For those of us who aren’t very technical but still want to make money online, WordPress has been a game changer. While the platform may have originally begun life as a way for people who wanted to run simple blogs to have an alternative to other tools like Blogger, it’s become much more than that. Over the years, the WordPress platform has changed, evolved and become an incredibly versatile and easy-to-use platform for just about anyone that wants to create a website for any purpose. From small site owners and affiliate marketers such as myself to very large corporations such as TechCrunch and BBC America, WordPress is extremely easy to use, versitile, and can scale easliy as your business grows.
Of course, a website is only useful if people can find it, and that means looking for a service that offers website hosting with WordPress to ensure you have the fewest technical barriers to running your business. Here, I’m going to explain what you should be looking for in website hosting with WordPress for complete newbies that have no idea where to even start or what to research.
Website Hosting With WordPress Specific Hosting Services
The WordPress platform allows you to do much, much more than just make text entries, which was one of its primary functions when it was primarily a blogging technology. Today, WordPress websites can do everything from handle your multi-media web pages to providing a direct, real-time chat channel for customers with questions, and even handling your sales when someone wishes to make a purchase online with a credit card.
However, all this technology means the use of various plug-ins and additional functions to an already flexible and robust system. While setting up a basic blog is simple, things get can pretty complex depending on what your specific needs are, and if changes aren’t handled right, one “break” in your website can result in failures or malfunctions in other areas. The larger you build out your site, security risks, site speed, and backing up databases becomes a whole new complicated world. That’s why a service that focuses on website hosting with WordPress specifically is a much better proposition for people that plan to use WordPress for their website. This is especially true for those of us who are not very technical and have no idea how to actually run a web server.
The goal for us non-techies is to not even have to think about our web host. We want to “set it and forget it” while being able to trust our web host to keep our sites secure and operating at the most optimal level possible. While it took me 7 years, WPengine is the service I now use for all of my 25 WordPress sites.
A Jumping Off Point
WPengine is a great website hosting with WordPress and it’s the service I personally use and recommend to my closest friends and family. While you should of course do your own research, I don’t want to hide the fact that I’m biased towards WPengine due to my positive experiences with them, so I always recommend people at least put it on their shortlist while they are compiling services and making comparisons. While WPengine is certainly not the cheapest WordPress web host out there, I believe you get what you pay for, especially if you’re not a technical person and need a little extra hand-holding like me.
So… I’m going to use WPengine as an example of what I personally look for in a WordPress web hosting service. Plenty of services other than WPengine offer these services, but this is what I personally like.
Work With A Legitimate WordPress Host
One big factor that you want in your website hosting with WordPress is legitimacy and reputation. There are all sorts of WordPress web hosting services out there ready to take your money, but I reccomend you stick with the proven winners. That will include very recognizable hosting companies such as:
By browsing even just the above legitimate WordPress hosting services, you’ll notice a huge discrepancy in price. Realize that for the most part, you really do get what you pay for. The more inexperienced you are with web hosting, the more I recommend you actually go with a higher priced service. For the total newbie, WPengine is the only service I recommend. While the lower priced services are still legitimate, they will require more knowledge on how to operate web servers, will be less secure, will likely be slower loading sites, and may not include some features such as automated backups.
Updated And Secure WordPress Hosting
Because WPEngine is focused so heavily on website hosting with WordPress specifically, this means their understanding with the technology, and ties to the software creators, are very strong. For WordPress users, this means that added convenience of not even having to update your website to the latest version of WordPress. If any features, a patch, or even a fix for a vulnerability or bug come up, your website will automatically be updated to the newest version, courtesy of WPengine. They even keep track of all your plugins to make sure there are no unseen security vulnerabilities.
For website hosting with WordPress, they have a system in place that handles these upgrades automatically and will notify you before and after they take place, with backups and restore points along the way. On their end, they continue to monitor your website 24/7 to ensure a safe, stable upgrade that doesn’t result in any downtime for your website.
Hosting Data And Metrics You Can Use
WPengine has systems in place for assessing both page and content performance. Page performance looks at the technical aspect of your website, giving you data on key performance indicators like how fast your web pages are loading, your search engine optimization, and workflow. Content performance actually shows how your website is doing with visitors; what they like, don’t like and how often and long they engage with your content. For content publishers such as myself, this data is amazing as I don’t have the technical skills to build my own programs to accomplish this. Having it all done for me, automatically, is a great perk.
WordPress Hosting Security You Can Rely On
When it comes to website hosting with WordPress, or any website for that matter, I always place a premium on security. After having a few bad experiences, I now understand the seriousness of site security and how terrible things can get when a site gets hacked. This is one area where you cannot afford to cut corners or accept substandard performance in exchange for better pricing. Without good security, your website is vulnerable, and that means that both you and your visitors or customers are also vulnerable.
You may not think having your website hacked amounts to much, since it’s not a punch in the eye, or someone throwing a rock through your window, but the effects can be even more catastrophic. Website hosting with WordPress that doesn’t back you up with security means that you may lose control of your website and the data within it. You may find yourself locked out of your own content, unable to regain control unless you pay “ransom money” to the people who have locked you out. Worse yet, you may find your customers have had their confidential financial information stolen, and not only could they have that information sold on unscrupulous markets, this will devastate your business reputation. WPengine puts a lot of effort into making sure their security is up to date and always evolving. And they make sure all of their customers benefit. That’s why I always believe people should seriously look at this service when they’re considering a WordPress host for their website.
