Choosing hosting for your author website is hard enough.

But it’s made even harder when you’re given duff information by hosting providers trying to grab your business.

This week, I received a message from a subscriber to my newsletter. They asked:

I’ve just got a renewal from my hosting provider – it’s gone up loads! Do I need the ‘site back up pro’ or is that a luxury I could do myself?

I have to admit, I felt a bit of steam emanate from my ears when I read this. It’s easy for hosting providers to tell us we need something, and it’s easy for us to believe them.

After all, they know more about hosting than we do, right?

Well, yes. But they also know a fair bit about getting money out of people. And that money is sometimes for things we don’t need.

So my answer to this question comes in two parts:

• Even if you pay for site backups, if you check your hosting provider’s small print you’ll find that they always state that backups can’t be relied on and that they aren’t guaranteed.
• You can install a free WordPress plugin that will automatically run backups for you and store them on Dropbox or Google Drive, or simply email them to you.

The plugin is called Updraft Plus. It takes no more than ten minutes to set up and costs you nothing. Once you’ve got it set up, you can forget about it; it will run in the background and you won’t need to lift a finger.

Find out how to install the plugin and set up backups here.

So when you’re buying hosting (or renewing), please don’t be taken in by providers who try to convince you to pay extra for features you don’t need.

The things you do need from your hosting provider are related to efficiently, reliability and service levels, much more than to expensive bolt-ons.