In this post, I’m going to share with your how you can start a WordPress website with Bluehost – Let’s dive right in!
The video below will guide you through each step. If you wish, you can watch the video over on my YouTube channel here. This way you can access the timestamps.
Why start a WordPress website with Bluehost?
Now, if you’re wondering why I’ve chosen Bluehost, it’s because I trust Bluehost. I feel like I’ve been through the thick and thin with this hosting company over the last 12 years. And yes, I’m well aware that they’re part of a larger group called EIG.
I started my online journey with Bluehost shared hosting way back in the day of 2010. Bluehost hosted my first successful blog for over three years before I upgraded to VPS. I 2015 I migrated my main blog to another host.
Since then, I’ve hosted over a hundred small website projects, both personal and for my clients with Bluehost. They’re a decent enough web hosting company to start your website or blog with.
Bluehost is reasonably reliable and very affordable, again, purely speaking from my own personal experience with them spanning almost 12 years.
And the great thing about using Bluehost is that you can scale up your website or your business to a bigger plan when or if you need to.
Or, if you feel you need to move your site to a none AIG owned hosting company for any reason, you can migrate to another hosting provider.
Everyone loves to hate Bluehost
Now, this seems to be true. I hear a lot of negative talk about Bluehost. Heck, even I had negative things to say about them once.
Now, I am well aware that a lot of people have had a very bad experience with Bluehost. I’ve had a bad experience with them back in 2014, but this was resolved for me. See my FAQs below.
In my opinion, Bluehost’s customer service has always been good and problems resolved quickly. I honestly cannot fault their customer service because I’ve never once experienced a bad one with Bluehost.
This is partly why I still use them for smaller projects and continue to recommend them to folks starting out. When it comes to the technical side of hosting and even WordPress, Bluehost seems to know their stuff. That much I feel confident in writing.
Bluehost, continue to power over 2 million websites and is the top-recommended choice of hosting providers by WordPress.org
For the record: I do not use Bluehost for my two primary business websites at Fabrizio Van Marciano or my blog at Magnet4Blogging. I do use Bluehost for much smaller website projects that I’m just kicking off, for example, micro niche sites, landing pages, and, generally sites for friends and family.
Remember, my opinion is that Bluehost is affordable and reliable for most people that are just starting out.
OK, let’s get your WordPress website set up with Bluehost.
Start a WordPress Website with Bluehost – Step One: Go to Bluehost
Go to the Bluehost homepage.
From there click on the button that says ‘Host Your Website’. On the next page, you’ll need to select a plan that best suits your needs.
There are a few to choose from, but if this is your first time with Bluehost or even a WordPress website, I would recommend starting from the Basic Plan. You really don’t need a ton of resources to start with.
Start a WordPress Website with Bluehost – Step Two: Set up your domain name
The next step is to set your website domain name. This is actually the first step. You have two options on this page. Enter a domain name that you already own somewhere else, perhaps with another hosting company, or if you are brand new to website building, simply create a new domain name.
With a new Bluehost account, you get your domain name registration free for the first year. After you’ve selected your domain name, simply click NEXT.
Start a WordPress Website with Bluehost – Step Three: Enter your information
The next step, assuming your domain name is available to register, is to enter your information and credentials to complete your account setup.
Here you can also review the plan you are purchasing, as well as include and exclude any additional services that you need for your website. These include things like –
- Domain privacy (Recommended)
- Codeguard
- Bluehost SEO tools
- SiteLock Security (Recommended for Malware scanning and protection)
Once you’ve completed everything, simply read and accept the terms, and then click on SUBMIT.
Start a WordPress Website with Bluehost – Step Four: Create your Bluehost hosting account
Once your payment has been processed, the next step is to set up your hosting account.
On this page, you’ll need to enter your domain name as the hosting account username and create a secure password. Once you’re done, simply click on CREATE ACCOUNT.
Start a WordPress Website with Bluehost – Step Five: Login and customize your website
Once your account has been created with Bluehost, you’ll be taken to the login page where you can complete the steps to set up your WordPress website.
Depending on how experienced you are with website creation using WordPress, you can simply select the options that are best suited to your needs.
I recommend watching the full video above, to understand detailed instructions on how to –
- Set up an email account
- Manage your domains
- Verify your domain (Very important)
- Set up SSL
- Install a free WordPress theme
Bluehost hosting FAQs
Here are some answers to the questions that I’ve received over the years regarding hosting on Bluehost. If in doubt, I always recommend speaking to one of Bluehost’s representatives. Over the years, I’ve personally found them to be friendly and helpful.
Q1. Have you really used Bluehost since 2010?
A1. Yes. I started my first blogs bodyboardblogger.com and magnet4marketing.net (both are no longer active) in 2010 using Bluehost’s shared hosting plan. In 2013 I moved over to a VPS plan.
Q2. Bluehost VPS? Really. Where is your proof?
A2. Yes, as my traffic increased, I required additional resources. Proof… seriously? OK, here is a screenshot of my invoices for 2010 and VPS in 2013.
Q3. I’ve heard some bad stories about Bluehost CPU throttling and disabling high traffic accounts. Is it true that Bluehost throttle accounts for high CPU usage?
A3. I can only write about what I’ve experienced as a Bluehost customer for over a decade. Yes, I’ve experienced high CPU usage on my shared account at one point. On that occasion, it was down to a badly coded premium theme I was using. And no, Bluehost never disabled my account without notice, because of this. They did send me an email asking me to look into it, otherwise, they WOULD limit my account. In other words, I would experience degraded service.
I cannot validate all the other stories regarding Bluehost throttling accounts issues. Each customer of Bluehost will have their own experiences to share.
Q4. I’m worried that if I use Bluehost, I’ll experience server outages and my website will be down. I’ve heard that websites can be down for days, is this true?
A4. I too experienced a massive outage with Bluehost back in 2014. In fact, during that year, there were a few times that I experienced deprecated service. I actually wrote about it and how I decided to migrate to another host in this post.
Keep in mind this was over six years ago. I’ve hosted many small sites and blogs, both personal and for my clients, on Bluehost since then, and so far, I’ve received nothing but reliable service.
Q5. How would you rate Bluehost compared to other hosting companies?
A4. One thing you have to keep in mind is that Bluehost is owned by a larger organization known as EIG (Endurance International Group). This organization runs over 70 hosting companies. Yikes! Yeah, not all of them are bad, however. Sadly, Bluehost has gotten a bit of a bad reputation over the years being an EIG company. EIG hosting companies are renowned for outages, as I experienced with Bluehost back in 2014.
I’ve used HostGator too in the past, which is very popular. But they are also owned by EIG. If you are looking for a none-EIG-owned hosting provider or an independent hosting company, I would recommend Kinsta, which is the hosting provider I use for my primary business. They are, however, on the expensive side.
Affiliate Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links to Bluehost and other tools and software. If you purchase web hosting for your website using my Bluehost Affiliate link on this page, I will be paid a small commission, at NO ADDITIONAL COST to you.