Yes! An SSL certificate is like the sign you place in your front lawn that tells the world you have a security system. SSL stands for “Secure Sockets Layer” and it is a protocol for encrypting data between your browser and my server, preventing hackers from reading, stealing, or modifying any data that is sent between the two.

Additionally, a valid SSL certificate (https:// instead of just http://) gives your website an SEO advantage. Most host providers include SSL certification for free with their hosting plan. When you host with me, I include automatic redirects so even if someone types http://<your domain> in the browser, they will be redirected to https://<your domain> so it wouldn’t be possible to visit an insecure version of your website.

While there are valid reasons to using a paid one, you can probably use a free one when first getting started.

No. The security protocol is identical and there is no benefit to paying for an SSL certificate if your only concern is about data security.

Both free and paid SSL certificates verify domain name ownership (or DV for “Domain Validation”).

Premium SSL certificates includes verifying your organization (or OV for “Organization Validation”).This validation is carried out by a company that is a Certificate Authority (CA) which is usually a company you’ve never heard of that is “publicly trusted.” So they’re trustworthy because they told you they’re trustworthy. Just gotta trust!

At any rate, does this make your site actually more credible? Maybe. I guess “adds trust” in the same way a BBB rating adds trust (which is to say if you give people money, they’ll tell your customers anything you want them to).

If you’re considering paying for an SSL certificate purely to boost your company’s credibility and trustworthiness, then go ahead. It might make you feel better. It’ll definitely make the company selling you the SSL certificate feel better.

No, you can always register an email for your company at a free email service like Gmail, Yahoo, Proton, etc. However, it does add a bit of professional flare to have an email address at your website’s domain.

It depends.

Some web host providers will partner up with companies like Microsoft or Google to offer you a bundled package with an email plan. Sometimes they will include email for free for the first term and then you have to pay after that.

You can also go straight to the email provider to purchase your own professional email subscription plan like Microsoft Office 365 or Google Workspace.

If your industry requires specific security requirements, or you intend on migrating to a different host, or you just like those services, you can purchase those subscriptions and continue to use them with my hosting anyway. This is recommended for companies with high security needs such as lawyers.

If you love using free Gmail and don’t have the budget for a professional subscription plan, I’ve got instructions to help you set up your Gmail account to both send and receive emails from your included email accounts provided by me!

Not unless you want to edit HTML! A CMS is just a backend interface to update your website without having to be a programmer.

If you purchase a hosting plan that does not include a CMS, I can install WordPress on it for you for a flat $20.

WordPress is a free Content Management System (CMS) available on WordPress.org—it provides a simple way of updating your website’s content without having to know how to code. It’s also the most popular CMS used on the internet, powering more than 40% of all websites, and is one of my specialties. It uses templates to create pages on-the-fly making website development fast.

An important distinction to remember is that WordPress.org is not the same as WordPress.com!

WordPress.org is the website that hosts the free WordPress CMS along with the theme and plugin repositories full of free or freemium products. If you have a shared hosting plan, this is where you’ll want to go to download WordPress to install it.

WordPress.com is the business owned by the same people behind WordPress.org where they offer their own WordPress exclusive hosting plans.

The only thing these two services have in common is that they’re both hosting plans. With shared hosting plans, you can generally install whatever CMS you want, or not use one at all, but with a managed WordPress hosting plan, you are locked into using WordPress.

Let’s say you decide to install WordPress on your shared hosting plan. Now the only difference is who is responsible for managing the technical aspects of WordPress such as version updates for WordPress core, themes, and plugins.

In a shared hosting plan, that responsibility is yours (the DIY approach) and with the managed WordPress hosting plan, that responsibility now goes to your host provider. Of course, your host can offer other bells and whistles to make the managed WordPress hosting plan more expensive, such as optimizing the server and increasing storage size or bandwidth limits, since the WordPress install and maintenance alone is actually an easy skillset—so long as you use trusted themes and plugins.

Something to note is the level of support you’ll receive. In most cases, accounts using a shared hosting plan won’t be able to receive support for their WordPress website, not unless the issue is caused by the host or server. Their customer support representative will likely tell you to go ask your developer. When using a managed WordPress hosting plan, you’ll likely be able to get more help.

Only if you intend on selling products online directly through your website. In most cases, you can get away with integrating your website with an online payment processor like Stripe, PayPal, or Square.

For WordPress websites, I use the WooCommerce plugin; it’s free and easily integrates with those payment processors.

Web hosting, by itself, is not a taxable service. However, purchasing a plan that comes with a CMS pre-installed or other bundled services such as email are taxable services.