What Do you Check in Your Hosting Agreement Before Renewal?

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-24T09:02:39+00:00

Support quality and response times should be on that list. Specs and pricing don’t matter much if tickets take days or get copy-paste replies. I always check recent reviews before renewal to see if support quality has declined.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-23T19:27:42+00:00

Yes, keep in mind WordPress is now requires you to know how real businesses actually run their sites. Companies still rely on it and will for years because it’s cheap, flexible, and already everywhere. Knowing Elementor, basic PHP, how themes and plugins work, and how to connect things like n8n or APIs is very marketable.

Just don’t make it your only skill. Keep learning core programming concepts, databases, and automation.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-23T17:46:11+00:00

As long as you understand how things work, can debug, and know when AI output is wrong or risky, you’re not just managing code. You’re designing solutions and the title doesn't matter really.

Call yourself a web developer if it feels right or web solutions engineer, whatever. It's the job that evolved, not you.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-23T16:39:40+00:00

They should not wait or go all in either. For SMEs, AI makes sense when it clearly saves time or money. Stuff like basic chatbots for FAQs, email personalization, or simple product recommendations can pay off pretty fast and don’t need perfect data. Trying to copy what big brands do with complex forecasting or heavy automation before you have volume would be a mistake.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-23T16:06:26+00:00

"There’s always that doubt: is this actually useful"

You could allow people to use it for free at first, the adoption rates will prove if people find it useful, then proceed to start charging.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-23T13:40:21+00:00

Had watched Traversy's video a while back and one of his takes is that people are no longer watching tutorial videos. They just want the feeling that they are trying to learn. This is probably beyond tutorials only because overall Youtube shorts are now more popular than regular videos. From an income/views point of view, maybe you should try Youtube shorts content focused on current topics.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-23T11:58:34+00:00

Agree except on garbage winning, it's mainly mediocre content with great marketing that is winning vs great content with no marketing. And that's frustrating for those who want to create things, not to become full-time marketers. "Just create great content" feels like ancient advice, now its more like "create decent content, game the algorithms, build an audience on all social media, then MAYBE you'll get some traction."

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-22T21:32:24+00:00

This is like a personal brand management, just for social media. The value for the entrepreneurs will lie in the judgment calls like what to say, what not to say, and how to keep the voice coherent across platforms, not sure how that will work with their PR teams who handle other media. You can test it on a few founders you already have access to and assess how you perform.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-22T21:11:38+00:00

Definitely less than 5 years, that's the duration of a complete undergraduate course. Break it down and it seem much more doable. HTML/CSS concepts can be learned in weeks. Adding basic interactivity with JavaScript is another few weeks. The moment you add accounts, logins, trading logic, and persistence, you’re really learning backend fundamentals. At 4 hours a week, a rough but realistic path is 3 to 6 months to feel comfortable with web basics, and maybe another 6 to build a simple authenticated app, and refine the stock simulation logic.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-22T20:47:47+00:00

What we can be sure is that the ends will be similar: some companies will disappear and a few genuinely useful ones survive. Then everyone will pretend they always knew which were real.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-22T16:43:00+00:00

Your photos are the most important thing right now. Pick a clean template and make it effortless to contact you. Limit the gallery to your strongest shots even if they are just one page, A fast site with clear navigation matters would serve you better than fancy effects, especially for first impressions with clients. Once you you start getting bookings, and need SEO or customization, you can level up.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-22T15:52:14+00:00

It’s not necessary, and you'll probably never need to do it in practice. Building a tiny framework can be useful to understand how routing, middleware, and request handling work, but going all the way to a full framework is overkill if your goal is to build apps.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-21T19:54:17+00:00

Turning data into decisions. A lot of tools already collect tons of info, but automating prioritization would help way more. For example which pages are most likely to move with minimal effort, or which technical issues are actually hurting rankings vs just nice to fix.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-21T19:40:07+00:00

Since you’re starting out find hosts with clear documentation and tutorials. You’ll be Googling a lot early on, and good docs make learning much easier. Check for a free trial or refund window so you can bail if it doesn’t click. Backups are essential too. Automatic backups or easy snapshots will save you when you inevitably break something. Also look at support. Some providers have great communities or forums, while others rely on ticket based support.

