If you’re thinking about making the switch from your current host and hosting provider over to WordPress, then you’ve probably already taken a look at what hosting plans are available on the market. But when it comes down to actually finalizing and purchasing the best host for your blog, you find that there’s an overwhelming amount of options and it can be difficult choosing which one will work best for your needs.
In this guide, we’ll go through some key factors to consider when choosing a WordPress hosting plan.
Before we start to choose the right one let us understand the basics.
What is WordPress Hosting
WordPress hosting is simply hosting that has been optimized to match the speed and security requirements of WordPress. It usually offers one-click WordPress installs to make getting started with WordPress as simple as possible. Some WordPress providers will even update your WordPress software for you when necessary.
We’ll discuss how to choose WordPress hosting in today’s article, including how to find a decent hosting company. I’m assuming you’ll be using WordPress; therefore we’ll talk about the features and requirements of a solid WordPress server. Let’s get this party started.
- Speed
It’s crucial to be able to optimize your site for performance, but this is only possible if your hosting is quick, to begin with. Too many people devote many hours to enhance their site’s speed just to discover that they are limited by their hosting. As a result, when selecting a provider, make sure that your website loads quickly, especially on mobile devices, as Google considers site speed when ranking organic search results.
- Disk Space & Bandwidth
If you’re just getting started with a website, 5 GB of monthly transfer should suffice. In terms of disc space, 5 GB should be plenty. However, if you want to offer a lot of downloadable information on your website, you’ll need more bandwidth and disc space in proportion to the total amount of your content. The majority of well-known hosting companies offer limitless bandwidth and/or storage space.
- Location of the Server
When choosing a hosting company, be sure to go with the one that has the most server possibilities near you and your users. This will have a significant impact on the speed with which your website loads for your visitors. For instance, suppose you’re in Paris, France, and the closest server is in Amsterdam, Netherlands. If you have a lot of foreign visitors, ensure sure your hosting package includes a CDN (content delivery network), which helps international visitors load your site even faster by loading images and other resources from their nearest server location.
- Security
Many companies nowadays rely on their websites to succeed. If your website is hacked or infected with malware, it may be taken down until the hack is fixed. You’re losing business every minute your website is down.
This implies that security should be a primary priority for your website. As a result, check to see if the hosting firm includes a firewall and other antimalware software. Check sure the host is using the most recent version of WordPress: remaining current is likely the most important step a host can take to remain secure.
- Customer Support
The host, regardless of the type of hosting you use, must provide responsive customer service. If the worst happens and your website goes down, you’ll need to be able to contact technical support and have them fix the problem. If they don’t work on it you will lose your money for it
However, catastrophe recovery should not be the end of client assistance. Customer support should be there to assist you if your site is having problems and you don’t know how to fix them. If you’re unsure about the level of help you’ll be able to get, look at the host’s internet reviews and see what their existing customers have to say.
- Staging Environment Offered
Making modifications to your major website is risky. If you make a change that causes issues, it will affect both your site and your users. Instead, staging zones should be used.
These are clones of your site that you may use to test changes and see how they affect the main site. Once you’ve confirmed that the changes work on the staging site, you may deploy them to your live site. Because editing live sites is risky, be sure your provider offers staging environments, ideally as many as you require.
- Site Traffic
Is your website receiving a lot of traffic? Or are you just getting started? This is something to think about while selecting a hosting company. If you’re a new business, you’ll probably have less traffic, therefore a shared hosting package would suffice for the first 6 to 12 months. A shared hosting package will not work if you have an established blog or site that receives a significant amount of traffic on a regular basis. We recommend that you use Google Analytics to keep track of your site’s progress and monthly visitors. This will also come in handy when deciding whether to upgrade your hosting plan or switch to a new one.
In conclusion, the majority of WordPress hosting plans are priced based on the expected amount of visitors or installs, rather than assigned resources. This makes buying a little easier, but it also involves rethinking what you’re paying for in comparison to typical web hosting.
Because editing live sites are dangerous, be sure your provider provides staging environments, preferably as many as you need. so you really need to do deep research before choosing the right one for you.
