If you are planning to start a blog/site or an online business, buying web hosting can be your first online investment. Few years back, I made my first investment on Hostgator for buying hosting plan. Though I’ve chosen the right web hosting company, but I made some mistakes (like buying domain from Hostgator) that cost me much money. I could have saved a good amount of money if I was aware about those issues.

In this post I will be talking about how you can save money on buying web hosting. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes that I made. And I will tell some other tactics that will help you to save more money. Luckily, you don’t have to sacrifice the quality.

Here are 7 quick tips that will help you to save money on web hosting.

1. Start With Shared Hosting Plan

If you are new in web hosting, you may get confused by several types of web hosting plans. But you shouldn’t be as you can change your plan later. So it ‘s a better idea to start with basic plan like Shared Hosting.

Shared Hosting is the most popular and less expensive hosting plan. The idea is that, you will share your hosting spaces with others to minimize cost. Shared hosting is a GOOD deal when you are going to start a new blog/site. As new site doesn’t get a lot of traffic, you needn’t to have a huge space on your server. A shared hosting can handle 20k visitors everyday for an optimized site. Here at RoadToBlogging, we use HostGator Shared Hosting.

I would suggest you to start with a Shared Hosting Plan.

2. Buy Domain Name from Godaddy

If your hosting provider don’t provide any free domain name, then consider buying a domain name from Godaddy. Yes, you can buy domain and hosting from two different places. All you need to do is, connect to each other later.

Many web hosting companies offer a free domain name with their hosting for one year. If their renewal price is not high, you can go with that domain name. But I would suggest you to buy a domain from Godaddy  for longer period that will help you to save some money.

3. Use Coupon Code/Promo Links

Discount codes can save huge money of you. Most of the web hosting companies provide discount coupons to their affiliates. You can use these coupons to get discount on your total purchase. Some hosts don’t have any coupon code option. They provide promo links. You need to use promo links to get discount.

Here are some popular web hosts’ coupon codes and promo links.

• Hostgator: RTBHOSTING25 (25% OFF Coupon Code)
• Bluehost: Promo Link (30% Off)
• Dreamhost: Promo Link ($50 Off)

4. Dropping Extra Services

Hosting companies includes some extra services with their packages like Sitelock, Backup, SEO etc. These services are not free. If you think that you won’t need these services, then just exclude those services.

You can take these services later if needed.

5. Buy Hosting for Longer Period

Most of the web hosts don’t offer any discount on renewal. For example, you buy hosting from Hostgator with 25% discount for one year. After one year you need to renew your web host. At that time you cannot use any coupon to get discount. That means you have to pay the regular price. On the other hand, if you buy hosting for longer time (say, 3 years), you will get a huge discount on total purchase.

The more longer period you choose, the more you save.

6. Become an Affiliate

Have you ever thought of making money from hosting instead of paying? Yes, it’s possible. I’ve been doing this for a while. You can do the same by joining web hosting affiliate programs and promoting them.

All you need to do is, ask your friends or someone to buy hosting by using your affiliate link. But it’s not so easy. I wouldn’t suggest you strongly, but you can try your luck.

Read: How to Make Money from Web Hosting Affiliate Programs

7. Wait for Special Day Offers

Web hosting companies offer CRAZY deals on special days like Black Friday, Cyber Monday etc. If you think you can wait for those special days, then buy web hosting at that time. Normally they offer 50% to 70% discount, sometimes even more. You can join our news letter to get updates on Web Hosting deals.

Last year on Cyber Monday I bought hosting from Bluehost only for $11.88 (1 Year).

Hope you’ll be able to save some money on web hosting by using above tips. If you find this post helpful, please help me by sharing this post on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.