or persons who are supposed to receive it, can read it. Sorry identity thieves and hackers, not on our watch.

When should I get one?

Technically, you can start a blog or a website and not need one right away. In fact, you can even have a website and run purchases exclusively through PayPal without an SSL certificate. While that’s convenient and PayPal is becoming a popular means for transactions, when you’re considering using credit card information for online purchases, PCI compliance requires that you have an SSL certificate. In the long run, we’d recommend that any business gets set up with an SSL cert. If not, you’re telling potential customers that if they’d like to submit credit card information they will need to go somewhere else.

How can I get one?

At Bluehost, we want your online journey to be successful. Getting an SSL with a third party can be a little bit of a hassle, so if you need one and want to ensure a seamless process, we can get you set up. We provide different certificates for different needs and  can help you make sure you get the one that’s the right fit.

Here are the SSL’s we currently offer:

Positive SSL

Comodo’s Positive SSL Certificates are designed for securing intranets, extranets, and websites. These certificates are an ideal and low-cost way of securing your enterprise web server.

Comodo SSL

Comodo SSL certificates provide the strongest protection, greatest flexibility, and can be issued to your website within minutes using our 100% online ordering process.

Positive Wildcard SSL

You can either spend a lot of money and time buying and managing individual SSL Certificates for each subdomain, or you can save hundreds or even thousands of dollars by purchasing just one Wildcard SSL certificate to secure them all.

Comodo Wildcard SSL

Comodo Wildcard SSL secures subdomains such as yourdomain.com, secure.yourdomains.com, and mail.yourdomain.com. One Wildcard SSL certificate saves you money and time by simplifying SSL certificate management.

To add an SSL certificate to your existing Bluehost account today, click here.

Start Your Blog or Site in 5 Minutes with WordPress

January 3, 2014 by Brittany Warnock
For many, when they think of WordPress, they think “blog.” And while WordPress is one of the world’s largest blogging platforms, WordPress is also a complete content management system and is a great way to build many different types of websites. This article will show you how easy it can be to get your blog, or website, up and running quickly.

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Choosing a Web Host

There are many hosting companies out there, but for a WordPress site, Bluehost should definitely be at the top of anyone’s list. Bluehost is the only hosting service officially recommended by WordPress and has been the number-one recommended hosting service for their platform for almost 10 years. There are many reasons why Bluehost is so highly recommended, but here are just a few:

Premium customer service, reliability and usability
Easy-to-use control panel
Custom-built servers to provide the most stable and reliable hosting environment
Quickly get started with our one-click WordPress install provided by MOJO Marketplace
Expert, in-house technical support provided 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Unlimited websites, email accounts, and domains – all on one account at an affordable price
No gimmicks, no contracts. Enjoy the comfort of a 30-day money back guarantee and the option to cancel at any time.
And to sweeten the deal even more, if you sign up through this tutorial, you’ll get a special offer of shared hosting at $3.95/month for 36 months, as well as a free domain name for a year!

To set up your hosting account with Bluehost, follow the steps below. It will speed up the process to think of a domain name you want to use and to have your credit card for payment ready to go before you get started.

Set Up Your Hosting Account

To get started, go to Bluehost’s home page and click “Sign Up Now.”

1

Next, you need to choose a domain name for your site. If you already own a domain name, you can enter it here, and you will just have to go through a few extra steps to make sure you get your DNS pointed to Bluehost. If you don’t already have a domain name, you can purchase one from right in the sign up process, and the best part is, it comes free with your new WordPress hosting account purchase.

2

Once you’ve entered a domain name, you’ll fill in your personal information.

3

Then, you’ll choose which hosting package you want. Normal, shared hosting is priced at 12, 24 and 36-month terms. To help save you money, the longer term you purchase, the lower the monthly rate will be. For example, by choosing a 36-month hosting term, you can get the great introductory rate of $3.95/month. And, because you’ve chosen to host with Bluehost, if you ever need more than a shared hosting account, Bluehost provides seamless upgrades to VPS or dedicated server hosting accounts from inside your control panel.

There are few other offers provided at sign up, which you can include at your discretion. One we recommend is Domain Privacy, a paid service that allows personal information to be kept private on WHOIS databases.

4

After you’ve filled in your information and chosen your hosting package, click the “Next” button to complete your purchase. You’ll then be asked to create a password for your account. You can use the Password Generator to create a strong and secure password, or create one yourself. It is required to have both capital and lowercase letters, a number, and a special character (?!#, etc.) in order to have a strong enough password to protect your account.

