Choosing the Best Hosting Provider for Your WordPress Website

Your business website is a marketing tool, a sales channel, a way of introducing people to your products and services, and much more. While you spend a ton of resources designing and optimizing it, everything seems meaningless if you choose the wrong hosting provider. 

While choosing a hosting provider for your WordPress website, you need to consider several factors including pricing, customer support, speed, and several other components. When you outsource WordPress development, the development company streamlines the entire process by designing an excellent website and keeping it snappy by hosting it on a reliable and reputable hosting provider. 

Tips from a custom WordPress development company to choose the best hosting provider:

1. Figure out what type of hosting works for you

WordPress hosting is an umbrella term that includes different types of hosting providers. These include:

• Shared Hosting: The most affordable option where you share a server with other clients
• Dedicated hosting: You lease out an entire server for your website. It costs a lot more. 
• Cloud Hosting: Your website is hosted on multiple servers and hence it is faster than shared hosting
• Managed Hosting: Server-side caching with upgraded hardware and robust security. The most expensive hosting option. 
• VPS Hosting: Shared hosting with dedicated resources like storage and RAM 
• Reseller Hosting: With reseller hosting, a client leases an entire server and then rents out space in it to other clients.

If you are a freelancer who uses his website as a portfolio for clients, cheap shared hosting may be enough for you. On the other hand, online stores that depend on sales must choose dedicated or managed hosting to reduce bounce rates, limit loss in sales volume, and keep their customer happy. 

2. Prioritize security

Small business owners are often tempted by low subscription costs and choose hosting providers that provide poor security. Security should never be an afterthought since you may compromise sensitive client data and lose customer trust in your website. When choosing a new hosting provider make sure you get:

• A solid network protocol like Secure Socket Shell(SSH) that comes with a strong password authentication system
• Active malware detection and removal
• DDoS(Distributed denial-of-service) Protection and CDN(Content Distribution Network) support
• Web Application Firewalls(WAF)

3. Focus on performance 

Performance is arguably the most important factor when choosing a WordPress website. Internet users have a very short attention span. Your users won’t wait more than a couple of seconds for your website to load. There are two ways to achieve that:

• You can hire a WordPress developer in India to optimize your website for an affordable price
• Transfer your site to a high-performance hosting provider

Make sure to choose a plan that can handle estimated peak traffic to your website and provide all of your customers with a smooth experience. If your business is gaining popularity and that’s translating to consistent growth in website traffic, consider upgrading your hosting plan. 

4. Choose a provider that offers scalability

Migrating hosts is a tall order. From plugin incompatibility to other headaches, you’ll run into numerous issues. That’s why you need to make your choice count. Think about the big picture instead of prioritizing short-term gains. Right now, you may have a small operation that you’re running with your partner. 

It’s tempting to buy a shared hosting plan from the cheapest provider that barely gets the job done. However, as your business grows and website traffic increases, your website must scale along with it. Choose a host that lets you scale effortlessly by opting for a higher-tiered plan. If you're already stuck with a bad host and thinking of switching to a better one, getting a dedicated WordPress developer can make the process smoother and reduce downtime. 

5. Pricing and Customer support

Even if hosting plans are a small fraction of your operation costs, it’s important to get the most bang for your buck. The hosting costs are going to increase steadily as your business grows and that’s why it’s important to get the most bang for your buck. Compare all your options and make sure that you get the most features for your budget. 

Customer service is also important when choosing a host. You’ll need to rely on them when you eventually run into some issues. It may be a caching error, payment issues, theme incompatibility, or something else. The hosting provider should provide 24x7 customer service and help you get your site back online as soon as possible. If you’re on the lookout for an offshore web development company with a reputation for incredible customer support, choose Digital Concepts. 

There are lots of top-notch hosting providers out there, which can make picking the right one a bit tricky. Follow the tips above to make a smart choice that's a perfect match for your needs. Don’t forget to account for future growth while choosing a host either.