WordPress is a wonderfully lightweight and versatile platform for website development. Its barebones minimum requirements mean that it can be run on almost any web server and consequently there are innumerable web hosts to choose from. This is great in terms of offering website owners a greater degree of choice over who they choose to host their website, however, it also means that there is a lot more to think about when trying to decide on a suitable WordPress host.
If this is your first time choosing a web host then you will need to familiarize yourself with a whole world of new terminology and be prepared to learn quickly on your feet. Before you can start looking at WordPress hosts, you need to decide exactly what it is that your website will require. What sort of website is it? Is it a website for your business? Or is it a dedicated e-commerce site? The type of website you are running will affect your considerations.
Everyone’s requirements will be slightly different, but these five considerations are things that everyone needs to keep in mind when making their decision.
Speed and Performance
In order to provide your audience with the best quality web browsing experience, you will need a website which is supported by a server running the best hardware available. When looking at different hosts you should try and find the precise specs of the server that you are looking at. Pay attention to the memory (RAM), the processor (CPU) and the amount of storage space (ON HDDs and SSDs) which will be available to you.
The amount of Ram and CPU usage that your website will require depends entirely on the type of website that you will be running, as well as the usual makeup of your visitors. If your website, for example, is one that creates viral content and regularly welcomes a large volume of traffic, then the most basic hosting packages aren’t going to cut it for you. Similarly, if your website is prone to large spikes in traffic at particular times then make sure that you have the headroom to handle the extra capacity.
Transfer Speeds
The amount of disk space you have shouldn’t usually matter, after all, many hosts offer websites unlimited disk space. What really counts is the speed with which the host can serve up information from those hard disks to the user. You want to choose a host that offers low transfer speeds, even under high load websites that need to use an extra Content delivery network service to speed up their website other then their hosting services.
Support
The importance of support as a consideration will depend a great deal on how familiar you already are with WordPress and hosting in general. Those with less experience will definitely want to make sure that the host they choose offers comprehensive 24-hour live support. Among the biggest WordPress hosts, this kind of tech support is becoming the standard.
However, for even the most experienced website owner, there is always the possibility of something going wrong suddenly and unexpectedly and you want to be as well prepared for this as you can be. You should scout out potential web hosts for the level of support that they offer with their hosting packages.
Up Time
Up time refers simply to the amount of time that your website is available – or up – for external visitors. Most services will guarantee an uptime of at least 99.5%, many advertise higher, some advertise just at 99%. As long as you are seeing a clear 99%, and the WordPress hosting service makes mention of redundancies for when something goes wrong, then you can be sure of good up time.
The Type of Hosting
There are 4 different types of hosting service that someone starting a WordPress site can choose from, so you will need to decide which is the best for you:
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is the cheapest variety. If you’re looking at a free hosting plan then it will almost certainly be shared with other websites. For small websites without much traffic, shared hosting is a great solution. If you have children who want to learn web design, for example, shared hosting allows them to put their website on the internet and see it.
VPS
A virtual private server essentially gives you a dedicated slice of a larger server. It is the same principle as shared hosting, but each individual receives more space and resources.
Dedicated Hosting
With dedicated hosting you will receive an entire server to yourself. It is the most expensive option and is only really suited to big businesses and extremely high traffic.
Managed WordPress Hosting
This is the best option for those who are new to running a website. Under a managed hosting plan, someone at the company will take care of all the technical stuff, you will only have to worry about creating content.
According to WordPress SEO agency SEOKRU These are most basic options that you need to lookout for when selecting a WordPress hosting service and will have an effect on your future website performance, speed, SEO search rankings, ROI and conversions.
