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I Host My Side Hustle On Siteground

(And You Should Too)

I am going to talk a lot about gaining freedom with my side hustle, because I’m looking to achieve more than just $47 a day to cover my rent (read more on that here or read about setting your passive income goals here). I want to have freedom in my life to do things that I want to do, when I want to do them.

If I need to get some new clothes for work, I want to not feel bad about spending the money on it. Or if I want to go out with friends instead of cooking the same thing I eat every night, I want to know that I have the money for that too. And if I need to get out of town, maybe drive down to Tucson and stay at one of those nice desert resorts, then I want to be able to do that too.

And most importantly, I want that freedom to apply to what I want and need to do with this website.

Finding Freedom

To start from my blogging beginnings, let’s flash back to winter 2016. I was leaving my job—the career I’d been working in since college—and I wanted to start things off with my own website, which would focus on writing tips and writing prompts (if you’re a writer looking for that kind of stuff, head on over to TheFakeRedhead.com).

I did that, and the website I made is pretty great and gets loads of traffic. But when I started out, way back when, I did so with a Business site through WordPress.com.

And I started that way because I was so incredibly overwhelmed with the options and so unfamiliar with blogging as a whole. Don’t worry, we’ve all been there. I started through WordPress.com thinking that I could load it up and get going from moment one. And since it was a “Business” site, I thought I could get around all the warnings I read about needing to be self-hosted.

Setting things up was easy, but also my first mistake.

By starting off on WordPress.com, I was behind the ball on everything from SEO to email-list building to the all-important monetizing of my website.

Oops.

Well, that’s neither here nor there anymore, since I have moved TheFakeRedhead.com’s hosting over to a self-hosted platform, and I am starting QuestFor47.com off on the right foot. Now, there’s nothing wrong with using WordPress.com in some cases. The platform is great for a range of hobby bloggers and people who need simple website.

But if you’re looking to build a side hustle and make money off it, then you need to go with something that allows you creative freedom. My goal is to make this website go the way I imagined TheFakeRedhead.com would start off.

And for this case, starting off on the right foot means starting QuestFor47.com with a website hosted through Siteground. You can start on Siteground for as low as $3.95 a month. You can do it all at once, purchase your domain, get hosting, and instal WordPress. Click here to get started. (This is an affiliate link. I truly believe in and encourage anyone starting out to give a try).

What Is Siteground?

Siteground is a web hosting company.

What is web hosting, you may ask? (It’s okay, there’s no such thing as newbie questions). It’s what people and organizations use to make their websites accessible online. Web hosting is what took the Internet from the research platform it was in the 1970s and 1980s, to what it is today with the Facebooks and the Twitters and the Tumblrs and the Pinterests and the like. Siteground services more than 1,000,000 domains worldwide (that’s a lot). It provides not just shared hosting, but also cloud hosting, and even dedicated servers for very large websites.

Also, Siteground has an uptime of 99.99%, and that alone covers the value of using its product. Now, Siteground is one of many affordable and quality platforms for people who want to start their side hustles. After a lot of research and reading those Siteground vs. (Insert Web Hosting Competitor’s Name Here) blog posts, they’re the company I’ve decided to host my websites. I determined that Siteground is the best and most reliable. It has the most to offer for bloggers and side hustlers of any and all levels.

There are three tier options for hosting with Siteground: Startup, GrowBig, and GoGeek. 

Check the graphic below for the breakdown on what each tier offers.

Siteground & WordPress Go Hand In Hand

Along with having the best of the best for web hosting, I want the best there is when it comes to website platforms. That’s where WordPress comes in. WordPress is basically the standard web platform. I’d say about 95% of the plugins that top bloggers and side hustlers use are best compatible with WordPress.

One of the best things about Siteground is you can install WordPress on your brand new website in one click. It’s that easy. When I created this website, I was up and running in less than 15 minutes. It’s really as easy at 1-2-3.

And one of the things that I love most, especially as a professional busy person who’s trying to lead a less busy life, is Siteground will automatically update your WordPress site whenever there’s a new version, even if you’re not around to do it yourself.