Now that you are all signed up and are able to log into your account, you can get started installing WordPress!

Installing WordPress

This may seem like the most complicated step, but Bluehost has worked hard to make this one of the easiest things for you to do by using the new MOJO Marketplace for installing WordPress and other applications. In your cPanel, scroll to the section titled “MOJO Marketplace” and choose the “One-Click Installs” button. This will take you to a page inside MOJO Marketplace called Scripts and Platforms. The blog section is at the very top, so all you have to do here is click on the WordPress icon.



This will open the installation window. Click on the green “Start” button that will start the WordPress installation process, which has a few easy steps.

Screen Shot 2014-01-03 at 11.08.47 AM

Step 1: Choose where you want to install WordPress. This can be any domain on your account, or a subdomain or a folder for one of your domains. Next, click on “Check Domain,” which will make sure the domain is assigned and pointing to your account. You may get a warning that you are overwriting files, but as long as you don’t have another website built yet, you can check the box and continue. This is mostly to make sure that you really want to install in that location. If you do have other sites built, you will want to make sure you’re not overwriting something important.

Check Your Domain

Step 2: Show Advanced Options. This section allows you to set up your own username and password for your WordPress install. IT is recommended to use a different username than “admin” and a very strong password. Make sure that the “Automatically create a new database for this installation” box is checked, unless you have a database already set up that you want to use.

Step 3: After you’ve read the terms and conditions, check the box indicating that you’ve done so, then click “Install Now.”

Install WordPress

Now you’ll see the progress page, which will show you how far along the installation is. Once WordPress is fully installed, it will provide you with your site URL, the admin login URL, your username, and password. You will get a copy of this information, except your password, in your email as well. Make sure to keep it in a safe place.

WordPress Install Progress Bar

Now you can log into your WordPress site by going to the admin login URL. Enter your username and password, then click “Log In.” This will take you to your WordPress dashboard. From here, you can control everything to do with your WordPress site, such as creating pages, writing posts, and changing the appearance.

Remember, if you sign up through this tutorial, you’ll receive a special offer of shared hosting at $3.95/month for 36 months, as well as a free domain name for a year!

Need More Help?

Check out this video that will walk you through the steps of installing WordPress: http://bluho.st/sfvBT

Posted in Educational, WordPress

How Do I Transfer My WordPress Website To Bluehost?

April 2, 2013 by Brittany Warnock
If you already have a WordPress website up and running on another web host, moving it to a new hosting provider can be a little intimidating at first. Lots of people have questions: How do I get started? Will my site go down while I’m moving it? What do I do to make sure I don’t lose any files? Well, we’ve put together a guide to help you out.

How do I move my WordPress website to Bluehost?

At Bluehost, many of our customers use WordPress for their sites. So here is a step-by-step guide on how to move your WordPress site from another host to Bluehost with almost no downtime. There are a lot of steps in this process, but if you follow them one after the other, you should be able to transfer your website in no time.

