WordPress Hosting: The What, The Why & The Who

So, you’re thinking about building a WordPress website, then one of the first and most important steps is to select a WordPress host.

But what is, and why do you need it?

It’s a very common question, and luckily it’s a pretty easy one to answer; check it out:

WordPress Hosting Explained

A website hosting provider is often a very disregarded part of developing a website. Most will just go for the most inexpensive hosting they can find.

But this is a huge mistake, which we’ll talk about later!

For now, let’s explain what WordPress hosting is.

The easiest way to explain it is; a WordPress host is a hosting provider specifically optimized for WordPress. 

The main benefit of WordPress hosting is that they make it easier to install the software onto your website. 

Any host can support WordPress because the requirements aren’t that high.

But as you’re about to find out; just because you can host WordPress with any provider doesn’t mean you should:

Why Your Site Needs A Reliable WordPress Host

Now you know what WordPress hosting is, you probably want to know why you need it. And as luck has it, here are three reasons you should consider opting for a WordPress hosting provider:

#1 They Give You Reliable Support

One of the beauties of having WordPress hosting is the customer support they provide you.

Here’s the thing:

As easy as it is to use WordPress, installing it onto your site takes a lot of technical knowledge you might not have.

And to make it worse, if anything goes wrong, then it’s even harder to fix. And that’s where WordPress hosting comes in.

They’ll have a dedicated team ready to help you 24/7.

And to make things better, their teams are usually more well-versed in dealing with any technical issues you may come across.

#2 Faster Website Speed

We live in a world where everything has to happen nearly instantaneously. This means if your website loads too slowly, you could be missing out on a lot of traffic.

And that isn’t the worst thing:

Google will also rank your page lower in the SERPs, which isn’t something you want.

Luckily, a good WordPress host can help you speed up your website with only a few tweaks.

WordPress hosting sets up the perfect environment for your website because the hosting has been optimized to run your website.

Considering the importance of these two things, you need to be looking at a WordPress Host. If your host fails to deliver any above, the results could destroy your business.

#3 They Add Extra Security 

Most people won’t think about this until it’s too late; unfortunately, it’s something that should always be on your mind.

Now, don’t think that just because you have WordPress hosting, you’re safe from all attacks; this isn’t the case.

That being said, a managed WordPress host will undoubtedly make things a lot easier.

They provide daily backups, so you can quickly restore your website back to health if the worst happens. 

And that’s not all they offer; they also provide things like:

  • Two-factor authentication
  • Limited login attempts 
  • Protection against DDOS attacks

To make things better, WordPress hosting providers can also help you to remove any harmful malware from your site.

WordPress Hosts Compared

So, you know what a WordPress host is, and now you know why you need one. But the next question is… which hosting service I should use?

Matthew Woodward has done extensive research into 12 of the fastest WordPress hosts to see how they compared.

But, if you haven’t got time to flick through the article, then here’s three of the best he tested in no particular order:

WPX Hosting

The hosting service provides excellent customer care, which is almost unrivaled by any other service provider.

Not only that, but WPX Hosting also provides fantastic connection speeds, which will help increase rankings and reduce your bounce rate.

And it gets better:

WPX Hosting is also one of the most affordable hosts; their basic plan costs just short of $25 per month and can host up to five websites.

The last thing that’s worth a mention is they offer a free CDN (Content Delivery Network). What does this mean?

Well basically, instead of loading your content from the origin server, it will pick one closer. This allows your website to load faster than other hosts.

Kinsta

Kinsta hosting is known for its fast speeds and top of the range security; why? Because they use the Google Cloud Platform, which means safe and secure data transfer at every turn.

Another great thing about Kinsta is their super easy to navigate dashboard; this makes it extremely user friendly.

Like WPX Hosting, Kinsta also offers 24/7 customer support; the best thing is that the team is very well-versed in dealing with any WordPress issue you may have.

One of the customers’ favorite features is their nearly instant backups, which can be done daily. The backups are stored for up to 14 days.

This is awesome if a plugin destroys your site, all you have to do is upload the backup before you download the plugin, and you’re good as new again.

A2 Hosting

Considering A2 Hosting is regarded as a budget hosting provider, it really keeps up with some of the premium providers out there.

For the past several years, A2 hosting has been up there with some of the fastest hosting providers around. To make things better, they also have excellent customer care.

The service team is more than happy to help you migrate your website to their servers, which can save you a considerable headache.

If you’re not happy with their service, A2 hosting will provide you with a full refund within the first 30-days.

The plans start at $11.99, but that will only work for one site and will provide 10GB of storage, which might be a little limited for a big-time website.

Rounding Up

Ok, you made it to the end, and now it’s time for a quick recap:

WordPress hosting is a term used for hosting providers that specialize in WordPress websites.

This means you don’t have to worry too much about things like:

  1. Customer support
  2. Security 
  3. Website speed

This can be hugely beneficial if you haven’t got much technical knowledge. 

And when it comes down to which hosting provider is the best, you can count on any of the three mentioned above.