Imagine the ideal: you’re out of town for a few days when you get an email from Siteground, saying that they’re going to push a WordPress update through on [Insert Upcoming Date Here]. Flash forward to a couple days later, and boom, that’s it, WordPress updated. It’s as easy as that. And with something as massive as creating a website and side hustling like we do, easy is something everyone can use.

Not only that, but you have the same access to the WordPress dashboard that you do on WordPress.com. It’s easy to use and navigate, and there are a ton of resources available in Siteground’s support forums. It makes learning the back end of your website extremely simple.

Completely Free Site Migration

Pro tip: start with self-hosted and don’t go through that I did.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, despite reading recommendations saying I should start off with a self-hosted website, I started my first website TheFakeRedhead.com off on the WordPress.com Business platform. When I eventually figured out that I needed to be on a self-hosted platform in order to be able to monetize the right way, I had to research the best option. One of the many reasons why I chose Siteground is that it offers free site migration.

If you already have a website and are worried about switching over, fear not. First-time Siteground users can have their websites (WordPress and all) migrated, all in the span of a few hours. Siteground does every single thing involved in the migration process. You just have to sit back and wait for the notification that your website is back up and ready to go!

Blazing Speed

Running WordPress with Siteground is fantastic, primarily because the speed and up time are second to none. Siteground uses top of the line hardware to run their servers. Their caching tool, SuperCacher, uses NGINX technology to drastically increase WordPress speed. Siteground has 3 global datacenters, including one in Chicago, to handle all the US-based websites.

Having a speedy website is key, and that’s why you must have a web hosting platform prepared to handle serious traffic. No one has the patience to wait for a website to load like we did back in the dial-up days.

Always remember: the faster a website loads, the longer your readers are likely to stay and click around. Readers who stay and click around are the most likely to sign up for your email list and become the lifelong fans that are willing to spend the money on the products and services that you provide.

Remember: this is a business. Speed on your website is one of the best ways to get customers who will keep coming back.

Security, Security, Security

Having a secure website is crucial to having a successful side hustle and turning it into a full-time source of income. You’re putting your name out there, your reputation on the line, so you need to be sure that you’re providing your readers and customers with a website and product that is secure. Especially when money is changing hands.

Siteground’s security staff monitor WordPress for vulnerabilities and push through updates as needed. Their staff ensures that all websites are super safe, no matter how big or small or how much traffic. In fast, Siteground is officially recommended by WordPress.org as one of the best web hosting providers out there. What’s more to say than that?

Amazing Support

I can’t be the only person who isn’t the most tech savvy, so having access to Siteground support is critical. I can get by, but when when it comes to coding and back end details, I’m a little out of my depth. And that’s not a bad thing when you have a solid support team to back you up. Siteground Support processes thousands of tickets, phone calls, and chat requests per day, and their turn-around is rapid.

So far, I have used Siteground’s support tickets twice, and had great experiences both times. Once when I was migrating TheFakeRedhead.com over from WordPress.com to Siteground, and because I was confused, due to the fact that I—like I’ve mentioned—am not as back-end tech savvy as other web experts, but Siteground’s support staff walked me right through the migration process, step by step, and in the span of a few hours, my website was back up and running.

And that timing was GREAT, because I made the decision to migrate my website over on a whim on a Tuesday night, and as someone who has a self-imposed bed time of about 9 p.m., I was happy that the migration finished quick enough that, start to finish, I wasn’t up too late. Because when I don’t get enough sleep, I am NOT a happy camper.

But that’s another story.

The point is that the support staff was responsive to all my questions. And it was the same the second time I came to them for help. There was a rare issue with the server, and my website went down for about 15 minutes. I dashed off a quick message to support before I had to leave for work, and when I got out of the car 10 minutes later, there was a response waiting in my email. Siteground support said it was nothing I did, and that the team was hard at work on a resolution. Not long after, things were back up and running.

Ready To Get Started With Siteground?

Are you ready to create your own moneymaking side hustle? Remember, the number one thing you need is a self-hosted website, and the one I recommend is Siteground.

Started with Siteground for as low as $3.95/month with their StartUp tier. It’s a fantastic option for first-time side-hustlers looking to embark on the path toward generating passive income and living a fuller, freer life. Have more than one website like I do? Then start off with all the benefits of Startup PLUS free website migration with their GrowBig plan. Get started today.

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