Websites are similar to dogs in that they should all have a nice, well-maintained house. Your hosting provider is your house in this scenario, and we aim to address the following in this blog post: Is managed WordPress hosting the best home for your website?
Especially when you first start out as a website owner, you may have a lot of queries concerning hosting. You should educate yourself on it and possibly wonder what kind of hosting is best for you. Perhaps you're wondering if WordPress.com is a suitable fit for your requirements.
We will address each of the aforementioned points in-depth in this post to ensure that your site receives the habitat it is entitled to. You will discover what managed WordPress hosting is, how it varies from self-hosted WordPress and other hosting options, and why you should think about using WordPress.com as your hosting provider. Ultimately, we want you to be certain that you are giving your website the best possible care and attention by placing it in the ideal setting.
Managed WordPress Hosting: What Is It?
There are many small details involved in maintaining a website. A online presence is made up of numerous moving components that must continue to cooperate in order for it to function properly. Examples include security and backups, optimizing speed, and updating WordPress and its component software.
Put succinctly, it can be difficult.
Most of these routine duties are handled by managed WordPress hosting, saving you the trouble. Now that the technical details are taken care of, you can devote all of your attention to content creation, website marketing, and customer service.
Advantages of WordPress Management Hosting
Working with a hosting company that specializes on a single platform has several benefits. Performance and speed rank first among them.
Although WordPress may be hosted on practically any type of server configuration, managed hosting provides an environment that is specifically designed to handle the platform. This translates to quicker loading times, which are crucial for both SEO and user experience. Furthermore, compared to alternative hosting options, managed WordPress hosting typically scales more effectively. Positive news as your website expands!
Furthermore, you receive far superior assistance from managed hosting services since they concentrate solely on using one system. Because traditional hosts serve a diverse clientele with a wide range of needs, support staff must be masters of many trades.
On the other hand, you just need to provide customer assistance for a single system when using managed hosting. Because of this, the support staff has far greater expertise with the software that powers your website. This implies that you have a higher chance of them being able to assist you in troubleshooting your issues.
Lastly, free SSL certificates, easy staging site setup, and personalized hosting dashboards are just a few of the other advantages that managed WordPress hosting frequently offers.
In summary, you get tailored service with the sole objective of assisting the success of your WordPress-based website, as opposed to the absolute minimum required for operating your website. It's similar to always having a system administrator by your side to handle the background work so you can focus on more crucial responsibilities. That's precisely the goal of WordPress.com's managed WordPress hosting solution.
What Other Website Hosting Options Are There?
You certainly want to examine your alternatives before determining if managed WordPress hosting is the best solution for you. Together with VPS and Cloud, the two primary forms of hosting are dedicated and shared. This is their main focus.
Distributed Web Hosting
The arrangement of this kind of hosting gives rise to its name. When you use shared hosting, your website is housed on a server with dozens or even hundreds of other websites that share the same RAM, processing power, and other resources.
This has the advantage of being inexpensive shared hosting. Shared providers don't have to charge as much because it saves money to use servers for multiple clients at once.
On the other hand, its biggest flaw is also the shared setup. There are occasions when not enough server resources are available since they are shared among so many different parties. The other websites must make due with what's left over if one site experiences a spike in traffic and uses up all of the server's resources.
The end result is frequently poor performance, including slow loading times and site outages. That's not a very effective method to handle customers and company.
On shared servers, security might also be a problem. Everyone on a website may be at risk if it is hacked and the hacker has access to the server. For this reason, the term "bad neighbor effect" is frequently used in reference to shared hosting.
Ultimately, shared hosting must accommodate a wide range of configurations and user requirements. As a result, neither the server configuration nor the support are tailored to any particular kind of website.
Personalized Web Hosting
You have dedicated hosting, which is at the other end of the scale. Here, your website has its own whole server with all of its processing power. There are no performance bottlenecks because you don't have to split anything with anyone.
