The first thing you need to do to launch a WordPress website is purchase a domain name and find website hosting. Website hosting services keep your domain online while providing server management to ensure your site is operating at peak performance.
In other words, the type of hosting plan you choose can impact your website’s uptime and online performance. So, if you’re new to website hosting, this comprehensive guide will teach you everything there is to know about choosing the best WordPress hosting plans.
Understand The Different Types of Web Hosting
There are billions of websites across the internet. All of these websites are different and cater to different audiences. In the same way, there are many different types of hosting to suit all kinds of business needs.
Let’s cover the most common WordPress hosting types: shared, dedicated, VPS, and cloud hosting.
Shared hosting is the most common and cheapest web hosting model. With shared hosting, several websites occupy the same server for web maintenance, uptime, and data storage.
You can think of a shared hosting model, like renting an apartment with roommates. Getting an apartment with roommates is often affordable, but it does come with more strings attached.
Shared hosting plans are ideal for new websites that don’t manage high website traffic. Popular websites and online stores won’t get much use from shared hosting. Why? These sites can drain critical server resources from everyone else.
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting is the opposite of shared hosting. With a dedicated server (read: single server), you can have your own server environment with dedicated resources.
High-traffic websites and ecommerce stores can benefit from using dedicated servers because they provide a stable hosting environment and a performance boost along with a content delivery network.
However, like shared hosting, a dedicated hosting plan may rely on old-fashioned physical servers.
VPS
A virtual private server (VPS) is somewhat similar to dedicated hosting. Both offer private servers to customers. However, a VPS is based on a hybrid model.
Websites can receive their own virtual server, but they’ll likely have to share hard drives with other customers. With a VPS, the customer essentially owns their hosting environment.
The service provider is responsible for upkeep and maintenance.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting is completely virtual and is designed to provide data security features, high scalability, availability, and flexibility for website owners.
Your server network contains tremendous server power, which you can use at any point. Cloud hosting comes in three main categories:
- Software-as-a-Service (SaaS): This cloud computing model allows the user to purchase a monthly subscription for cloud hosting. They don’t have control over the server.
- Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS): This model is used primarily by IT administrators. Users rent storage, networking, and cloud computing resources from the hosting provider.
- Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS): PaaS users can rent the entire platform for cloud hosting. This option is used by software developers who have the expertise to complete complicated development activities.
Knowing the difference between these hosting options will help you make the right selection for your website needs.
Consider Website Performance
Website performance is one of the most important factors to consider before buying WordPress web hosting. Imagine you’re benefitting from a successful marketing campaign that brings hundreds of thousands of potential customers to your online store.
As this happens, your website crashes and all these people promptly leave and never return. This is a nightmare scenario for any business owner. And it’s exactly why the performance of your WordPress site is an essential factor in choosing a web hosting plan.
When comparing different plans, pay close attention to random-access memory (RAM), disk space usage, and central processing unit (CPU). These additional features will play an integral role in your website’s performance.
You should also keep a close eye on transfer speeds, as this dictates how fast your website will be. If you want to delegate this task to someone else, you should opt for managed hosting. Moreover, be sure to consider website accessibility, which is basically making your website user-friendly. By taking accessibility into account when choosing your web hosting, you are also targeting an audience with disabilities and amplifying your reach. With the help of an accessibility checker, you can ensure that your site is performing properly and ensuring a positive user experience.
Make Sure Your Web Hosting Plan is Scalable
Website performance isn’t the only factor to consider when purchasing a web hosting plan. Scalability refers to how your server resources will be used as your website grows.
Generally speaking, scalability will determine if your website can handle a sudden load of website traffic. Let’s say that your website experiences high traffic and orders during the holiday season.
Eventually, your website’s server struggles to keep up and crashes at the worst possible time. To avoid this dreaded outcome, you should invest in a hosting plan that can scale with your website’s performance (ideally dedicated or VPS hosting).
Factor in Website Uptime
You can purchase a web hosting plan with all the bells and whistles, but if your website goes down at a critical time, it’s all for nothing. Uptime is defined by the amount of time your website stays online.
While every website receives periodic maintenance, the best websites are online for at least 99% of the time. The opposite of uptime is downtime, and it’s every webmaster’s worst nightmare.
When your website goes down for even a few minutes, you could lose thousands of dollars. For example, even one minute of downtime can cost ecommerce giant Amazon as much as $220,318.80.
Plus, your SEO rankings could also take a hit if sudden downtime becomes a habit.
With this said, only choose a web hosting provider with a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
Don’t Forget About Caching
Website loading time is one of the most essential factors for SEO and user experience (UX). After all, there are billions of websites online.
People won’t wait forever for your website to load, especially if your competitors have faster websites. To improve website loading times, you’ll need to rely on caching.
Caching happens when someone visits your website, and it stores slow-moving website elements on their device. Whenever that person visits your website again, these elements are preloaded, which improves website speed.
Managed web hosting providers can automate the caching process for you. How? Either by adding a caching plugin to your website’s backend or employing a content delivery network (CDN).
Prioritize Data Security
Another factor you must consider when choosing a hosting plan for your WordPress website is the security of your data and your users data.
You want to make sure that your hosting provider offers reliable encryption and authentication methods to protect your website and email accounts from unauthorized access and data breaches by implementing DMARC policy and taking other necessary measures.
One of the common ways to achieve this is by using a standard protocol such as SAML or OAuth to enable single sign-on (SSO) for your website.
SSO allows your users to log in to your website using their existing credentials from another service, such as:
- X (formerly Twitter)
The best part? They don’t need to create a new account or remember a new password.
However, SAML and OAuth aren’t the same, and they have different advantages and disadvantages depending on your use case.
For example, SAML is more suitable for enterprise applications that need to support multiple identity providers and complex authorization rules. OAuth is more flexible and easier to integrate with mobile and web applications needing third-party APIs.
Ensure Your Web Hosting Has Up-to-Date Technology
WordPress is a content management system (CMS) built on the PHP framework. PHP is used across the world to build dynamic websites and online portals.
As a result, WordPress needs to use a database to store all the data your website produces. To accomplish this feat, you’ll need:
- PHP 5.7 or a higher version
- MySQL 5.6 or a higher version
Using low-quality web hosting technology won’t give you the performance and benefits you need to maintain a productive website.
Pay Attention to the Backup Policy
A backup ensures that your website can be restored if hacked or compromised. It’s also a saving grace during a website crash.
Usually, WordPress hosting providers offer backup services for free through a control panel. Some may charge for additional backups. Nonetheless, WordPress backups are an essential component of any web hosting plan.
If a web hosting provider doesn’t offer automatic backups, you should avoid them at all costs. History has proven that even the most well-known companies can easily become susceptible to data breaches and cyberattacks.
Automatic data backups occur regularly, giving you an insurance policy against a total website shutdown. Daily backups are the most ideal.
Check Customer Service Reviews
If you have a question about your plan or need to report a web emergency, you need an attentive and friendly customer service team you can trust.
Fortunately, you can browse online reviews to gauge the quality of customer service you’ll receive from a prospective web hosting provider.
Final Words
Web hosting keeps your website online and provides a great experience for site visitors. You can’t afford to make the wrong decision when choosing the best web hosting service.
Applying even a few of these tips will help you choose a web hosting provider to give you the highest return on your investment. And you can sleep well at night knowing your website is running smoothly.
Here’s to your online success!
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