I moved my blog from the server in my basement to a real hosting provider recently. The move was amazingly simple. The performance result was astounding. Using my home server, the picture download was slow and now those same downloads take just seconds.
Of course the place to start is finding a hosting company. If you search the Net, you’ll find dozens of companies at very low prices. I reviewed several options and settled on BlueHost.com. My package was $4.95 for 24 months. One thing I found rather ironic, is so many of the hosting companies are actually the same entity.
Fortunately, I use WordPress, one of the best Blog tools available. Bluehost uses a scripting system to configure many different packages, including WordPress. Moving my blog from site to another was just too easy. There is an import/export utility that made the migration effortless. Viola, a better blog!
Having my site hosted also removes the concern about keeping my server running. The one issue I might have is how to handle backups but that can be automated too.