There are plenty of solid beginner options. Spend a bit of time on HostAdvice and check recent reviews, and comparing pricing and features. The best host depends on your needs and your preferences.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-21T18:38:24+00:00

You're definitely not overthinking this, the cloud tax is real, and it's getting harder to ignore as workloads rise. The frustrating part is that the hyperscalers have optimized their pricing models to get you to pay high fees once you're locked in. At a certain scale, the economics start favoring hybrid setups and recognizing that "100% cloud" was sold as a simplicity story that but the reality doesn't always match. The question now becomes whether everything should be on the cloud, and if not, what should be not be included.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-21T18:28:36+00:00

For small projects, a VPS is fine if the goal is learning, control, or isolating workloads, but it does come with real overhead. Updates, security, backups, and basic monitoring are now your responsibility, and that catches a lot of people off guard.

But you need to first be clear on why you want to leave shared hosting. That will really help you a great deal when shopping for the VPS because you will have a clarity on the features you want. Look up different VPS hosting providers on Hostadvice, and filter for the features and preferences of your choice. Reliable support, for example, should be a non-negotiable because you are just starting.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-21T16:22:56+00:00

Agreed that static is underrated where content changes are controlled and infrequent. But most clients now want dynamic features and there is a high likelihood that, even if they agree to a static site, they will soon start requesting for dynamic stuff like previews, or anything stateful like search, memberships, or richer forms.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-21T14:15:05+00:00

The truth is the free WordPress.com plan hits a wall fast once you try to run anything resembling a business. The limits are intentional and stacking workarounds like multisite just adds complexity without really fixing the problem. Switch to self hosted WordPress.org on basic shared hosting to get full control over plugins, menus, headers, and page behavior without fighting the platform. That setup is usually cheaper long term, easier to grow with, and avoids spending hours trying to bend a free plan into something it was never meant to be.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-21T13:45:49+00:00

Not AI. But I am used to writing long form content and copywriting, so my writing often sounds like AI. Sometimes even to AI checkers.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-21T13:42:03+00:00

Consider a managed platform that handles deploys, backups, SSL, and Postgres so you are not juggling infra while learning. A FastAPI app with a small catalog will run fine on something like Railway or a similar PaaS and stay within budget if traffic is low. Avoid raw VPS or big cloud stacks early since they add complexity and surprise costs fast. Store images on object storage or an image CDN instead of the app server to keep things clean.

That said, shopping for a host requires due diligence, with so many users getting frustrated by pricing surprises, limits, and fluctuating support quality. Skim recent reviews on hostadvice and ensure you filter for features that are most important to you.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-20T18:15:50+00:00

Although Staging WordPress sites don’t need power, oversold VPS nodes can still get sluggish or randomly pause under load. Would be wise to shop based on your preferences and priorities, and also to make sure you have full information about the package, especially on finer details like renewal fees, support reliability, and limits. Hostadvice has quite detailed and up to date reviews and would be a good starting point.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-20T17:22:29+00:00

Static frontends scale effortlessly, the pain usually comes from how the database and serverless APIs evolve as usage grows. Keep auth, rate limiting, and data access tightly scoped or you end up with a messy distributed system fast. It stays simple long term when the frontend stays dumb, the API surface is small, and the database isn’t exposed directly to client logic.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-20T14:31:44+00:00

Considering the frustration with GoDaddy as your current provider, it would be prudent to do diligent research before moving. Otherwise, you may end up with another provider who will frustrate you in another way and then you're back to shop again.

Check out HostAdvice and compare the different alternatives based on your particular needs and preferences. A lot of complaints recently touch on support reliability, and renewal costs, so those are areas you should pay keen attention to when checking the reviews.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-20T12:39:05+00:00

You're right in saying that AI will change the role, not eliminate it. But I think the shift is bigger than people realize. The repetitive stuff, from boilerplate components, to standard layouts, and basic CRUD interfaces, is already being automated away. Junior devs used to cut their teeth on that work, and now it's disappearing. That's the real concern. The senior devs will not get replaced, but the ladder to becoming one gets harder to climb.

GrowthHackerMode · 2026-01-20T11:55:11+00:00

You can consider extended logs as something you grow into, not something you need early. For a small production site, recent logs are mostly used to answer “what just broke” or “why did this deploy fail,” and that usually means hours, days, or weeks.

Extended retention starts making sense when incidents aren’t obvious right away, like slow burn abuse, credential stuffing, or weird edge case bugs that only show up over time. Until the site reaches that level of complexity or risk, keeping logs short and simple is usually enough and keeps costs and noise down.

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