Is Bluehost a Good Web Host for WordPress Beginners?

As someone who is just getting started with WordPress, hunting for the best web host can seem like an arduous journey. With a hell lot of data and metrics to compare and a whole lot of misleading opinions to ignore, it can sure be strenuous.

However, it doesn’t have to be this messy if you know what type of hosting you need, the type of website you want to build, and the resources you require. While most web hosting providers will lure you into their plans with a promise to deliver – they don’t always honor their pledge.

As a beginner, this can be very disappointing and could leave you stranded – not knowing which hosting provider to trust. Luckily, there is Bluehost. A user friendly, easy to use, and WordPress-recommended hosting provider. 

In this article, we’ll look at why Bluehost continues to be the hosting provider of choice for both beginners and experienced webmasters alike.

Why Bluehost?

Bluehost is one of the most popular web hosting providers. It hosts over 2 million websites on its servers, making it one of the “default,” go-to web hosting companies on the market.

Through its great customer service, robust hosting packages, and feature-rich cheap offerings, Bluehost has become a symbol of excellence in the field of web hosting. This has seen it become the number #1 recommended web hosting provider by the WordPress foundation. Quite a huge endorsement, right? Especially when you consider that the foundation recommends Bluehost over rival hosting service WordPress.com.

Even the likes of Namecheap with their pocket-friendly hosting plans have not been able to beat Bluehost. But why is that? Is it that Namecheap offers inferior service at a cheaper cost? Or is it that Bluehost knows how to tailor its offerings to the customer? You can find detailed answers to those questions by reading our Bluehost vs Namecheap comparison.

There is so much we can discuss on this subject but for the sake of this article, let’s see what makes Bluehost a better pick than the others. 

What makes Bluehost a good pick?

Beginners often face many difficulties when setting up their sites. As such, it’s an instinct for them to go shopping for a user-friendly web host before they can think about most other features. They also admire a host whose prices are tailored to their – oftentimes – tight budgets. Here we look at why Bluehost makes a good choice for beginners.

1. Performance Befitting a Beginner

If you had asked around, what the best features of a good, beginner-friendly web host are, then most certainly someone must have mentioned something related to uptime. Or maybe, page load speed.

Even if you are a greenhorn in these matters, you shouldn’t ignore the essence of choosing Bluehost and indeed any host with fantastic performance.

As mentioned in our detailed Bluehost review, the hallmark of a good hosting services provider is the page speed and uptime. If the uptime see-saws at 99.99% – with page load time clocking anything below two seconds – you should consider hosting your website with that provider. And that’s exactly what Bluehost delivers.

Uptimes, load times, and general customer experiences go hand-in-hand. Note that websites that register snail-slow page speeds tend to have a higher bounce rate. This does not only affect your sales but also your ranking.  

You will never find a website whose uptime is low and takes ages to open on the first page of Google –NEVER! That’s because speed is a ranking factor on search engines.

2. User-Friendly cPanel

I’ve been a beginner before and I know how confusing a complex cPanel can be to a web hosting newbie. If the dashboard is overwhelming, customizing the whole thing – including managing the backend becomes almost impossible.

Bluehost, however, makes this a breeze for anyone who’s just getting started on their platform. Besides the simplified interface, the cPanel is clutter-free, super beginner-friend, and easy to customize. Just one look and you figure out what goes where. In stark contrast to rivals like Dreamhost, Bluehost doesn’t use a heavily customized control panel, opting instead for the same standard variant of cPanel you’ll find at most other hosting providers.

Better still, you do not have to keep multiple logins so that you can access the different sections of the cPanel such as the “My Sites” or the “Marketplace.” With Bluehost’s fresh upgrades and the nifty little tweaks, you can access everything from one place.

In my opinion, this is a great selling point that both beginners and professionals will find quite welcoming. You will never get bored managing your website with it.

3. Great Security Options

Internet security is one particular subject a beginner might not have a firm grasp on. Yet, with hacks and data theft proving a bit rampant today, the essence of fool-proof security measures cannot be ignored.

Fortunately, Bluehost seemingly knows this too well. And apart from the free SSL certificate that comes with every shared hosting plan, this company offers even better security features.

To keep each site safe and secure from viruses, threats, and DDoS attacks, Bluehost invests in top-grade security measures. The first one is the mandatory 2-step authentication factor that helps keep unauthorized access, including spam logins. 

For a beginner, the likelihood of suffering in the hands of hackers and data thieves sometimes is too high to ignore. But when a site is powered by Bluehost, incidences of data loss, including massive hacks are almost zero.