To start, log into your current host and use a provided program (such as phpMyAdmin) to export your site’s database.
Use your preferred FTP program (such as Filezilla or Cyberduck) to download and save your wp-content folder (a.k.a. the files that make up your WordPress site.)
Log in to your Bluehost control panel.
Install WordPress using the SimpleScripts, one-click install tool.
Create an FTP account in your Bluehost control panel so you can upload your files to your new WordPress site folder. When creating your FTP account, keep in mind that you might want to change its designated directory to something easily identifiable.
Launch your preferred FTP program and open a new connection. Log in with your new FTP account info.
Overwrite the existing wp-content folder with the one you downloaded from your previous host.
Open phpMyAdmin in the Database section of your Bluehost cPanel.
Select the database to which you want to import your data. You may need to look up this information. (To do so, go to the File Manager in your control panel and open your public_html folder. Then scroll down to find the wp-config file, right click the icon, select “Code Edit”, and then “Edit.” In the code edit window, scroll down to identify the database you should use.
Back in your phpMyAdmin window, once you’ve selected the correct database, you will see a list of tables. Drop these tables before you import your new data by selecting the “Check All” option at the bottom of the list and then selecting “Drop.”
Now it’s time to import! Go to the “Import” tab in phpMyAdmin. Choose “Browse your computer” and find the SQL database file that you exported from your previous site. (It should be named something similar to “bluepm1_wor2.sql”.) Make sure the SQL format is selected and click “Go.”
Here is an important step after you import your database. After your database is imported, check to learn the new table names. If your table names begin with ‘wp_’ then you don’t need to make any changes. However, sometimes your tables will import with a name like ‘wrp-‘ Go to your file manager and open the wp-config file in your public_html folder.
Right click on wp-config, select “Code Edit”, and then select “Edit.”
Scroll down until you find the line “Stable Prefix” line. Edit it to read ‘wp_’.
Now that you have your database and site files, it’s time to put everything on your temporary URL. This is how you move your site without any downtime.* First, in your phpMyAdmin site, select wp-options from the menu on the left of the screen. Then, select “Edit” on the “site url” line. (This will typically be line 1.) Paste in the temporary URL provided to you when you created your Bluehost account and click “Go.” (Tip: if you’re not sure what it is, it can be found in your Bluehost welcome e-mail.) *Note: all of these previous steps can help anyone move their WordPress site. The following steps are for those are want to move their WordPress site without any downtime.
 Repeat step 11 for your “Home” line in wp-options. (This is typically line 36.)
Now it’s time to see if your work has paid off. Enter the temporary URL into your internet browser and check to see if your site is there. If so, you’re nearly done!
Log into your WordPress admin site to save your Permalinks. Go to “Permalinks” under the “Settings” tab of the dashboard and click “Save Changes.”
Before you can move from the temporary URL to your permanent one, you must change the nameservers associated with your domain to point to Bluehost. This can be done in the domain manager of your domain registrar, whether it be with Bluehost, or another registrar. Use the following: NS1.BLUEHOST.COM and NS2.BLUEHOST.COM. (This indicates that your site is hosted at Bluehost.com. The DNS change can take anywhere from a few hours to several days to propagate. Once it is finished you will be able to use your domain on your new site.)
Once the DNS change in complete, log into your WordPress admin site and go to “General” under the “Settings” tab. Then, enter your domain into the “WordPress Address” and “Site Address” fields, and click “Save Changes.”
The last step is to enter your domain URL into your internet browser to check to see if your site is live. If so, then congratulations! You have successfully moved your WordPress site to Bluehost.
We know this is a lot of steps, but if you follow these instructions you should be good to go. And of course, if you need help at any point in this process, you can always contact our support team for help by calling us 24/7 at 888.401.4678 or through 24/7 live chat.

Posted in Account Tips, WordPress

Why WordPress?

November 24, 2015 by Chris Ross
Chances are you already have some sort of web presence for your business but maybe it’s time for an upgrade.  A site that may have looked fantastic just a few short years ago can start to look dated and come up short on key, must-have features.

Maybe you’re thinking of launching a brand new site?  There’s no shortage of options to consider, but navigating the tangled web of options can be overwhelming, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the pros and cons of different approaches and how the various technologies and tools work.

Upgrading an existing site or starting out new, you probably want to build your site on WordPress.  Here’s why:

A billion design options

OK, maybe shy of a billion, but thousands of templates and themes are available to jump start your design process.  Choose from themes built to support specific types of businesses or more universal themes that can be customized for any type of business.  Show off your portfolio, set up an online store or build an online magazine.  There is a dizzying array of beautiful options.

Easy, easy, easy

Most WordPress themes can be set up and customized with zero coding required.  Many themes come with page building tools and easy administrative interfaces.  The Bluehost team is here to help should you have any questions or need additional support as you get your site up and running.

Updates

Things change in the digital world.  Software gets updated and new features are released.  Wordpress and Bluehost make it easy to keep your site up to date with the latest versions of software without the administrative hassles.

Plug and play ecosystem

One of the biggest advantages of building your site on WordPress is the massive ecosystem of plug-ins and add-ons available.  Virtually any kind of solution you might need is out there in the WordPress world.  Maybe you need something simple like an easy way to build forms or tools for featuring video, improving your search results or integrating social media.  There is no other website product ecosystem as broad and varied as what you’ll find with WordPress.

Responsive

A website not designed to work well on a mobile device may as well be invisible.  With WordPress, you have a multitude of options for sites featuring responsive design, a design structure that seamlessly optimizes your website to work well on multiple types of devices.

Ready for growth

WordPress can scale with your business as you grow.  The combination of WordPress and Bluehost provides a combination that can adapt as your needs get more and more sophisticated.  

