What Hosting Service is Best for WordPress?

Have you been for the best Wordpress web hosting for your website? Choosing the best WordPress hosting provider is more than a matter of preference and price comparison, as an excellent service provider can improve your SEO and ultimately increase sales.

After browsing online, you may be overwhelmed by the various web hosts and promotions that they offer. After all, you just want to know what hosting service is best for WordPress. Luckily, we’ll cover some of the most popular web hosts and what you should be looking for depending on your web hosting needs.

What You Should Be Looking for in a Web Host

Before we begin, it is crucial to understand just what criteria you should be looking for to fit your website. For instance, some people are just looking for cheapest available hosting service to put up a portfolio website. Others may be looking for a fully-integrated eCommerce platform that handles complex and demanding challenges, like a regularly-updated database of clients and other information.

Let’s take a glance at some of the most common criteria:

Cost: Be sure to investigate how much web hosting costs per month and per year. You may be surprised to find similar services offered by different companies. Others offer promotions that give reduced rates for new users or free trials to experience their services.

Similarly, you’ll want to look at the pricing tiers. Nearly every web host offers a type of basic plan for those who want the simplest of services to begin, but you’ll want to see what the other tiers are. Some web hosts try to funnel customers towards enterprise solutions that can be too much for basic websites, and offer significant price jumps that don’t accommodate those who are in the intermediate range. Look for those that offer similar pricing for “the next step-up”.

Type of WordPress Hosting: Nearly every web host offers WordPress as supported content-management system. However, there are a large number of WordPress hosting options available on the market. While it is beyond the scope of this article to discuss each in detail, you should look for web hosts that offer the widest variety, including shared hosting, VPS (virtual private servers), dedicated hosting, and managed WordPress hosting. This gives you the option to change your web host as your business grows.

Performance: There are a number of performance related aspects to web hosting, which can affect your SEO, uptime, load speeds, eCommerce viability, and other factors. You’ll want to regularly consult recently-held speed tests conducted by industry professionals that can break down when and why certain web hosts perform better. As the Internet continues to evolve, you’ll find that performance changes as web hosts respond to how the online landscape changes.

Some web hosts, especially tailored towards entry-level clients, may reduce their capabilities to capture the largest market share. Other web hosts may specialize in enterprise level hosting for online marketing companies that can afford their higher-rates and on-demand service.

Customer Service: Of all the criteria listed, this is the most important and non-negotiable. Look for a web host that offers guaranteed 24/7 online and offline help. Web hosts are often accessible through instant messaging services around the clock, while others go the extra mile and offer phone services so that you adequately communicate your ideas. If your desired web host doesn’t offer this service, look elsewhere.

Bear in mind that business models change and web hosts frequently change their capabilities; therefore, when selecting the best WordPress hosting service, it’s a good idea to do your research before committing. By reviewing the customer reviews, especially the negative ones, you can get a sense of whether a web host actually lives up to it’s claims and stated service.

Web Hosts Compared

Let’s take a look at some of the most popular web hosts available today:

Bluehost

One of the largest and oldests hosting companies in the world (since 1996), Bluehost has become synonymous with WordPress hosting, as they’re an official WordPress recommended hosting provider. Bluehost offers 24/7 customer service through live chat, email, and phone, so you can get your WordPress-related issues handled immediately. Bluehost also offers significant discount for new users (~60% of normal prices), which includes a free domain and site builder complete with professional templates. For those that are switching to their service, Bluehost offers a free domain transfer.

Why Choose Bluehost? They’ve been in business for over two decades for a good reason.

HostGator

Considering HostGator hosts over 8 million domains worldwide, choosing HostGator is a solid solution for WordPress users. To make your WordPress installation simple, they offer a 1-click installation that cuts out the confusion from the get-go. Their comprehensive customer service is available 24/7 support, so beginners can navigate the process of transforming their WordPress-based idea into reality trouble-free. However, HostGator doesn’t offer free domains, which may be a problem for budget conscious webmasters.

Why Choose HostGator? According to several online speed tests originating in the United States, HostGator outperformed almost every competitor with remarkable load times around 40 ms.

DreamHost

Similar to BlueHost, DreamHost has been around for a long time (18 years), and has a reputation for making web hosting easy for beginners. With this trusted reputation, you can be sure that their service is top-notch. Users get a custom and intuitive dashboard, 1-click WordPress install (like HostGator), automated WordPress updates, as well as the options for unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth. Considering that over 600,000 websites are hosted by DreamHost, you’ll find the best WordPress support through their hosting service. To ensure that you’re satisfied with their service, DreamHost offers a free trial period during the first 97 days. If you’re unsatisfied with their services (not likely), you can get a refund through their money-back guarantee. Last, DreamHost offers $100 for Google Adwords, which can jumpstart your business’ advertising efforts once you’re up and running.

Why Choose DreamHost? The DreamHost dashboard is simplified and no nonsense, which won’t overwhelm those who just want a WordPress-hosted website up in the shortest amount of time.

Host4Geeks

Founded almost a decade ago, Host4Geeks has been highly renowned for their managed service offerings. They take the pain out of managing the infrastructure for your website and online businesses that too at a very affordable price point. We have personally used their cpanel managed vps services and have nothing but good things to say about them. They are highly rated all across the web with 5 star reviews on trustpilot among other review sites.

Why Choose Host4Geeks? 10 years of experience in the managed services industry along with the star studded support team all of this at an unbeatable price point.

Conclusion

As you can see there are many good options for hosting your wordpress site, and these are just a few of them, but we’ve barely scratched the surface.