Ok, it’s time to get really real when it comes to your WordPress website’s hosting choice my fellow entrepreneur.
But first, let’s jump into a quick story time…
My very first website was hosted on a platform that I shall not name in this post. Just know that things started off ok with that host after getting my website online.
I was so excited to share my services and my portfolio of client work with the world! Since having my website online was a big deal for me, especially since my business revolves around creating websites for other entrepreneurs, getting my baby-of-a-business’s online presence up and running was a must.
A week or so after getting my website online, I tried logging into my WordPress admin to make some quick changes to one of my pages. After attempting to login…
Error city. A white screen of death. No WordPress dashboard. ??♀️
After countless login attempts, I reached out to my hosting company to see what the deal was. Here’s what I got from them:
- A super-slow response to my support ticket
- Back and forth conversation via an online chat that wasted my time
- Ultimately my problem not being fixed until the next day
Come to find out, this error was happening to multiple websites that were with this hosting company… that I still shall not name.
In the end, I had to wait WAY TOO LONG to get my issue fixed.
No one has time for that… especially not you my fellow entrepreneur.
You see, your hosting company may not be serving your audience… which means it’s ultimately not helping in your brand’s mission. Ok… let me explain this one…
You built your brand to serve others. To solve their problems and ease their pain points with the awesome products and/or services that you provide. So when a potential customer lands on your website and it’s slow to load or they get an error page instead, your current website hosting plan may be to blame…
And let’s face it, going with a cheap hosting plan that’s just $3.95 per month is a drop in the bucket. Your business bank account may not even feel that charge… but your website visitors experience what comes from that cut-corner.
Told you I was going to get real with this one. Cheap shared website hosting plans do not effectively serve your audience.
So what does? Let’s dive into the differences between shared and managed WordPress hosting and why you may need to make the switch to managed.
Shared Hosting (and the problem with it)
Shared hosting is when your website is on a server that shares resources with other websites on the same server. Your website is basically hanging around out in a group of other websites. This is why this type of hosting is super-affordable since costs are kept down with the shared method.
Now, there’s nothing really wrong with this option. If you feel like your website will start out small and remain at this size for a while, going with a shared host may work for you.
But if your website will be launched with a lot of pages you’ll need something more powerful. Also if you plan on scaling up your website with things like daily/weekly blog posts, offering courses, selling products online, or providing a membership feature, shared hosting won’t be enough. This is where Managed WordPress hosting comes in the save the day!
Managed WordPress Hosting (and why it just works)
Managed WP hosting offers WordPress-focused performance optimizations and security standards. This hosting type just makes sense to have set up for your WordPress website from the start. It’s a little more expensive than $3.95 a month but hear me out, this hosting option will give you true peace-of-mind over your website’s health and performance. This goes a long way in impressing your audience online.
Other perks of having a website on a managed host include:
- Tools for easy WordPress installs and overall website management
- A simple to use hosting account dashboard (aka, no clunky, all-over the place cPanel for advanced website management)
- Daily automatic backups that are easy to push back onto your live website
- Automatic WordPress Core updates and add-on options to have your plugins automatically updated safely
- WordPress experts online and ready when you need help with website issues fast
Need managed WordPress hosting options? Here are my top two choices:
- Flywheel Managed WordPress Hosting – This is my hosting platform of choice. It’s perfect for small websites that will likely scale up regularly (more pages, more content, more features). Their plans come with easy to use tools that align with your website’s performance. And Flywheel’s customer service is no-joke; they have WordPress experts ready when you need them the most… but it will probably be very rare that you ever have to contact them!
- WP Engine – Got a larger WordPress website to run? Then this option is for you. WP Engine has been around for years so they have the experts that you need for your big website. And just like Flywheel, their customer service is top-notch.
It’s important that your website is with a company that actually cares about its health and performance. You’ll have the confidence knowing that your website is in good hands with true WordPress experts through the awesomeness that is Managed WordPress Hosting.
