I have seen an uptick of new traffic to my blog recently.
Many of these new visitors are new bloggers too. Some are veteran bloggers who seem to be stuck.
I noted a troubling trend when visiting these folk’s blogs; many need a web hosting upgrade, like, yesterday.
But the majority of bloggers resist upgrading their hosting to a different company because of these 2 objections:
I ain’t gonna lie; I too made and clung to these objections.
I convinced myself that:
- I could not afford to change web hosts to a more reliable, premium company
- I could not allow my blog to go offline for hours or days as I changed hosts and also could not find a good developer to get the job done, since I’d heard it was a real pain in the tuckus to do
Like the dingbat I was some 5 years ago I clung to these objections. I did nothing about my web hosting problem. Meaning, I would sit there and watch my blog take 45 seconds to load properly. I am not kidding. It *really* took 45 seconds for my blog to load.
I would count how many times I saw my blog go offline due to a jambalaya of hosting-related server errors.
I tolerated my blog crashing 2, 5 or even 10 times daily.
What a joke, right?
Why didn’t I change hosts immediately?
I was paying $3 a month for cheap hosting. I felt I could not afford anything more. Even though I could, I hated to spend the money.
Turns out I couldn’t afford *not* to upgrade to a different web hosting company. We play these silly mind games at times, convincing ourselves that all is okay with our blogs when all is definitely not okay with our blogs. My old blog was not okay but few folks complained about my poor site performance – because few folks visited the blog or simply dealt with the same crappy hosting problems themselves, believing said problems to be normal – and I lied to myself to avoid sprinting out of my comfort zone.
“Outside of my comfort zone” meaning paying up to playing up. Or paying more of a premium to switch hosts to an excellent, reliable, dependable web hosting company.
Finally I became fed up. But at that point, even though I decided to switch hosts and pay a premium, I felt a wave of panic. My blog would go offline for hours or perhaps days when the transfer took place. My developer was all lined up. He was up to the job. Ready and raring. But I felt terrified to see my blog go down, and to lose traffic.
See how silly your mind can be?
I was afraid to lose traffic over hours and days when I had been losing traffic for months with poor, low quality hosting.
I eventually bit the bullet, paid for a new hosting company, had my developer transfer my website files and after a while we were up and running. All my fears were totally irrational – as is all fear – because the smooth, seamless transition helped me and my blog and my brand grow like wildfire.
99% up times. Fast loading. All that good stuff.
Dependable support. Reliable staff.
I am tickled pink by my current host but had to face, embrace and release the 2 common objections to changing hosts that I shared above. If you are willing to honestly assess whether you too are explaining away poor hosting by saying you cannot afford to go premium or that you cannot afford to have your blog down for hours or days, can you afford to not drive any significant traffic or make any money through your blog for the next 5 years?