Famous artist Andy Warhol once said that in the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. With the advent of blogging and social media, those words became very prescient. However, it’s impossible to achieve those fifteen minutes of fame if you’re constantly bogged down in the minutiae of running your website.
It’s 2021- outsourcing, automation, and efficiency are the name of the game. Not sure how to accomplish this? WordPress hosting can help you! Here’s how.
What Is WordPress Hosting?
If you’ve chosen WordPress as your blog’s platform, you may be wondering what WordPress hosting is. A WordPress hosting service can help optimize your site so that it runs well with WordPress’s security or performance requirements. It can also simplify the installation process and help keep your software up-to-date.
So, what can WordPress hosting help with? In summary, everything related to the system administration side of things. This means that you can focus on what you do best; creating content.
Types of Hosting
Now that you understand what WordPress hosting is, it’s time we discussed the different types of hosting available. In general, there are three types of WordPress hosting. These include DIY hosting, shared hosting, and managed to host. Below, we discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each.
What Is DIY Hosting?
DIY hosting is, as the abbreviation would suggest, ‘do-it-yourself hosting’. In essence, you handle all of the tasks a hosting service would yourself. This means that everything about the site, from security to backups to creation, rests in your capable hands.
Benefits of DIY Hosting
The biggest benefit to DIY hosting is that you have full administrative and creative control over your blog. You don’t have to field plugins through a third party to get them approved, and you have full root access to the website. This means that you can dig deep into the code and customize things just the way you want them.
It can also save you some money since you won’t have to pay for a third party to manage your website for you. Many barebone or virtual private servers offer plans for as little as five dollars a month or less.
Drawbacks of DIY Hosting
Sadly, having total creative control and root access can cut both ways. If you don’t know how to code well, then you can easily break your entire website while fixing a simple error. Hope you enjoy fixing things that break!
Additionally, you are the only person handling every single administrative task on the website. This includes backups, updating your website to patch security issues, and locking down the website in the event of a data hack.
What Is Shared Hosting?
Shared hosting is among the cheapest web hosting options that you can use, aside from DIY hosting. Shared hosting means that your website shares a main server’s resources with other websites on that same server.
Benefits of Shared Hosting
A major benefit of shared hosting is the price. As mentioned above, it’s the cheapest option available on the market short of handling everything yourself. It also lets you use built-in email hosting, rather than having to construct an external email address to link with the site.
Many of these sites also offer ‘unlimited’ or nearly unlimited services. However, as anyone with an ‘unlimited’ data phone plan knows, that doesn’t actually mean that it has no limits.
Drawbacks of Shared Hosting
One massive drawback to shared hosting is, like many cable TV and cell phone companies, they pull you in with low costs. Then, after about two or three years, your prices skyrocket.
Your site could also get shut off by the main host if it eats too many resources. Additionally, if the main server gets overloaded, your blog could wind up going down as a result. You’ll also have to handle all the optimization processes to make sure your site runs well on WordPress.
What Is Managed Hosting?
When you ask for the best hosting for WordPress, most sites will direct you to those with managed hosting. When we defined WordPress hosting above, that referred to specifically managed WordPress hosting or hosting optimized with WordPress in mind.
Benefits of Managed Hosting
When you use a managed hosting service, your site is automatically optimized to run well on WordPress. This means faster load times, increased security, and better resilience to traffic increases. (So, if you’ve been taking courses on how to increase WordPress blog traffic, you won’t suffer for the lessons paying off!)
However, the biggest benefit to managed hosting is the peace of mind that comes from having a team of experts at your back.
Your website down? They’ll handle it. Need to update the security protocols? No need to worry about that yourself, as they do it for you. Running into a bug that you can’t squash? Your host is knowledgeable about WordPress and can help you fix it.
Drawbacks of Managed Hosting
Sadly, managed hosting has some drawbacks, with the biggest one being its price point. Managed hosting services are a premium option, so you can expect to pay premium prices for them. Additionally, your host may ban the use of certain themes or plugins, which limits your creative control over the site.
You’ll also have to create your own separate email, as many managed WordPress hosting services do not have the option for a you@yoursite.com address. This can lead to extra expenses.
Back to Blogging Basics
Figuring out how to host your website can be a difficult process. However, managed WordPress hosting is the superior option, as your site will be pre-optimized for your platform. You won’t have to handle all of the administrative tasks alone, which as stated above, frees you to focus on creating quality, SEO-friendly content that will boost your page rankings right to the top!
If you found this article about WordPress hosting helpful and would like to read more content to boost your blog to the stratosphere, check out the Technology section of our blog for more content like this!
