If you are a wellness or holistic practitioner, such as a doula, chiropractor, midwife, acupuncturist or therapist, you are likely looking for a website host that will provide great tech support, not oversell you on hosting packages you don’t need, and that will keep your website safe & sound. So many wellness practitioners I meet haven’t a clue as to where their site is hosted or their domain registered, nor what hosting & domain registration actually do.

How to choose a hosting company for your wellness website:

There are lots of large and well-known hosts out there – godaddy, bluehost, and hostgator are three that I encounter frequently when I work with new holistic web design clients. The problem is, many of these hosts are overcharging for substandard services. A simple switch to an affordable quality web host can make a world of difference in both your site speed and your site security with less risk of being hacked.

Websavers is an excellent choice for quality hosting for your health & wellness business. As a smaller company, they have highly responsive technical support by email. Plus, it’s often the company owners providing that support – not a call center in India reading off of a script. Plus, you’ll find fast page loading times (good for your SEO and client conversion) and automated website backups. As a bonus, pricing is in Canadian $ so those of you in the US will enjoy savings.

If your website is currently with another host they will often extend your new contract to match what you’ve already paid – just ask! They do offer a basic free account, but it is too small for most sites. The Carbon and Titanium hosting plans include free site transfer (coupon code FreeSiteMigrator) from your original web-host, and the Titanium plan even includes a free domain registration!

“Websavers has been GREAT so far. Very prompt responses and a nice experience to get messages from a person directly involved in the process. Everything is loading like a dream on my site. So much faster!”

• J.B., Doula & CBE who switched from Bluehost

SITEGROUND is my other strong hosting choice. If you would rather work with a larger US-based company, but still want excellent tech support and good site speeds, Siteground is my top recco. My favorite plan is Growbig, but Startup could be a great choice if you are just starting out. Includes free site transfer and domain registration.

How to register a domain for your wellness website:

As I mentioned above, your hosting account with Websavers will include free domain registration. Some people prefer to keep their domain registration separate for more flexibility. If you prefer to have your domain name registered separately from your hosting, however, check out my guidance below:

Finding the right domain name for your website is a big deal (here’s a blog post on how to choose a domain name!), and you want to be sure you register your domain name safely. You might also want to consider registering a few related domains to protect your wellness business brand with variations on your chosen website domain name.

If you want to use a 3rd party for your domain registration, my top recommendation is NAMECHEAP. They make it easy to register and manage your domain, and safe! Make sure you choose auto-renewal for your domain billing so that you never miss a payment (it’s a real pain in the &#$%# to recover a lost domain…). The first year of your domain registration includes domain privacy – learn what this is and why it is a good idea here.