9 Point Checklist for Choosing Best WordPress Hosting Service

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Choosing a hosting service provider is like choosing a partner for your business’ success. The right hosting service provider with reliable and convenient hosting plans as per your requirements not only provides you its services but also helps you save up your costs. According to a study, over 23% of businesses are spending more money on hosting solutions than their actual requirements. Spiceworks, in their recent report, The 2020 State of IT predicted, 44% of companies plan to grow IT budgets in 2020, compared to 38% in 2019. As for having a website, gone are days when people use to rely on web-developers to create, develop, and even for making small changes on their website. Today’s digital world and improved technologies have enabled people to leverage CMS [Content Management System] to quickly build their website from scratch and without even needing a web developer or designer for that matter. One of the most common CMS platforms today is WordPress. WordPress is now empowering 32% of the web today.

Woah, isn’t that astonishing? And that too they started their journey in 2005.

That makes the 3/10 website you visit in a day could be hosted on WordPress. Are you also planning to launch your first WordPress website? We have carefully created a checklist that will help you decide the right hosting service for your first WordPress website. Before we take you through our list for WordPress hosting, let’s first understand what type of WordPress hosting your site will need. There are many options available as far as web hosting is concerned

There’s no one size fit all hosting service that exists. It depends on your business objective and the goal you want to accomplish with your website. As to shed light on types of WordPress hosting you can opt-in are –

  1. Shared WordPress Hosting
  2. VPS Hosting for WordPress
  3. WordPress Dedicated Server Hosting
  4. Managed WordPress Hosting
  5. Free WordPress hosting

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Also Read – 7 reasons you should choose a dedicated hosting server for your website

Choosing between these WordPress hosting solutions can sometimes become a task for some people. While there are plenty of free WordPress hosting service providers, they have their catches in terms of providing limited services and features, which will make you feel ditched as your site grows.

Choose Shared WordPress Hosting, if you’re a small business and an early stage blogger, who wants to make a mark in the industry.

Opt-in for VPS hosting for your WordPress website, if you’re a mid-size business owner or have a blog that has high monthly traffic or pro web designer/developer.

WordPress dedicated hosting is the best type of WordPress hosting you can opt for if you have an incredibly high traffic blog, enterprise businesses that require full control, and options to choose customized hardware and operating systems for your server. As the name suggests, with dedicated WordPress hosting, you don’t have to share server performance, and things that are most important like speed, storage, hardware, server space, and you get actual bandwidth, less congestion, and minimum downtime, the entire server is assigned to you only. If you’re opting for dedicated server hosting then our article on How to choose the right dedicated server-hosting provider might help you for sure!

On average, WordPress registers more than 1.1 Million new domains every six months. That’s because WordPress provides a wide range of convenience and nearly no hassle to create their online presence in the minimum time possible. Taking a cue from this, several web hosting solutions providers now offer managed WordPress hosting services. It is suitable for the ones who don’t have the expertise and skills to deal with the technicalities of website hosting.

By now, we are sure that you would be able to decide on your preferred type of WordPress hosting to opt for that will help you get the most out of your efforts and money. Now, before you reach out to web hosting vendors for your WordPress website, it is always better to have WordPress Hosting comparisons between leading service providers to get excellent services in minimum spends.