You also have a great deal of influence over how a server is configured when you own one. Choosing the right hardware and software allows you to fully customize it for the functionality of your own website.
Of course, there are drawbacks as well. First of all, maintaining a dedicated server of your own has a cost. Second, in order to manage it, you must possess the necessary knowledge. Since you have complete control over the server, it is crucial that you understand how to use it.
Yes, there are managed dedicated servers as well, in which case management and maintenance are handled by the hosting company. But as you may expect, that just drives up the cost.
Hosting for Virtual Private Servers (VPS)
The difference between dedicated and shared hosting is minimal with VPS hosting. Although there are typically far fewer websites using the same server as you, they are all virtual machines.
The latter indicates that every site is allocated specific resources that it is not permitted to exceed. As you may expect, this provides greater stability and eliminates many of the issues with unsavory neighbors that arise with shared hosting.
You also have more control over what is on your server when you use a VPS. It is more up to you to choose what programs to run, what applications to install, etc. Additionally, it provides some flexibility in terms of available resources in case you require additional performance at any time. It is still constrained by the capabilities of the actual server as a whole, though.
The drawbacks of this kind of hosting are almost identical to those of a dedicated server. You still have a responsibility to manage and maintain the system, and you need to be technically proficient. Unless, of course, you choose to pay for the managed version.
Hosting in the Cloud
In a sense, this kind is the bigger brother of VPS hosting. In this case as well, your website is hosted on a virtual computer. Instead of just one machine, this one can access a multitude of (distributed) servers. This gives you additional protection against malfunction and outage because the servers don't even need to be in the same place.
Furthermore, you may rapidly scale up or down the resources you utilize based on your demands, which is the fundamental advantage of cloud hosting. When you only pay for what you really use, this is an excellent approach to manage costs while accommodating periods of high traffic.
However, depending on what your provider offers, you have fewer customization possibilities when using a cloud arrangement. Furthermore, this kind of hosting is susceptible to outages in the event of a connection issue due to its highly dependant operation. Furthermore, cloud hosting requires a unique skill set and can result in unnecessarily high costs if resources are not used effectively.
What's the difference between self-hosted WordPress and WordPress.com?
In addition to other hosting choices, "self-hosted WordPress" is a term you may have encountered frequently in your study, particularly in relation to a website hosted on WordPress.com. It's also possible that you've read that self-hosting your website offers more features than WordPress.com. Let's address these two points.
Handle It Yourself vs. Have It Done for You
A self-hosted WordPress website and one hosted by WordPress.com share the same software, which is the first thing you should know. WordPress is an Open Source content management system (CMS) that can be downloaded for free from WordPress.org. It was created by a large volunteer community to assist anyone in creating their own website.
The type of hosting is the primary distinction between WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress. When software is downloaded from WordPress.org and installed on the server of a preferred hosting company, it is referred to as "self-hosted."
This include setting up a database and granting access, using FTP to upload the WordPress files to the server, and installing WordPress (though many providers now also offer automatic one-click installations).
After setting up self-hosted WordPress, you are in charge of all previously mentioned maintenance tasks for your website. Everything else, including database management, spam prevention, speed, security, and backups, needs to be taken care of. everything aside from what you must do to expand your website and company.
You also get a WordPress-built website when you register with WordPress.com. Nevertheless, you are not involved in any of the technical setup, unlike self-hosted choices. You never have to lift a finger because everything hosting-related, including the previously mentioned maintenance duties, is handled for you. Making your website the best it can be is all that matters to you.
Which Is Superior?
Here, it's critical to remember that one is not inherently superior or inferior. All they are two distinct configurations for two distinct purposes. While some people are content to rely on outside assistance, others enjoy creating their complete website from scratch.
If establishing a website is like building a house, then with self-hosted WordPress, all you have to do is buy the land. You are responsible for constructing the actual house, installing the plumbing and electrical, shingling the roof, etc.
