We talk to people each month who ask if the hosting company they choose for their website really matters. For some businesses, it might seem appealing to sign up for $5/mo hosting compared to managed hosting that can cost up to $300 or more per month. Let’s look at a few reasons to consider for your business. We even suggest our top company for hosting and have a special offer for you as well.
When comparing hosting companies first find out if the service is specifically set up for WordPress. Since this article is specifically focusing on WordPress websites, let’s focus on the specific requirements. You will also want to know if backups of your website are automatic and included. You’ll also want to make sure its a quick and easy process to restore if needed. The next item will be SSL certificates. Again are these included or another separate charge.
WPEngine – We recommend WPEngine for all your WordPress hosting. Their services include automatic backups, one-button restore, SSL certificates as well as technical help. Their platform and servers are specifically set up for WordPress. Their servers are fast which can have a significant impact on your SEO scores. Let’s find out how.
Google and other search engines thoroughly index websites on a number of items and in return generate a score for each site. We refer to this as ranking. While we don’t know exactly all the items included we do know key ones that have a major impact. Speed is at the top of that list. When a search engine sends a bot to your website to index, it is scheduled to be on your website for a specific amount of time. This allotted time is based on previous crawls, scores, and other factors.
If your site is very slow, it is possible the bot crawls or indexes far fewer pages than if your website server was faster. The second factor with time is the user experience. The longer it takes your website to load, the more likely that your visitor may back out of your site, or bounce, and go to the next result in the search results. Google understands the impact on speed has on the entire user experience. For the speed reason alone, it’s worth it to choose a hosting company that delivers your website to visitors fast!
WPEngine provides amazing 24/7 support. While they will not build your website or even make changes for you, they will help you. They watch for conflicts and problems and will alert you. If you can’t figure out why something is behaving differently than you expect, they will take a look at the code and give you suggestions. Of course, their involvement in actual code on your website will be limited because of liability.
If you are considering building and hosting your own website, please keep in mind that it will require a substantial amount of time. You need to be very organized and ready to learn and constantly adapt to changing industry standards.
Over the past 20+ years, we have helped hundreds of businesses grow and become more profitable. Not the most technologically savvy? Contact us. We work with businesses of all sizes. You never pay for more than you need. Our services can be integrated into existing departments, teams, or even employees. Let us handle the critical parts of your business and let you get back to selling and servicing your clients. Complete the brief form below with any questions you might have on how we can work together to making your online presence the best it can be.