It can be difficult to choose the best hosting provider for your business website and blog. Not only do you need to look at things like performance, reviews, and pricing, but you also need to consider the unique requirements of your business, and how you can select a WordPress option that’s most relevant to your company.
In this article, we’re going to look at just eight of the things that any business should expect when they’re searching for the ideal WordPress host. Although there’s likely to be a few personal considerations that you’ll need to address too, the following eight elements should form an essential part of your decision if you want to make sure that you have what it takes to stay ahead of your competition in the online business space.
1. A Great Cost/Pricing
Although there’s more to running a great website than cost, for most people, the budget will be the first thing to come to mind when you’re choosing a web host. You may feel compelled to choose the cheapest offer available, but this can be a dangerous move. Ultimately, you’ll need to remember that you often get what you pay for.
While it’s nice to save money where you can, you’ll need to a close look at the features that the web host can offer, rather than simply jumping onto the first inexpensive plan you find. Remember, the price of web hosting can depend on a range of factors, including quality of support and features. If you want the best, you may need to pay for it.
2. Exceptional Features
In most cases, getting the most out of your web host doesn’t necessarily mean looking for the provider that has the most features to offer, or the best level of performance. Instead, it means going after the web hosting plan that has the features that are most important to your business. Ask yourself the following questions before you begin your search:
- Will you need to host multiple WordPress websites?
- Will you need to install other scripts or sub-domains in the future?
- Will your WordPress host support unlimited add-on domains without the need for extra cost?
- Do you need to pay extra for backup services?
3. A Significant Uptime Guarantee
Of course, all the features in the world won’t do you any good if you can’t rely on your web host to keep your WordPress site up and running as often as possible. The last thing any company wants is to leave their customer staring at nothing but a blank screen when they try to log onto their business website. Not only does this lose the trust of your customers, but it could also send them into the waiting arms of your competitors too.
If you want to get great results, you need to choose a WordPress host that has a good reputation for uptime and redundancy. Your site can’t be seen if you’re constantly struggling with server outages, so you’ll need an uptime that’s more than 99%.
4. Plenty of Customer Support
Customer support is often an overlooked aspect when it comes to making sure that you’re getting the best deal from your WordPress host. However, the quality of support provided by your host should tell you plenty of details about the company. If you find that the support options leave a lot to be desired, then you might not want to trust the company in question with your business. Think about whether you can contact tech support for instant help if your site suddenly goes down.
If you have support available, question whether they’ll be able to help you fix your problems as quickly as possible, or whether it might take a long time for them to deal with even the smallest issues. Before you choose a web host for your WordPress solutions, you’ll need to make sure that they have a solid reputation for customer support. Good hosting companies should provide numerous ways for you to contact them through email, phone, and chat.
5. Solid Backup and Security
As always, security is one area where you should never accept anything less than the best for your company. When it comes to getting the most out of your WordPress hosting provider, it’s important to remember that server security should always come first. At the bare minimum, your host provider should ensure that all your servers are located behind several layers of access-control and firewall systems.
At the same time, it’s worth ensuring that all your backup systems are as prompt and efficient as possible. In the case of disasters, this will make sure that your website stays online with very little downtime.
6. Plenty of Server Management Options
Server management is a very difficult area to assess. A lot of website owners aren’t very good at server management, and this can be particularly true for WordPress website owners, who want to focus on running their business, rather than dealing with maintenance issues. If you think that you don’t want to deal with the hassles of server management yourself, you should look for a hosting provider who can take care of some of the underlying issues for you.
7. Server Scalability
Even if your WordPress website is only small, to begin with, it’s important to make sure that your host is prepared for when it starts to grow. Websites go down because the incoming traffic requests exceed available resources. If you can ensure that you’ve got plenty of scalability in place with your WordPress host provider, you won’t have to worry about a panicked attempt to upgrade your services when your website starts to become more popular.
8. An Exit Strategy
Finally, even if you love everything that your WordPress host has to offer, it’s important to make sure that you understand the terms and conditions of what you need to do when you decide you want to take your business somewhere else. The last thing any company wants is to be locked into a contract with a host that can’t offer the right services for their needs.
Make sure that you have the option to take your traffic and your domain name away with you when you decide to leave your existing host environment.
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