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WordPress hosting is one of the hardest topics to talk about honestly because a lot of these hosting companies have juicy affiliate commissions. Affiliates all over the internet are promoting the “Best WordPress host” so that they can get a juicy commission when in reality these affiliates don’t know or even use the service! In this post, I'm going to be talking about the exact WordPress hosting services that I've personally used over the last 10 years.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is exactly what you need to know about WordPress hosting. I've been running WordPress websites for the last 10 plus years and in that time I've learned a lot about WordPress hosting – what to do and more importantly what not to do.
It all started with 1AND1 hosting and like a complete newbie I hosted my blog and my domain name at their service which ended up being a total disaster!
Everything was going great until I started to get some traffic to my website. My site loaded slow and they didn't have dedicated WordPress hosting at the time. This was many years ago when I was just starting my blog. Fast forward a little bit and things ended disastrously as I tried to cancel my contract and move to a new hosting provider that one of my mentors recommended.
They told me I was locked into an annual contract and could not cancel. I ended up having to pay some sort of cancellation fee or early termination fee to end my contract and be able to move my domain out of their control. The key lesson I learned here that you can learn from my mistake is to never host your domain name with your WordPress hosting company. There are a lot of rules and regulations as to domain names and changing control. There are certain time limits and Verification codes. So if you ever actually have to move a domain name it is a serious pain in the ass.
One of my mentors mentioned this new hosting company called Siteground and so I moved my main website over to them. At this point, I was regularly blogging and building up some traction with my subscribers and one day I visited my website and it was completely shut down!
I had an email from Siteground explaining that even though I was on an unlimited plan that I had used too much traffic in my shared hosting account. I would not be allowed to have any more traffic until the end of the month when the traffic numbers reset. I didn't understand. I was on an unlimited hosting plan!
What? This is impossible because I had a website hosting plan with unlimited traffic*. it was all coming together. I'm was creating a blog and they were starting to get some decent traffic and conversions. Then all of a sudden my web host shut down my website in the middle of the month because I had used too much bandwidth on their server. They wanted me to upgrade my hosting plan in order to turn my website back on! It was almost like they were holding my website hostage!
It turns out unlimited is only unlimited* until you actually get a few visitors to your website then they want you to upgrade your plan or they will just turn off your website! So when people visit actually they see a splash page saying that your website is not working. This is a total nightmare for any website owner and the reason why I switched away from Siteground.
So I switched my website posting over to WP Engine. Wow! What a difference hosting your website with a great company! I have nothing bad to say about WP Engine and they have one of the best WordPress hosting services on the planet.
There's an old saying that you get what you pay for and in this case you're going to pay a bit of a premium to use the service however it is absolutely fantastic.
They're hosting is built specifically for WordPress websites and load amazingly fast. They have a whole set of features built in that other companies actually charge for which you get complimentary when you host your site with WP Engine.
I use WP Enginefor about a year and then switched over to wpx hosting after hearing and reading about some success stories including one from Matthew Woodward. Also, the fact that wpx hosting helps shelter dogs really tugs at my heartstrings and I wanted to help support that.
Unfortunately, this is very common in the WordPress hosting space. There are discount hosting platforms that are very cheap and lower in newbies who think they're going to make millions of dollars blogging posting that costs $3 per month. The reality is that left the best slow loading website a Blog that might or might not load and having to pay years in advance to use the hosting service to get that $3 per month juicy wait.
Why you shouldn't host your domain with the same company that hosts your website
most people think that you would want to host your domain name and your WordPress website with the same company for Simplicity and ease-of-use however I would highly highly highly highly recommend not doing this! You don't know what the future holds and in order to protect yourself if you want to diversify your business assets with different companies. This is why I always use a separate service from my hosting company to host my domain names. My favorite domain name provider is Namecheap but there are a million different options out there and then for website hosting my favorite host right now is wpx hosting.
First things first if you have a WordPress website you want to have a website hosting company that understands WordPress and more specifically has hosting play dedicated to WordPress based websites. This will remove a lot of headaches for you and your hosting company. The other question you have to ask yourself is does my WordPress hosting company have support where I can reach them when I need them. What if your website goes down? What if you didn't my credit properly? What if your website is getting attacked? What if you want to turn on CDN?
These questions and many more are crucial When selecting a WordPress hosting provider.
In my case I chose wpx hosting because I have multiple websites which they have a plan that suits my needs perfectly. They also provide a complementary content delivery Network or CDN so that your sites load fast anywhere in the world. They also help you migrate your website over to their service for free. They also have world class support via chat and it should be noted that there is no phone support however I have been able to solve some pretty complicated issues via their chat support and it was a fantastic experience.
Lesson #1: Never I repeat never host your domain name with the same company that hosts your website. I learned this the hard way in the beginning but use a domain name registrar that is different from your WordPress host great options that I love are GoDaddy or namecheap which is my absolute favorite.
Lesson #2: Make sure that you know what you are signing up for. Read the fine print. When my website was turned off I had no idea that I had signed a contract saying that my website would get turned off if I got a certain number of visitors to the website. Be sure to read the fine print or just flat out ask the hosting company if they have any traffic limitations on your web hosting plan. Make sure you aren't getting into anything else weird and you know exactly when your contract is going to renew. This could be monthly or it could be annually
Lesson #3: Good WordPress hosting support is crucial. I never really valued customer support from a web hosting company because I thought I knew how to set up WordPress websites, install plug-ins, customized themes, and do everything else that I needed to do. However in some cases you might get over your head and Technical elements where you need help on server configurations or cashing issues or other highly technical it related issues that a great hosting company will help you with for free. Some other hosting companies will actually tell you what the issue is and that you need to fix it but with these world-class WordPress hosting companies they will actually get their hands dirty and help you fix your website. They understand that helping you with your website create such a great customer experience that you will keep coming back time and time again.
Well, that's pretty much it! Right now I'm using wpx hosting to host Preston's corner.com and I'm absolutely loving it. Tell me in the comments below who you like as a WordPress hosting company and what your website or blog uses.
*The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author.