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How to Host a WordPress Site

Posted by admin in Blog
15
May
2015
How to Host a WordPress Site

What is WordPress?

WordPress has emerged as one of the most popular content management systems in the world, and is home to millions of blogs, personal portfolios, small business websites, and much more. WordPress is incredibly versatile, offers a range of themes and plugins for optimal appearance and performance, and really allows users to make their WordPress sites a truly unique and functional space to post content. Perhaps the most advantageous quality of the WordPress CMS is its accessibility. Even the most inexperienced users are able to navigate the platform and make easy use of its features.

uses for WordPress hosting

 

Reasons for Using WordPress

There numerous reasons individuals turn to WordPress as a content management system for publishing online content and operating a site. Most commonly, WordPress sites are used for:

  • Blogging
  • Professional creative portfolios
  • Photo galleries
  • Small business sites
  • Informative websites
  • Reviews websites
  • Personal websites

 
Keep in mind that because WordPress is such a customizable platform, there are literally thousands of ways you can leverage its features to create a site that meets your specific needs. However, WordPress is not commonly used by websites involved in e-commerce, nor is it a common platform for hosting enterprise sites or facilitating anything along the lines of cloud computing. If you're looking for high-powered hosting for expansive sites, you may be better off checking out VPS hosting providers or dedicated hosting providers.

 

Why Consider WordPress Hosting?

So why is it a good idea to find a hosting provider that specializes in WordPress hosting? Though anyone can create a WordPress site without signing up for hosting, this often isn't a recommended course of action for those seeking to get the most out of their WordPress experience. With a hosting provider that specializes in hosting WordPress sites, users find that they are able to take advantage of many key additional benefits, including:

  • Better speed and reliability
  • An opportunity for a fully-managed site
  • Additional themes and plugins
  • Automatic installations
  • Daily backups of content
  • Automatic WordPress core updates

A WordPress host is additionally able to provide far more effective technical support than a typical shared hosting provider. If a company offers a hosting package specifically for WordPress, it means they intimately understand how the platform works, and what it needs to be optimally successful.

 

What to Look for in a WordPress Host

Just because a company offers WordPress hosting, it doesn't mean they provide the best service. The field of WordPress hosting is actually quite competitive, and naturally some companies offer better service than others. As you look for a top WordPress host, consider whether or not they offer 24/7 access to live technical support. This is an important characteristic to look for in any type of hosting package, but is particularly important if you don't opt for fully managed WordPress hosting.  Should you find yourself perplexed by a technical issue, you'll want to make sure you have access to someone who can quickly and effectively resolve it.

You'll also want to seek out hosting providers that offer speed acceleration features, such as super-caches, optimized servers with powerful CPUs and hard drives, or even a content delivery network. Though you may not be running an enterprise network, WordPress sites can still be slowed by things like heavy traffic and rich or abundant content. To prevent slow load times and a less-than-ideal experience for your viewers, opt for hosts that prioritize speed.

On this same note, if you expect your WordPress site to grow rapidly in terms of size and traffic, it's a good idea to look for hosting providers that offer unlimited bandwidth and disc space as part of their hosting package. This means that regardless of how fast or how much your site grows, your hosting provider will be able to scale the resources you need accordingly.

On a technical note, all WordPress providers must be able to offer the following:

  • PHP version 5.2.4 or higher
  • MySQL version 5.0 or higher
  • Support of mod_rewrite

If they can't accommodate, they're not an ideal option for a host, simple as that.

 

Getting Started

Now that you're ready to embark on your search for an optimal WordPress host, you'll want to start by prioritizing which aspects of a hosting package will be most important to you. Will it be:

  • Monthly cost?
  • The option for managed hosting?
  • Bandwidth, RAM, and disc space?
  • Extra features like unlimited email accounts?
  • Speed accelerators?

The key to any successful search for a hosting provider is to set out with a clear idea of your top priorities. While there could be a hosting provider out there that offers exactly what you're looking for (and many can), it could also be the case that you'll need to choose between factors like low price and resource allotments.

With these priorities in mind, you can now begin comparing WordPress hosting providers. Use our WordPress host comparison chart, featured here, to view a list of some of the top WordPress hosts from around the world. This chart is interactive, which means that you can filter listed providers based on the features that are most important to you. Filter by cost, resources, server location, security features, money-back guarantees and much more.

Invest adequate time in this part of the process to determine which companies seem to show up at the top of your filtered lists most often. You may even want to use our unique speed test feature to test the average load times for various providers. Once you've narrowed down your selection to the top 3 or 4 providers, visit each company's hosting details page on our site.

best WordPress hosting companies

Compare by Customer WordPress Hosting Reviews

As you review hosting details pages for an in-depth synopsis of key features of hosting providers, be sure to read through reviews left by real customers of the provider. These authentic, objective reviews serve as an invaluable tool for selecting a WordPress hosting provider, as they can help identify a provider's strengths and weaknesses that otherwise may go undiscovered until you've already purchased a hosting package.

For example, a customer review could bring to light the fact that a hosting provider only offers a limited amount of themes and plugins, making advanced WordPress site design difficult, or perhaps the provider doesn't automatically implement core WordPress updates, and site performance is affected. Or, maybe a review details an exceptional experience with a provider who was able to afford 100% uptime and consistently fast load times thanks to adequate servers and a strong network.

In other words, our authentic customer reviews add an important dimension to a search for a WordPress host, and can offer far more insight than any visit to a provider's website could. While anyone can rate a WordPress hosting provider and write a review of their experience (even you!), we do monitor the quality of these reviews to ensure they're truly helpful to our visitors.

The Final Steps

After you've compared providers based on their features, overall rating, and customer reviews, it's time to make a final decision. If you still have questions about WordPress hosting or the reliability of a specific provider, remember that you can also reach out to our professional online consultants, who have extensive insight into WordPress hosting, for additional insight and answers.

Once you've narrowed down your choice to just one provider, you're ready to make a purchase. This can be done by linking to the provider's site directly from our hosting details page. We recommend that before any purchase, you give the provider a call and ask them explain their WordPress hosting package in detail, confirm monthly price, ask about discounts or coupons, and discuss a potential 30-day money back guarantee.  If you like what you hear, you're ready to make a purchase and begin the process of creating your site,  facilitating your automatic WordPress installation, learning about your control panel, using themes and plug-ins to design your site, and then finally, publishing content!

The Best WordPress Hosting

So who do we at PickupHost recommend for the best WordPress hosting? While there are many suitable providers, we've noted that many users find the following three WordPress providers to offer the reliable service they're looking for on a consistent basis:

InMotion Hosting is a top-tier hosting provider for all levels of hosting, and is particularly known for its accessible customer service. InMotion hosting has also been the recipient of a number of industry awards.

DreamHost offers its own unique DreamPress package for WordPress users that affords fully managed WordPress hosting on VPS and MySQL servers. Dreamhost is also known for its speed and highly competitive uptimes.

Though WebHostingHub offers just three hosting packages in total, it does stand out as a suitable WordPress hosting provider for its easy installation, highly affordable monthly price, and its unique 90-day money back guarantee policy.

Start your WordPress hosting journey with us at PickupHost today by exploring our WordPress comparison chart and reviews, testing provider speeds, or reaching out to our online consultants with any questions you may have!

 

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