Choosing a web hosting plan can be as confusing as selecting a cell phone plan. How much data do you need, and which type of web hosting is best for you? While the perfect cell phone plan remains elusive, fortunately, the advantages of WordPress hosting make managed hosting the best option for most WordPress websites.
In this post, we’ll review the types of website hosting and the specific advantages of WordPress hosting.
Types of Web Hosting
WordPress is a versatile and popular content management system. Website owners can run a WordPress site on a variety of different types and configurations of hosts.
The most common types of hosting services for WordPress websites are:
- Shared Hosting. Shared hosting plans house several websites on one server. The sites all share memory, processing, and bandwidth. While these plans are often the cheapest, you can experience poor performance. If another site hosted on the same server has an influx in traffic, your website could slow down.
- VPS Hosting. Virtual Private Servers solve some challenges of shared hosting. Several sites share one server, but each site runs in its own virtual environment with dedicated resources. The structure limits the bleed-over impact of issues with other sites. VPS provides more control over the server and comes at a higher price.
- Dedicated Hosting. If you want a guarantee that other sites will not impact your site’s performance, a dedicated hosting plan allows you to use the entire web server exclusively for your site. For most small to medium-sized businesses, the cost of dedicated hosting outweighs the benefits.
- Cloud Hosting. Using cloud hosting solves many of the limitations of traditional hosting plans. Instead of your website running from one physical server, it runs on several servers. Cloud hosting providers have data centers all around the world. Your site runs off a virtual server supported by a network of data centers. Cloud-hosted sites can instantly scale. So, if there is a large influx of traffic, your site can start using more resources and scale down when traffic subsides.
- Managed WordPress Hosting. Managed hosting services provide infrastructure and customer support. The host often installs WordPress and optimizes the server to perform best for WordPress.
5 Advantages of WordPress Hosting
In our post on whether WordPress hosting is worth it, we explained that managed WordPress plans offer better performance and features for most WordPress websites. Most businesses can meet all their hosting needs with a managed WordPress hosting plan. Review the advantages below to discover why we recommend managed hosting for new WordPress sites.
1. Ease of Use and Optimization
With a managed WordPress host, installing and setting up a WordPress site takes a couple of minutes. Most hosts provide a guided wizard for installation and configuration. Just answer a few questions, and you’ll have a blank WordPress site ready to edit.
The ease of use also carries over to server optimization. The web host makes sure all the server configurations match best practices for WordPress optimization.
2. Automatic Updates
If you’re the type of person who always clicks “remind me tomorrow” when your computer asks if you want to upgrade your operating system, you’ll want to consider using a managed WordPress hosting service. Part of the managed service includes automatic updates to your WordPress system and any plugins. Keeping your system and plugins up-to-date helps prevent WordPress security breaches.
3. Security
WordPress is the most popular content management system and runs nearly 40% of websites on the internet. The widespread use of the system makes it a popular target for attacks. If you’re wondering if WordPress is secure, the answer is yes — if you follow the best practices. Managed WordPress hosting includes automatic updates and additional security protection to prevent unauthorized access to your site’s backend.
4. Speed
Since managed WordPress hosting services optimize their web servers for WordPress, sites often perform better than on cheaper shared hosting plans. If your site suddenly slows down, consider upgrading from shared to managed hosting.
Managed hosting plans often include additional speed-boosting features like image optimization and content delivery networks.
5. Self-Service Tools
Managed WordPress hosting plans also provide easy self-service access to server tools, so you can complete tasks like flushing your cache. Most plans also include automatic support for setting up staging sites and pushing changes from staging to production.
WordPress Hosting by Nexcess
Nexcess’ managed WordPress hosting plans deliver excellent results at affordable prices. Our WordPress experts are ready to help get your site up and running.
Advantages of WordPress hosting by Nexcess include:
- Advanced Features for Faster Sites. We include premium image compression, a built-in CDN, and advanced caching so your site loads fast every time.
- Automatic Updates. We offer worry-free automatic plugin updates with visual comparisons.
- No Hidden Fees. You don’t have to worry about overage fees, traffic limits, or metered pageviews.
- Free Migrations. Move your existing site to our hosting plans with our free migration service.
- Premium Support and Security. Always-on security monitoring and 24/7 support from our WordPress experts ensure your site always runs smoothly.
Check out our fully managed WordPress hosting plans today.