Which WordPress Hosting is Best?

When developing a WordPress website most people focus on the visual aspects of the site. The design, the content and even the code. Other factors, such as WordPress Hosting don’t even come into the equation and are often overlooked. This often ends up being a major issue as different hosting providers cater to different types of clients, accommodate different scales of traffic and are more suitable for different business models. For example, did you know that Google’s web crawlers work better with some hosting solutions rather than with others. This is quite important if you are running Adsense ads on your website.

In this article we’ll focus on the major factors that should be taken into consideration when choosing a WordPress Hosting service and who are the major players.

Important Factors About WordPress Hosting

The first and foremost is customer support. Some Hosting customer support services are located in specific regions and only give customer support during specific hours of the day. Other Hosting services provide only email support or chat. If you know your way around servers, WordPress installations, caching etc… then support might not be a big issue. But if not, then customer support is essential. Sometimes it’s even worth paying a little bit extra to have someone there to answer your questions. Some providers like Bluehost provide complete managed packages which reduces the reliance on customer support, while others like Digital Ocean will provide you with a clean machine and leave you to fend for yourself. This is where a high level of customer support might be needed.

The Second is speed and performance. Depending on the purpose of your site, you might require a mega fast hosting provider that is Google friendly. For example, if you are a blogger that wants to make money from Adsense, then speed is crucial. Hosting providers that can’t cater towards the speed you need might have a negative effect on your Google rankings, causing you to receive lower CPC costs. When referring to speed, it is important to compare memory, processing power (CPU) and disk space. It is important to also understand whether or not neighbouring traffic can effect your performance. This is known as the “bad neighbour effect”. The third is uptime. If you go to the hosting provider’s website, they will all say that they have nearly 100% uptime. This is normally true, but that downtime of 0.1%-0.5% can have a serious impact, especially if it happens during your times when you have peaks of traffic. Always monitor downtimes and see when they occur.

WordPress Hosting Companies

WPEngine

WP Engine is currently one of the more popular hosting providers on the market. Unlike other hosting providers they offer a variety of managed plans starting from around $29 per month. A speed-enhancing content delivery network is also included within their Professional, Business and Enterprise plans, but it is also possible to use a third party CDN to enhance your site’s speed. As mentioned above, the major advantage of WP Engine is that it is a managed hosting environment, specifically designed for WordPress websites. You don’t even need to install WordPress as it comes already installed. Unlike InMotion, WP Engine doesn’t offer traditional Web hosting, so you can’t upload your Linux- or Windows-based non-WordPress site and related apps. The upside is that WP Engine automates many functions, including daily site backups and plug-in updates. It also features proprietary Evercache technology that combines caching and proxy servers to make pages quickly load.

BLUEHOSTSAVINGS

Bluehost is a veteran in the field of web hosting. Established in 1996, Bluehost has become one of the largest brands when it comes to WordPress hosting. Regarding speed and customer service they are superb and you never need to worry about your site working slow. Similar to WPEngine, they offer a managed solution and can combine third party CDN solutions to boost the speed of your website. We have personally used Bluehost together with Cloudflare on one of our client’s sites to provide maximum performance. We can’t complain at all.

INMOTION HOSTING

InMotion hosting is another major play in the WordPress hosting industry. It has been recognised by many as a reliable leader with 99.9% uptime. Depending on the amount of traffic you want to send to your website, InMotion could be a perfect solution. They cater to many active bloggers and companies with branded sites. They offer great scalability packages and their customer support is phenomenal.

HOSTGATORSAVINGS

Hostgator Web hosting has many advantages and is often a preferred solution, especially if you are running WordPress. They might be slightly pricy compared to other non-managed web hosting providers but their performance is outstanding. Compared to other web hosting service providers, HostGator has a track record of offering the highest uptime. It stores data in a secured server along with keeping constant backup, to ensure safety. It has 24/7 monitoring systems and technologically advanced power backup. They provide easy WordPress installation, 99.9% uptime guarantee, and 24/7 support 365 days of the year.