If you have a WordPress website, your work isn’t only restricted to choosing a domain name and setting things up. A greater responsibility comes when you choose your web hosting service. Because it’s the foundation of a website and several prospects are attached to it so, you must wisely decide.
Tons of WordPress hosting options are available out there, but it seems to be a tedious task in selecting the best WordPress host for your site. When I was looking for a WordPress host for my website I had to do a lot of internet surfacing and only then I was able to find the most decent option that catered to my needs.
I know this struggle and I’ll help you by penning down this article which features all the tips and tricks to choose the best WordPress hosting without doing much of a search.
So sit back and enjoy your coffee while reading this article.
Types of WordPress hosting
Following are the types of WordPress hosting that you may choose:
- Free WordPress Hosting: As the name suggests, it’s free and is most suitable if you need to host a single WordPress website. This should be your choice if your site would not grow in the future.
- Shared WordPress Hosting: It’s popular and cost-effective since your site gets a share of a large server with several other websites. This should not be your pick if you have a heavy-traffic website.
- Managed WordPress Hosting: This kind of service takes care of your entire site needs and maintenance and you do not need to worry about anything. It’s not a cost-friendly solution and is recommended to only established businesses that ensure a consistent revenue stream per month.
- Dedicated Server WordPress Hosting: You purchase a real server from a hosting company that you can control completely from choosing the operating systems to performance, taking backups, and whatnot. This isn’t a good option for beginners. You should only think about upgrading to a dedicated server if you consistently get of heavy traffic and decent revenue to bear its expenditure.
- VPS WordPress Hosting: A Virtual Private Server is a virtual machine that divides a server into several other parts. Despite you sharing your space with several other sites but you get complete control just as similar to dedicated hosting. It’s a recommended choice for medium-sized businesses, high-traffic blogs, designers, and developers.
How to Choose the Best WordPress Hosting?
1 Website loading speed
If you are an avid reader and have been following our articles then you would know that we focus a lot on the website’s performance particularly the loading speed. If your website is slow then there is no point in having a website as it will not attract traffic and generate revenue for you. Therefore, a web host should not deteriorate your site loading speed in any way.
It generally happens if you opt for a shared hosting plan where your bandwidth gets divided and you are unable to enjoy a good web resource. IMO going for a shared hosting should be your last resort and you should avoid it the most.
2 Matching hosting budget with site requirements
Before considering a WordPress hosting, it is essential that first, you should analyze your budget. Then check whether your site requirements go hand-in-hand with your decided amount. I know most of the renowned names in the WordPress hosting ecosystem offer robust services but these come with costly pricing plans.
If that’s the case, I generally find people end up choosing a poor service or a low tier plan. This may save you short-term money but in the long run, your site rankings and revenue may get affected. In my opinion, you should make every effort to subscribe to a performant hosting plan.
To cut down your expenses, you can avoid investing in paid plugins or themes. A free resource to almost every feature does exist in the WordPress ecosystem which can cater to your needs well.
WordPress hosting costs vary dramatically from as little as just a few dollars a month to literally thousands of dollars a month. Generally speaking, with web hosting you tend to get what you pay for. Depending on the importance of your website to the day-to-day running of your online business, it may well prove shrewd to pay a little more than the bare minimum and choose a web hosting company that cares about the reliability and performance of your website as much as you do.
3 Features and highlights
Before investing your money in buying a WordPress hosting I’ll recommend to jot down a list of what you need today and what features you will be needing a year from now. Having a solid plan for your website, blog or online business will point you to the right WordPress hosting. It is useless to spend money on those hosting options which have tons of features that you don’t want to use.
4 Level of performance
The kind of performance a web host serves is highly important in selecting the best one for your website. You need a WordPress hosting provider who guarantees up times, fast servers, bandwidth, and enough disk space to accommodate your needs.
I’ll say that always check user reviews and ask trusted friends for recommendations before choosing a WordPress hosting. This aids a lot in the selection process and you can easily filter out the unnecessary ones.
5 Customer support
Make sure that you choose a WordPress hosting that has good support staff. The level of customer support options provided will tell a lot about the company. No one wants a late solution to their problem. Always opt for a hosting that is there for you whenever you need any sort of help. I prefer a 24/7 support feature since your site can go down or face any trouble at any point of the hour.
Hostings with weak customer support give headaches and make your work more difficult. Imagine if something happens to the website and you are either figuring it out yourself or paying someone else to help you solve the issue. Isn’t it quite a tiresome and frustrating task?! Yes, it is!
So, make sure that they have a good reputation for customer support. A good web hosting company will provide multiple ways of contact and you do not need to worry if some unexpected thing happens.
How2WP Recommendations
Here at How2WP.com, we host at SiteGround and I can proudly say that we are greatly satisfied with their service. Amidst all the WordPress hosting companies, SiteGround is one of the best hosting providers that take the extra measures to optimize your website for performance and makes its management way easier than others.
Buying a cloud server from SiteGround lets you manage your WordPress site more easily and with more freedom. It provides 99.99% uptime, high-quality speed, and tons of extra features that are perfect for both beginners and power users. Plus they ensure all the essential traits of a good hosting company i.e.,
- Guaranteed up times
- Fast and robust servers
- Enough bandwidth and disk space
Likewise, Namecheap is also good for absolute WordPress beginners whose budget is less than $30, and they are fine with the average WordPress support and hosting in the beginning. If you want to choose Namecheap then follow this guide to signup for Namecheap and install WordPress using them.
🙌 Wrapping things up!
Selecting the best hosting for your WordPress website is sometimes overlooked. But if you want to keep everything in place, then you should start paying more attention to choosing the best web host. I have tried to summarize the top five steps that are crucial for a web host selection. Hopefully, this piece will help you make a decision.
Here is my recommendation about how you can choose a hosting plan based on the type of traffic levels you receive:
- Managed Hosting: For sites running an online business.
- Virtual Private Hosting: For more tech-savvy individuals.
- Dedicated Hosting: For sites having daily traffic in millions.
I am sure that following these tips will turn out quite fruitful the next time you choose a WordPress host. If you have any queries or any feedback do reach out and post in the comments section below.
Leave a Reply