Furthermore, I love the fact that Bluehost has several measures in place to help perform daily backups. This simply means that even if an accidental data loss happens, every single piece of data will be restored. Unfortunately, that’s not something you’ll be able to find at some of the other popular shared hosting providers.

4. Reliable 24/7 Customer Support

The hosting industry holds itself to an extremely awful standard of customer service. While recent years have seen a slight improvement in this area – a vast majority of web hosts are yet to get there.

But how does Bluehost fair in this area? Well, Bluehost is one of the few hosting companies that take the lead when it comes to great customer service. The company has a knowledgeable, in-house customer support team that is based in their US headquarters.

The customer service agents are available 24/7 and you can reach them via phone, chat, or through ticketing. While their live chat customer support feature is prone to delays that could last up to 5 minutes, I can confidently say that Bluehost is a great company.

I have experienced worse with other small hosts – and Bluehost being a big company – an average of 5 minutes wait time is not that bad. Better still, the live reps are very courteous and very knowledgeable. 

Apart from human support, Bluehost has an extremely resourceful knowledge base where you can get guides, how-tos, frequently asked questions, articles, and instructions. There are also video tutorials for those who prefer interactive, audio-visual learning. 

5. A 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

Web hosting is a service. And sometimes a particular service, besides getting so many positive reviews, might not be what you were looking for. To ensure you are not stuck in a bad buy – the company offering the service offers a money-back guarantee.

In other words, Bluehost, being a web hosting service provider offers a 30-day money-back guarantee if you are unhappy with their service. To get a full refund, you must cancel your account within the first 30-days.

However, if the period exceeds 30 days and you decide to cancel your account, Bluehost will issue you with a prorated refund for the remaining hosting period. This means that if you pay for an annual plan then after the second month you feel that Bluehost doesn’t deliver as you expected, then you can request a refund for the remaining 10 months.

While you can find more generous refund policies at competitors like A2 Hosting or Dreamhost, the vast majority of hosting providers only offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, just like Bluehost.

6. Affordable Pricing

When selecting a web hosting solution for your website, one of the most crucial factors that you need to consider is your budget. Luckily, Bluehost offers one of the most competitive pricing structures in the market compared to other web hosts. The company even managed to rank near the top on our list of cheapest web hosting services of 2020.

The hosting provider offers a wide range of hosting plans ranging from Shared hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated hosting. Shared hosting is the most common among beginners and webmasters who receive little traffic on their website.

The Shared hosting option is packed with four very interesting plans all targeted towards beginners who would like to build their websites in a WordPress-centric environment without having to dig deeper into their pockets.

The plans include:

• Basic
• Plus
• Choice Plus
• Pro

All four shared hosting plans differ in terms of price and features. However, some features such as unmetered bandwidth, free domain & SSL certificate for the first year remain common across the board.

The Basic plan, which is the cheapest of the plans that Bluehost offers goes for as little as $2.95/mo (with this special offer) and you could even get it for less than that on Bluehost Black Friday. With this plan, you can only host a single site. Nevertheless, you get a whopping 50 GB of SSD storage, 5 email accounts, and 25 sub-domains.

The Plus plan which currently retails at $5.45/mo allows you to host unlimited websites. However, unlike the basic plan, it offers unlimited bandwidth and storage along with unlimited parked domains and subdomains.

Next up is the Choice Plus plan which is a good choice for small-business and medium-sized business websites. Also retailing at $5.45/mo, this plan offers a few premium perks that you missed in the previous two plans. These perks include Codeguard site backup and Domain privacy.

Lastly, we have the Pro plan which goes for $13.95/mo. Suited for bigger websites with a considerable amount of traffic, the Pro plan adds a dedicated IP and a Spam expert on top of what the Choice-Plus plan offers.

As you can see, Bluehost offers a huge assortment of web hosting plans with a decent amount of features to cater to everyone’s needs regardless of their budget. Another thing is that, once your site outgrows the initial plan, you can upgrade to a better one.

So, Is Bluehost Good for Beginners?

As anyone would tell you, price, performance, security and the ease of upgrading are important when hunting for a hosting provider. Today’s prices are competitive and well-tailored for a beginner and you’ve got no reason to pay through your nose anymore. If you look at Bluehost, it fulfills each of the above requirements. It also enjoys a great reputation in a fast-crowding web hosting space. Whether you are an individual, a small business, or just about anyone looking for a beginner-friendly host, I’d highly recommend Bluehost.

If you want to learn even more about the company make sure to check out our dedicated Bluehost hub for informative articles, comparisons, and even guides. If you’re curious to see what else is out there, on the other hand, we encourage you to take a look at our list of Bluehost alternatives.