Do a little of your own research and you’ll find a wealth of information about the power and flexibility of building your site with WordPress.  Combine the power of WordPress with the hosting and other services from Bluehost and you’ll have a firm, flexible and fantastic digital foundation for your business.

7 Things You Can Do To Improve Your Website Right Now

February 25, 2016 by Devin Sears
People are looking for answers to their problems and you may very well have the best solution in the world, but if people can’t find you or they do find your website but can’t easily navigate it, then you might as well not even have a site.

Optimizing your website helps people find your business faster and makes it easier for the bots to index and rank you so that you will appear higher up in the SERPs. You can be sure that your competition is already doing everything they can to get to the top of search results pages so you have to make sure that your website is working just as efficiently. And even if your site is receiving plenty of visitors, are you seeing favorable conversions?

If you’re not seeing the traffic or conversions that you ought to, it may be time to comb through your site and make improvements.

Here are 7 things you can do to improve your website right now:

#1 Focus on User Experience

By 2020, a customer’s experience will be more important than price or product when it comes to choosing one brand over another.

Even if you’re not ready to hire a branding expert, there is a wealth of information out there about improving the user experience—so take advantage of it. Check out articles, posts, and e-books for research that demonstrates what digital consumers expect today, especially in your field. That means making sure your page load time is as close to 2 seconds as possible (and faster would be great), using colors that resonate with your target audience, cleaning up the design of your homepage, and testing your links and buttons for functionality.

If you want to know what frustrates your visitors, spend some time engaged with your website from the other side of the glass. Try to make a purchase, send an inquiry to your customer service team (and measure the response time), and read your content with a critical eye. You may be surprised at the things you learn. UserFocus recommends you run a usability test.

#2 Modernize Your Pages

If you have a website that is several years old, it’s time for an update. Fresh, current content sends a message that you are investing the time and resources to stay ahead of the competition.

Replace outdated photos with new images, add a video or two (welcome, product demo, tutorial) update leadership profiles, post relevant industry news, and invest in some epic blog posts that prove you are the industry’s go-to expert. Basically, show your visitors that you are an innovative and “in-the-know” company about everything that matters to your customers.

Did you know that today’s users prefer scrolling web pages (rather than different pages that you have to click on in a drop-down menu)? Time.com saw a 15% drop in bounce rates when they switched to infinite scrolling. So check every detail: content, color, font, etc. Your visitors should receive your information in a seamlessly integrated package that is easy to navigate and explore.

#3 Take Your Analytic Tools Out for a Spin

Every single website has back office analytics these days, so there’s no excuse for not knowing what’s going on with the performance of your site. And your web hosting partner probably provides proprietary tools, too. The Google Analytics wheelhouse has tools to help you dig deep into the data to discover who is visiting your website, where they come from, which pages they browse, and how long they stay on your site.

Invest a few hours exploring this hidden treasure because these insights can turn data into actionable information that you can use to enhance user experience, boost engagement levels, and improve click-through rates. Check out this list of 11 best analytics tools for your website.

#4 Create a Clear Call To Action

Your content must be compelling and crafting a killer Call To Action (CTA) is imperative. The CTA is the last part of your landing page, newsletter, or blog post where you reel the reader in after having captured their attention for the entire article. A properly-written call to action can be the deciding factor between a reader and a customer. In fact, studies show that e-mails with a powerful CTA get 371% more clicks than those that don’t have one.

Tell your story in a way that leads your readers to take the specific action that you want them to. Buttons should clearly explain what’s in it for the reader and why right now is the time to take the next step. Every business has its own goals, but consumers are looking for a reason to build a relationship with your company. Make your CTA personal and benefit-rich whether you want to generate high-quality leads or motivate website visitors to buy your products.

#5 Master SEO

You probably already know that building a website that attracts traffic and generates solid leads relies on SEO content that boosts page ranking. Learning the “logic” behind proper keyword placement, crafting tags and headlines, and using linking strategies to your advantage can be overwhelming. This blueprint from MOZ is a couple of years old, but it still has relevant and valuable information about creating your own SEO strategy to move up the search rank ladder.

You don’t have to start from scratch, though. If you have well-written content on your site, you can optimize your existing copy with WordPress plugins that simplify the process. There are dozens of plugins that offer diverse benefits from identifying long-tail keywords with low-competition scores but high-conversion potential to plugins that add video thumbnails on search result pages. Check out this list of WordPress SEO plugins for inspiration.

