Do you find the level of choice surrounding WordPress hosting to be very overwhelming? You’re probably not alone. So, how do you decide on which is the best WordPress hosting for your website?
Should super-fast servers and page load speed be your main priority? Or, should security, reliability, and uptime be where you put your money?
Let’s take a deep dive into some of the considerations you need to make when looking for WordPress hosting for your website.
Why Do I Need to Choose a Website Hosting Company?
Technically speaking, it is possible to have a WordPress site without worrying about finding hosting or paying for it. This would be through WordPress.com; however, this option provides you with a much more limited website which you’ll need to pay to customise.
If you plan on using WordPress.org, you’ll be able to fully customise the look and feel of your site while installing plugins to improve its functionality and security.
WordPress.org sites have no hosting; this means you’ll need to shop around and find a self-hosting option that suits your needs.
What Type of Hosting Options are Available?
Before you start shopping around for a WordPress hosting provider, you should first understand what different hosting options are available to you. Knowing the difference will help you find the best WordPress hosting.
The three main types of hosting are shared hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated hosting. Some of these will be self-service, and some will be what is known as managed WordPress hosting. Managed WordPress can range from managed hosting only to a managed service like a WordPress maintenance service that takes care of hosting and all the other technical bits of owning a website.
With the latter, you will most likely get a free SSL certificate for added security, free site migration, regular backups, security monitoring and general day to day management of your site.
Looking for a complete WordPress Maintenance Plan?
With all ThriveWP care plans, we include free migration, malware removal, daily/hourly backups, plugin theme and core updates, ongoing support and 24/7 security monitoring and firewall.
Shared WordPress Hosting
When you opt for shared hosting, your website will share a single server with many other WordPress sites. Because you’ll share resources like bandwidth and space with other sites, you’ll get the service for a low cost.
If yours or the other server sites start to need more resources, it could cause a drain for everyone. Another concern should be security. If a site on the server gets infected, it could affect other sites.
Shared hosting is a cost-effective hosting solution. If you run a small business website or a blog, this might be the perfect low-cost option for you.
VPS WordPress Hosting
VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. With this type of hosting, your website doesn’t get its own physical server. Instead, it has its own private virtual server. This can allow you to scale up your site as you please.
This option is suitable for mid-tier businesses that are likely to see a vast increase in resources quite quickly.
This will cost you more than shared hosting; however, it is a much better option if you have a very demanding website.
Dedicated WordPress Hosting
When you have dedicated hosting, you’ll get access to an entire server along with all of its resources. With this, you can do anything you like.
The downside to dedicated hosting is that it is costly. This puts it out of reach for many small business owners and bloggers.
Dedicated hosting is great for big websites that need stability and have high traffic volumes. You may also find the hosting provider expects you to manage the server, so if you are not savvy with server management, this may not be an option.
What Should I Look for In a Managed WordPress Hosting Provider?
In addition to choosing the type of web hosting option that best suits your needs, you should look for some other qualities. Here are some of the things you should look for in WordPress web hosting.
Performance
The performance of your site will be directly affected by the type of hosting that you opt for.
Under a lighter load, some hosts will behave very differently. Do ensure that you’re not going with a provider that offers too little. This may be a problem that you find with cheaper hosting plans.
While you shouldn’t expect a great deal in terms of performance from shared WordPress hosting, you shouldn’t expect to lose any visitors because your site has a slow response time.
Uptime
Your website should work all of the time. However, there will be occasions when your website will be down for short periods.
A web host will often guarantee a specified amount of uptime. You shouldn’t accept anything lower than the industry standard, which is 99.9% of the time. Saying that anything that claims 100% uptime or even 99.99% is quite a bold claim to make and is unlikely to be accurate.
Security
Your website security should be one of your number one priorities. It’s so easy for your website to get hacked or come under attack from criminals.
Finding a hosting provider that takes security is essential. Things that a host may offer include IP blocking, firewalls, two-factor authentication, DDoS protection, Malware protection, encrypted connection support, free SSL and lots more.
Look for a host that offers as much as possible in terms of security.
Support
Support is vital, especially when you’re just starting out. Because you’ll be using WordPress for your website, you’ll want to ensure that the support team of your hosting provider is up-to-speed on everything to do with WordPress.
Find a hosting provider that has a responsive team with good, 24/7 customer support.
Scalability
As your WordPress website grows, you need to know that your managed WordPress hosting plan will handle the increase in scale. If your hosting provider has multiple plans, find out how easy it is to upgrade and downgrade according to your needs.
Even if you don’t expect to grow out of your current hosting requirements, you should still account for it.
Price
The final consideration for your hosting provider should be price. Remember that you get what you pay for, so if an offer seems too good to be true, it’s probably because it is. Free hosting should also be avoided as it comes at a cost to your website’s performance, security, and uptime.
Hosting companies vary significantly in terms of pricing. Try and look for those that provide a money-back guarantee, specifically offer hosting for WordPress and are well known for being among the best WordPress hosting services.
How to Choose the Best WordPress Hosting for Your Website
When choosing the best WordPress hosting for your website, decide which type of hosting you require. Base your search on performance, security, scalability, and uptime. While price will be an obvious factor, you shouldn’t let it rule your decision.
For help and support with your WordPress site, get in touch with ThriveWP today.
