WordPress hosting comes in all shapes and sizes and finding the right solution for your website can be a baffling experience. Today, with the additional benefits of SSD storage, WordPress hosting has moved on apace and to help you make a more informed decision about the right choice, we’ll look at the key features you should be looking for from a hosting provider.
WordPress with SSD
There’s a huge difference between traditional hard drive and SSD based hosting. As a solid state drive, SSDs have no moving parts and this makes them far less susceptible than HDDs to failure. Websites hosted on a server with an SSD, therefore, are far more reliable and have a reduced risk of downtime or data loss. As a result, you have a far more dependable hosting solution, with some hosts, like WHUK, guaranteeing uptime of 99.9%.
The other significant advantage of SSDs is that they are blisteringly fast. This vastly improves the performance of your website, enabling it to load faster on users’ devices and respond quicker to any interactions, like clicks or data inputs. As slow loading is one of the major causes of site abandonment, choosing SSD-powered hosting can considerably improve your conversion rates. It is widely acknowledged that even a one second improvement in loading time can increase conversions by as much as 7%.
On top of this is the fact that, the faster your site loads, the better it can rank in search engine results. Google uses site speed as one of its ranking factors for both desktop and mobile searches. Moving to WordPress hosting with SSD can, therefore, result in a major increase in traffic.
WordPress optimised servers
Apart from SSDs, the other chief feature you should be looking for in a WordPress hosting solution is that the server is optimised for WordPress. WordPress sites, with their multitude of plugins, can be naturally slow and standard shared hosting servers aren’t always ideal for them.
A WordPress optimised server will provide high spec technology, such as Xeon processors and SSDs together with a software platform that makes use of the latest caching technology to provide lightning-fast response times.
WordPress hardening security
WordPress’ popularity means it’s often targeted by cybercriminals and a good WordPress hosting solution will have security features that are built for the needs of the platform. Look for advanced anti-hacking technology in the form of the latest firewalls that are configured for WordPress and which detect and repel cyberattacks.
At the same time, you will need a host that provides solutions such as SSL certificates, for secure online transactions; email certificates to encrypt and verify your emails; spam filters that prevent phishing and malware containing emails arriving in your inbox and, to prevent data loss, free daily backups so, should the worst happen, your website and all its data can be quickly restored.
User-friendly features
Running a website can be challenging and a good WordPress hosting package will provide tools to make this as easy as possible. This begins with a web-based, user-friendly control panel, like cPanel, that can be accessed on any device with a connection. This should make it a breeze to update WordPress software, install plugins and themes, manage your email, add domains and upload files anywhere and at any time.
At the same time, the control panel or toolkit should enable owners to clone sites for testing and create development environments where they can check the compatibility of new plugins and themes. The ability to create snapshots, so that older versions of your website can be restored if your updates don’t go to plan, is another helpful feature to look for.
Other helpful attributes include having WordPress and themes pre-installed on your server and free migration assistance if you are moving from another host.
24/7 expert technical support
Some of the more technical aspects of running a WordPress website can be challenging and, occasionally, users can find themselves out of their depth. It is paramount, therefore, that any hosting provider you choose offers 24/7 technical support as part of their package. This will give you much peace of mind knowing that, if an issue happens, a WordPress expert will be on hand to help you put things right, no matter what day or time.
Conclusion
WordPress is an excellent platform for running professional websites of all kinds. It does, however, have its own quirks which means it has specific needs when it comes to hosting. This means that, ideally, you should look for an SSD-based WordPress hosting package that is optimised for the platform and provides essential security, is packed with ‘ease of use’ features and comes with 24/7 technical support.
For more information about SSD-based WordPress hosting, visit our WordPress Hosting page.
