Navigating the broad array of hosting options available today can be overwhelming. This article aims to guide you in selecting the optimal WordPress hosting for your needs. Keep reading to understand:
- The basic types of hosting
- Factors to consider when picking a provider
Exploring Hosting Options
First, let’s delve into the primary characteristics and distinctions between the fundamental types of hosting on offer.
Free WordPress Hosting
Indeed, it is possible to find WordPress hosting at little to no expense. However, prudent users know that truly free hosting doesn’t exist as server support and maintenance require resources and effort. Consequently, you’ll end up paying for such hosting in alternative ways.
Typically, free hosting is offered by individuals reselling a small portion of their server space. To provide free hosting, these providers might:
- Request you to display a banner ad on your site
- Ask for a text link in your website’s footer
- Restrict your website’s traffic.
Clearly, banners could be irrelevant to your site, negatively impacting your business image. If the server quality is subpar, it may struggle with high traffic, leading to potential downtime. Moreover, free hosting lacks reliability as there’s no guarantee of continued server resource sharing.
We advise assessing your needs and opting for other reasonably priced options. Investing in reliable WordPress hosting ensures peace of mind.
Shared Hosting
As the name implies, shared hosting involves sharing server resources with other websites hosted on the same server. Generally, shared hosting is a cost-effective way to get your site up and running. It’s affordable due to the cost-sharing nature of multiple sites using one server, meaning your website’s performance hinges on the server usage by other sites.
Some providers tout offering unlimited resources (like bandwidth or storage space) in shared hosting. However, the concept of ‘unlimited’ is often misleading. Since multiple sites share server resources, there are inherent user limitations. Your site shouldn’t overload the server.
Therefore, shared hosting isn’t ideal for websites with significant expansion plans. But, it’s a viable option for launching a landing page or small website.
Managed Hosting
This type of hosting involves assistance or ‘management’ with server resources. Essentially, the hosting company aids with software setup, server optimization, administration, and support. Depending on your chosen provider, you may also receive hardware management, basic security checks, etc.
Managed hosting typically offers specialized solutions for specific needs or software. Consequently, fully managed WordPress hosting is available. Experts will assist with WordPress-specific challenges, provide back-end support, backups, and advice on optimizing your website or plugins for peak performance.
While managed hosting often comes at a higher cost than shared hosting, the increased security and specialized support generally justify the expense.
WordPress VPS Hosting
VPS, or Virtual Private Server hosting, provides you with a virtual machine. This service assigns you a specific section of a physical server computer from the hosting provider. Despite the server being shared among multiple users (similar to shared hosting), you are given more server control and a designated amount of memory.
Unlike shared hosting, where your website’s performance could be impacted by other sites on the same server, your site’s data isn’t affected by the sudden demands of other users’ websites in VPS hosting. Plus, you typically have complete root access to the server, enabling you to tailor your resources to operate certain software.
This hosting option is worth considering for medium-sized businesses, intricate web software, and rapidly growing websites.
WordPress Dedicated Server Hosting
As suggested by ‘dedicated’, this type of hosting offers you a whole physical server (a dedicated computer) from the hosting provider, exclusively for your website. This means you have total control over resources, including the choice of operating system.
Dedicated hosting is ideal for high-traffic websites or those that require significant computational power for specific applications. The cost for this hosting type starts at $100 per month. If you’re a beginner, dedicated hosting is usually not necessary.
WordPress Hosting Requirements
When setting up a WordPress website, it’s crucial to understand the basic server requirements, which include:
- PHP version 7.4 or higher
- MySQL version 5.6 or higher OR MariaDB version 10.1 or higher
- HTTPS support
As you can see, these requirements are quite concise. Any server supporting PHP and MySQL is suitable for hosting a WordPress site.
Factors to Consider When Selecting WordPress Hosting
Selecting a web hosting provider can be influenced by various factors. Primarily, the technical features offered by these companies should align with your project needs. Therefore, understanding your personal or project requirements is crucial to determine what you anticipate from your website and user interactions. Here are some specific criteria and factors that can impact your hosting provider choice.
Project Scale
If you foresee growth in your website and business needs, it’s wise to opt for a dependable solution from the onset. WordPress hosting solutions can cater to diverse projects or businesses based on their specific requirements.
For instance, an online bookstore and a law firm may both be in search of a hosting provider. The bookstore will require space for multiple product uploads, updates, and secure client information storage.