#6 Reconsider Your Content Management System

Many small business owners are still using “transaction oriented” CMS technology. To give website end-users the “best” experience (and make sure your site is functional for administrators), consider switching to a scenario-driven approach. This approach doesn’t ignore transactions; rather, software responds to what really matters: how the technology will be deployed every day.

If you aren’t sure how to get the most out of your CMS, or you are still in the website development stage, get the facts on finding a best-fit CMS from Theresa Regli over at INC.

#7 Motivate Mobility

Last year when Google announced they were adding a mobile-focused label to search results to enhance user experience, marketers and SEO professionals panicked. But nailing the mobility challenge isn’t really that difficult. Google just wants people to be able to find websites that are readable on mobile devices.

According to Google, web pages are eligible for their “mobile-friendly” label so long as they:

Avoid non-mobile-friendly software (like Flash)
Use easily-legible fonts that don’t require zooming
Make sure the design eliminates having to zoom or scroll horizontally
Position links with enough space around them for easy tapping
In order to ensure that your website meets the “mobile-friendly” criteria:

Test pages with their Mobile-Friendly Test
Read the Webmasters Mobile Guide on creating (or improving) your website
Identify major mobility issues on every page with the Mobile usability report
Learn more about using mobile-friendly templates via the how-to guide for third-party software (like WordPress or Joomla)
Optimizing your website doesn’t have to be overwhelming. You can take steps today to improve user experiences and boost search rank. And one simple step you can take is to make sure that your web hosting partner has the tools to power your business pages without interruption 24/7. If you need a better hosting service, check out Bluehost for unparalleled customer service and budget-friendly service packages.

10 Useful and Fun WordPress Plugins

January 12, 2016 by Devin Sears
One of the huge advantages of the WordPress platform is the vast ecosystem of plugins.  There are literally thousands of plugins providing features you didn’t even know existed.  Below is a quick roundup of ten WordPress plugins that might add some utility or just a little fun to your site.

Visual Composer – Designing a beautiful site without touching any code is now a reality.  Visual Composer is a drag and drop site editor that makes it drop dead simple to build a WordPress site with no programming knowledge required.

Real 3D FlipBook – Create a beautiful 3D Flipbook from a pdf or image quickly and easily.  This is an easy way to bring static PDFs to life or showcase your images in a more interesting, engaging style.

Monarch Social Sharing – It’s essential that all your content is enabled for easy social sharing.  The Monarch social sharing plugin not only makes it easy to add these sharing features, it provides one of the cleanest looking social sharing solutions.  From floating sidebar options to pop-up or on image options, Monarch makes it easy to share your fantastic content.

Gravity Forms – Forms may not be the sexiest element of your website, but it’s important that they look good, work well and are not a huge headache to create.  Gravity Forms makes it easy to create beautiful forms for your site quickly and easily.

Adsanity – At some point you may consider monetizing your website with advertising.  Adsanity can help you implement advertising on your site without a lot of complexity or expense.  Their solution is beginner-friendly but can scale as your business grows.  An excellent solution for making a little revenue from your hard-earned traffic.

WPtouch – Even a responsive WordPress theme doesn’t always provide quite the right mobile experience.  WPtouch allows you to customize the mobile experience users have with your site so you can be sure users have the optimal experience with your site regardless of what device they’re using.

Webba Booking – Allow users to book appointments with you online with this slick little plugin.  Your customers will love the convenience and you can have this feature up and running in no time.

Inbound Brew – Inbound marketing is all the rage but many of the inbound marketing platforms are expensive and beyond the reach of many small businesses.  Inbound Brew provides a simple, WordPress-based solution that turns your site into an inbound marketing machine.  A fantastic alternative you can have up and running quickly.

Polylang – Chances are good, even for a small business, that your customers are coming from all over the world.  At some point the option to provide your site content in multiple languages could be useful or even essential.  Polylang provides a multitude of options for adding multiple languages to your site to support a more global audience.

The Force – This one is just for fun.  Install this plugin and you’ll see random Star Wars quotes in the top right of every admin page.

The plugins mentioned here don’t even scratch the surface of the WordPress plugin universe.  If you have something in mind chances are good that someone has built what you need.  A comprehensive directly can be found here.

Posted in Account Tips, Small Business, WordPress

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