On the other hand, if you utilize managed WordPress hosting, such as that offered by WordPress.com, your home is already constructed and you have a maintenance firm that ensures everything is kept in excellent condition. All you have to do is furnish it and decorate it the way you want.
It's up to you which one you like more. Of course, there are more specifics to talk about; our comparison of WordPress.com and WordPress.org contains more information on this topic.
Why Is WordPress.com a Better Choice for Managed Hosting?
Let's define managed WordPress hosting first, and then discuss the benefits of using WordPress.com as your provider.
Speed-Tuned Hosting Infrastructure
As previously said, a website's speed is a critical component of its success. Consumers are impatient and will rapidly abandon a website that takes too long to load. Because of this, search engines consider site speed when assigning rankings. For this reason, WordPress.com offers an optimized setup that ensures the quickest possible page load time:
several layers of caching
Integrated content delivery network (CDN) helps ensure that visitors access your site's contents from a nearby server.
Performance-optimized website themes.
Plugins that optimize speed for plans with plugin support include Page Optimize and Jetpack CDN.
There are numerous support articles that provide recommended practices to adhere to so that your website loads quickly. This is where you can begin.
Thanks to all of the aforementioned considerations, WordPress.com has been named the fastest host of 2022. Similarly, we can assist you.
Cutting Edge Security
Another major concern for website owners is security. There are few things worse than discovering that your website has been compromised, compromised with malware, vandalized, or even taken down.
What we do to safeguard your website is as follows:
- By default, encrypt all website traffic using SSL.
- Keep your firewalls up to date to prevent malicious traffic and lessen DDoS attacks.
- Provide data recovery and backups automatically.
- Track website traffic and identify any attempts by unauthorized users to log into WordPress.com accounts.
However, you should be conscious that a large portion of website security is based on the user. It is often preventable by taking simple precautions like choosing a strong password and restricting access to your WordPress website. Find out more about it by going here.
Controlled Updates for WordPress
Updating the software that powers your website is another crucial security precaution. WordPress updates are immediately uploaded to your site on WordPress.com because they include critical bug and security fixes. You don't need to do anything.
In this manner, you will always take advantage of the most recent security updates. However, bear in mind that if you have a Business or eCommerce plan (or any other account that allows plugins), it is your responsibility to ensure that your plugins are kept up to date (though auto updates are an option as well).
Further details on this are available in our assistance area.
Included by Default Is Jetpack
A WordPress plugin called Jetpack has modules for a wide range of functions. You may enhance your website in many ways, ranging from spam prevention and backups to performance optimization and lazy loading for photos, extra blocks, and contact forms.
For this reason, all WordPress.com websites have access to the following features:
- Tracking website activity to find out who is doing what on your website.
- Enhanced website speed thanks to WordPress.com's ad-free video hosting, lazy picture loading, and the Site Accelerator.
- With the help of millions of websites' anti-spam plugin Akismet, you may filter spam from your comment section.
- Brute force protection for logins and monitoring of downtime.
- publishing stuff to social media profiles automatically.
- With paid programs, you also get the following advantages:
- Using VaultPress for automated backups and restores.
Jetpack SEO tools let you customize your content title structure, add meta descriptions to your pages, and make social media share previews.
Automated Content Editing
For your pages and articles, revisions are similar to save games. They offer snippets of previous iterations of your material that you can access whenever necessary.
To ensure that nothing is lost, WordPress.com automatically saves your content as you work on it. We can store the editor content in your browser so you can retrieve it if you need to reload, even if your Internet connection drops out in the middle of the process.
Whenever you manually save or update a page or post on WordPress.com, it will also generate online revisions and save the last 25 of them. For eCommerce or Business plans, we even save the last 100. With these in place, you can restore content in part or in full by comparing it to earlier editions. You may read more about it here.
An Unrestricted Area for Annual Plans
A domain is similar to a house's address if hosting is comparable to the piece of land on which it is to be built. It makes it possible for those who wish to come see you to locate you.