In contrast, a law firm’s website might not expand rapidly and could serve as an informational platform detailing the team, services, cases, and contact info.
Websites/Domains and Subdomains Quantity
Understanding the number of websites you wish to host on a single server is essential. Typically, the more sites you host, the higher the cost. Depending on the provider, there may also be restrictions on subdomains. If your project requires subdomains, ensure to verify the number allowed within your chosen plan.
Storage Space
The amount of storage space is generally limited across various hosting options. Therefore, estimate the volume of data your website will hold and consider future storage expansion needs.
Website Traffic
Your projected website visitor count is significant. Hosting providers typically specify the traffic their plans can accommodate.
Databases
Hosting plans can have limitations on either the number of databases or their size depending on the provider. Even if ‘unlimited database’ is listed as a feature, verify the database requirements.
Security
SSL certificates safeguard websites by encrypting data, ensuring customer information isn’t compromised, forged, or intercepted. Many hosting providers offer free SSL certificates with their plans.
Some providers also include SSH (Secure Shell) for secure user-server communication. This feature is crucial for administrators and web developers as it allows direct, safe access to the hosting account on the server. Enabling SSH also allows for secure file access, management, and transfer via SFTP.
Managed WordPress hosting plans often come with enhanced security features compared to shared hosting.
Staging Environments
Having a staging site or environment to test changes before going live is beneficial. Some hosting providers offer this feature, allowing you to easily transition the site from staging to live.
Caching
In hosting, caching acts as an intermediary between the user and the server. It helps speed up page loading time for visitors by storing copies of requested pages. This reduces server resource consumption. However, it’s important to periodically clean or refresh the cache, especially when website content changes.
Backups
Regular backups enable automatic data recovery if issues arise. Depending on account type and server specifications, backups can occur daily or every 3-7 days. The frequency of backups should align with how often you update your website. Also, consider the timing of backups, with some providers offering nightly backups to avoid slowing down the website during peak usage hours.
Customer Assistance
There may be times when you encounter difficulties setting up your WordPress site or experience server-related issues. When your website goes down, waiting for assistance can be agonizing and could result in potential customer loss. Therefore, it’s comforting to know that your hosting support team is available around the clock to help resolve any problems.
Support can be accessed via various channels: phone calls, emails, tickets, or live chats. Higher-tier plans often include expedited, advanced priority support, delivered by highly skilled agents.
Page Speed’s Impact on SERP Rankings
If generating organic traffic from Google is a priority, then the loading speed of your site is a crucial factor. As early as 2010, Google declared that speed would influence desktop search rankings. By July 2018, this criterion was also extended to mobile searches. Hence, search engines assess the user experience on a site, meaning the quicker a site loads and provides users with their desired information, the higher it’s likely to rank in organic results.
The speed of a webpage can largely depend on its content. Identical hosting resources can yield varying speed outcomes for websites with clean HTML coding compared to those cluttered with numerous plugins or a poorly written theme.
Additional Features
Various hosting services offer bonus features such as a complimentary domain name (typically for one year), bespoke WordPress themes for faster website construction, website builders, and more. To entice businesses, some providers include SEO tools, business email accounts, WooCommerce extensions, Google Ads, and Microsoft Advertising spend match credits in their premium packages.
Cost Considerations
We recommend thoroughly examining the pricing plans after outlining your needs. This way, you’ll understand what each company provides, identify the key criteria, and determine what’s most important to you.
To attract customers, hosting providers often present special introductory prices applicable for the first month or a set period. However, regular prices can differ significantly from these promotional rates. Therefore, to avoid confusion, we advise verifying:
- The duration of the discounted rates
- The conditions required to qualify for promotional prices (sometimes, a one-time payment covering one or even three years may be necessary)
- The standard prices.
Conclusion
In summary, when choosing a hosting service for your WordPress website, several crucial factors must be taken into consideration. These include the number of websites and subdomains you plan to host, the storage space required, the projected website traffic, and database needs.
Security features like SSL certificates and SSH are also important. Additionally, look for offerings such as staging environments, caching, regular backups, and dependable customer assistance. Page speed, which impacts SERP rankings, is another crucial factor, as are any bonus features provided by the hosting service.
Lastly, thoroughly examine the pricing plans to understand the true cost, taking into account any special introductory prices and their conditions. By considering all these aspects, you’ll be well-equipped to make an informed decision when selecting a hosting service.