Now with full site editing built-in, the world’s most popular website building software continues to go from strength to strength. But how do you make sure that once your website is built, it fires on all cylinders? What’s more, who’s going to help you when you have issues with your website? The answer is simple: a great WordPress website needs great hosting. Here we explain why a dedicated, managed WordPress hosting solution is your best option and what you should look for in a hosting package.
What is dedicated WordPress hosting?
WordPress is a unique software that has its own quirks and specific needs. While you can host a WordPress website on a standard shared hosting plan, dedicated WordPress hosting is designed to address the platform’s specific hosting needs.
What is managed WordPress hosting?
Managed WordPress hosting is designed to free the site’s owners from some of the major burdens and technical challenges of website management. Essentially, rather than you having to take care of server configuration, performance monitoring, server security, backups, OS updates and patching, the web host does them on your behalf. Instead, you can focus on your site’s content and running the rest of your business.
So, what should you look for in a dedicated, managed WordPress hosting package? Here are some of the things we think are most important.
1. A server optimised for WordPress
While plugins enable WordPress users to add almost limitless functionality to their websites, each plugin script you use puts additional demands on your server and this can impact website speed and performance. These, in turn, can cause users to abandon a website and affect search engine ranking.
At Webhosting UK, our WordPress hosting counters this through the provision of high-performance Intel Xeon processors and SSD drives and through optimising the server for WordPress using NGINX cache, HTTP2, PHP7+OPcache and more.
2. Reliability
Just as important as performance, is reliability. No customer expects to visit a website and find it offline, and a good hosting provider will ensure that your WordPress site is constantly available, ideally, with an uptime guarantee of 99.9%. Look for a managed hosting solution where, like at Webhosting UK, server monitoring is carried out by the host so that server issues are spotted and addressed early to prevent downtime.
3. Out of the box set up
Dedicated WordPress hosting is built around the needs of WordPress users. It should, therefore, provide you with out of the box WordPress solutions. Important features to look out for are one-click WordPress installation, pre-Installed WordPress themes and important plugins, a WordPress toolkit, free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates and free daily backups.
With these in place, everything you need to create a site quickly, get it launched and keep it secure are available at the click of a button.
4. Built-in WordPress security
Its huge popularity, together with the fact that there are tens of thousands of plugins and themes that not everyone is careful to keep updated, makes WordPress a target for hackers. A good host will know the threats that are out there and will provide the security needed to keep WordPress servers secure.
Ideally, you should look for hosting with an application firewall, including intrusion, malware, SQL injection and DDoS prevention, and OS and WordPress core patching. With these in place, your hosting is exceptionally well defended.
5. Advanced control panels
Managing your hosting easily is completely dependent on how good your control panel is. Look for advanced control panels specifically designed for WordPress, like our WordPress Toolkit. This easy to use but incredibly versatile piece of kit enables you to do all your management from a single, intuitive dashboard. As a result, it makes things like installing software, managing email, adding domains and uploading files an absolute breeze. What’s more, it’s web-based, so you can access it from your laptop, tablet or phone.
6. 24/7 technical support
24/7 technical support is essential for hosting any type of website, as you never know when an issue will arise. However, this support might not be much use if the technician at the other end of the line is clueless about the intricacies of WordPress.
At Webhosting UK, not only are we able to resolve general and complex hosting issues; we also have a dedicated team of fully trained WordPress experts that can take care of platform-specific issues for you. What’s more, if you have a WordPress hosting plan, we’ll direct you straight to the technical support team you need.
Conclusion
If you truly want to get the best out of your WordPress website and ensure that everything you need to run, manage and maintain it is in place, then a dedicated, managed WordPress hosting plan is the ideal solution. At Webhosting UK, we have listened carefully to our customers and created a WordPress hosting solution that meets the needs of the platform and of the people who use it.
For more information, visit our WordPress Hosting page.