WordPress.com offers free domain registration for the first year with any premium annual plan, in addition to assisting you in finding and purchasing a domain. Additionally, it comes with powerful DNS features, privacy protection, and an SSL certificate, all of which you can manage from the domain dashboard.
Lots of Storage
You get 1 GB of space on WordPress.com for your website and media assets when you sign up for a free account. You get 6 GB with a Personal plan, 13 GB with a Premium plan, and 50 GB with a Business and eCommerce plan.
Additionally, you can only post image files on the Free plan; audio and zip files can be uploaded on higher levels. Lastly, clients that subscribe to eCommerce, Business, and Premium plans can also post videos.
Capability to Utilize Plugins and Themes
The core components of the WordPress experience are themes and plugins. With just a few clicks, you can add whatever features you require, improve functionality, and completely alter the look of your website.
Numerous free WordPress.com themes are available to you on the Free and Personal plans. You can utilize Premium designs as well, starting with Premium. You can also install plugins on your WordPress.com site and upload your own third-party themes if you're a Business or eCommerce client.
However, it's crucial to remember that not every plugin listed in the WordPress directory can be used with WordPress.com. This is primarily due to the fact that some of them are superfluous.
For instance, as was previously noted, we have our own caching technologies in place on WordPress.com. Because of this, adding another cache plugin would a) not speed up your website and b) perhaps lead to problems.
Apart from that, certain plugins are prohibited since we naturally wish to avoid them as they are known to create errors in the WordPress.com environment.
Developer Resources at Your Disposal
More technically inclined customers frequently prefer to manage their sites using command line tools rather than the WordPress Admin interface.
Once you are familiar with them, you can interact with your site considerably more quickly, for example, by performing many actions at once, like installing various plugins simultaneously. This can greatly improve the efficiency and streamline daily maintenance and management as well as the development process.
WordPress.com allows you to connect to your site via SSH as well as WP-CLI access in order to accommodate that. Setting up your credentials and using shell commands to handle users, themes, plugins, site settings, content, and more is simple.
The WordAds Network's accessibility
Our WordAds network is available to users on the eCommerce, Business, and Premium plans. It enables you to add adverts to your website and get money from impressions and clicks. Ad networks from outside the company, such as Google, Facebook, AOL, and others, serve them.
This is readily enabled using the WP Admin Tools menu, where you can also adjust the visibility and placement of the ads.
Earnings are automatically transferred to your PayPal account and show up in the dashboard.
How to Use WordPress.com to Get Started
Starting is quite simple if you decide WordPress.com is the best hosting company for you. Viewing our plans is the first step.
We have many solutions to suit a range of needs and price points. To get your feet wet, you can even begin with a free plan and increase as you go.
We offer a ton of step-by-step instructional content to assist you get started if you are brand-new to the WordPress environment. To answer all of your questions and to explain everything you need to know about creating a successful website, we offer webinars, online courses, articles, support manuals, and even a support forum. For additional advice, visit our YouTube channel as well.
Lastly, migrating an existing WordPress website to WordPress.com is a fairly simple process. To assist you in doing so, we have a procedure that is mainly automated. All you have to do is set up a few settings and install and activate Jetpack on both your new and old websites. The remainder occurs on its own.
Are You Prepared for WordPress Managed Hosting?
A decent house is worthy of any WordPress website. Even though the WordPress platform has very basic requirements, the extra features your hosting provides beyond just server space can have a significant impact on how well your users interact with it.
Managed WordPress hosting provides the most hands-off experience of all the solutions. Many of the routine duties associated with maintaining a website are neglected when using a hosting company like WordPress.com. This gives you more time and energy to devote to higher-impact projects that can advance your company.
You ought to know by now what managed WordPress hosting is, how it's different from self-hosted WordPress, and other hosting options. We have also argued why WordPress.com is an excellent choice for your managed WordPress requirements. We would be delighted to have you join us if you choose to give us a try!
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