9 Things You Need to Consider When Choosing a WordPress Hosting Service Provider

  1. Identify your hosting need –  It is imperative to set out a clear expectation and your vision with hosting service providers. Tell them what type of website you have? Why do you specifically want to use WordPress for your website? Amount of traffic you would expect. That would help your hosting service provider to sell you targeted service. For, e.g. If you’re planning to launch your grocery store and payment gateway implemented, he might suggest you get a dedicated server, or if you’re an early-stage blogger wanting to establish your blog, you should opt for shared hosting for WordPress that starts from as minimum as € 10/month.
  2. Pricing – Price is something that the majority of people take first thing in their considerations, but ideally, it should not be the case. It’s just like whatever you pay, you get that much only, not less and nothing more. We have seen people opting for free hosting for WordPress blogs, and that ultimately cost them more than paid plans. It’s free because you don’t have full control over your hosting, security, no support given, and they make money out of your hard work put on your blog by placing adsOne needs to understand that nothing comes for free in this world — server equipment like hardware, software and keeping support costs money. It’s quintessential for you to keep a thorough check on features hosting plans offers, choose the plan that fits your requirements, and compare prices. Most WordPress hosting providers give you Ala-carte or customize your plan options too. Contact us, If you require a personalized WordPress hosting plan!
  3. Upgrade Options –Possibilities are that you hit your existing plan bandwidth, exhausting your resources in maybe just six months or more after launching your new WordPress website. What in that case, if you’re on shared hosting, it’s quite evident that you then experience performance obstructions based on the plan. It’s always good to have a hosting provider that offers you secure & easy upgrade options as your website grows with time.
    Your hosting provider should be able to upgrade your current WordPress hosting to a VPS hosting or a dedicated server hosting once you reach 30,000 – 40,000 unique visitor mark on your website.
  4. Tech Support –Accept it or not, even if you’re a newbie or a pro, tech-support is required some or the other time. Choose a provider that provides 24×7 supports for all your queries and helps you overcome possible troubles you have with your hosting at the earliest. Most of the hosting service offers support over email and tickets, RedSwitches, HostGator and BlueHost provide 24X7 Support overall call and Live chat too. RedSwitches, hosting plans users experience an average response time of 15 minutes or even less for that matter.
  5. Website Response time/Speed & Hardware – Hardware is the critical factor for an outstanding performance [Response time/Speed] of any website. Ask about the type of hardware used by the hosting provider. It’s known for a fact that slow sites tend to lose business more than ones that load faster. To make it believable,
  • 1-sec delay in website load cuts down 7% of conversion rate
  • A second delay also reduces the page view by 11%
  • 1-5 seconds load time increases the bounce rate by 90%Choose a hosting provider that uses branded hardware, SSD storage, and tier-I & tier-II network services to help you improve website performance and raise your conversion rates and user experience. WordPress Specific Feature & Plugin Freedom –Since you have a WordPress website, it’s no brainer for you to ask for WordPress-specific feature and plugin freedom to your hosting provider. WordPress has over 54,483 plugins currently. It’s possible if you run into some problem, there’s a WordPress plugin already developed and available for you to download.
  1. Web Host Server Reliability & Server Uptime Reliability is another essential thing you should take into consideration while choosing a reliable hosting solution for your WordPress website. Do a sentiment analysis about your finalized provider, check what reviews real users are giving on review platforms like finance online, host advice, Webhosting talk.
    Server uptime is another crucial factor to keep in mind, the higher the uptime, the better it is. It is recommended not to opt for a web host who can’t keep a minimum commitment of 99.5% uptime. Just for references, 99% refers to 7 hours and 12 minutes downtime, 99% refers to 7 hours and 12 minutes downtime
  2. Site Backup – Site breakdowns are now nothing new for business, there could be plenty of reasons why a site crashes, hacker attacks, DDoS attacks, brute-force attacks, and many more. If your web host provides site backups then there’s nothing like it. Ask your web host below questions about their WordPress Hosting Plan –
    • Does he provide Site backup?
    • How often he takes backup?
    • How back up is being done [manual/automatic]?
    • Does he provide site backup assistance?
  3. Website Security – This is the one thing that you should not compromise on, whether you are taking WordPress hosting for your blog or a managed WordPress hosting for a mid-sized business. Ask if he provides SSL encryption, SFTP file transfer system, and regular server maintenance to ensure the security of your online assets.

Conclusion

All and all, choosing the right hosting service provider for your WordPress website, more importantly, depends on your objective, budget, speed, reliability, scalability, and pricing provided by web hosting service providers. Take the right amount of time before opting for WordPress hosting service. It is recommended to check reviews, browse through different plans offered by different web hosts, and then make your final decision.
If you are in search of reliable hosting solutions for WordPress at affordable prices, do reach out to us!