Cheap WordPress Hosting: Why choosing a cheap hosting provider is a temptation you should avoid
The number of hosting providers available today seems unlimited and choosing cheap WordPress hosting is tempting. If you’re trying to save money by choosing the cheapest host out there, you’ll end up costing you even more money later on.
For most businesses, a solid online presence is their lifeline, especially if their website is the main source of revenue. So then why skimp on the most critical element of it? It should come as no surprise that the foundation of a website is its host. It determines a website’s speed, uptime, and security while also influencing its search engine ranking and traffic load.
You know the old adage “you get what you pay for.” Well, it applies here too. So, when looking for a WordPress hosting provider, there are a number of things you should consider.
Top 3 Benefits of Avoiding Cheap WordPress Hosting
Benefit #1 = Speed & Uptime
Why is this important? Affects your SEO, search engine rankings and the number of visitors coming, staying and returning to your site.
How do you think these cheap WordPress hosting providers can afford to charge practically nothing? To account for their small price tag, web hosts have to herd and pack as many websites as they can on to their server. This means limited server resources for you which equates to slow load times and frequent downtime. This isn’t just annoying, it’s downright detrimental to your future growth.
Studies have shown that if a site takes longer than 3 seconds to load, 40% of visitors will leave it and 75% of visitors won’t ever return. Additionally, if your site is down the first time that potential customers try to reach it, it’s unlikely they’ll try again.
But wait, there’s more! That slow speed combined with a dwindling number of visitors damages a website’s search engine ranking meaning…. you will probably also drop off the first page of Google.
When looking for a provider, don’t even bother with ones that offer less than a 99.9% uptime guarantee and be extra wary of those that don’t disclose the limitations of their web hosting services in the first place.
Benefit #2 = Security
Why is this important? Protects your site’s and users’ data, affects your Google rankings, prevents hacking and lowers risk of downtime
Cheap WordPress hosting can actually put your business in danger. As mentioned earlier, in order to make money, these providers heedlessly jam-pack as many sites as they can onto their servers. This system pretty much ensures you’ll be sharing a server with spammers who suck up bandwidth and careless webmasters who indirectly leave you vulnerable to hackers and viruses.
Additionally, unlike more expensive hosts, the cheaper ones don’t come with daily backups, regular security scans, and patches or even include a free SSL certificate. What’s that? If you haven’t already heard, all sites need to be on HTTPS (have an SSL certificate). Why? Because it protects your site’s and users’ data by encrypting data transferred over the web which is absolutely paramount and non-negotiable if you’re an e-commerce business.
If that isn’t reason enough for you, Google now requires an SSL certificate and if you don’t have one, your ranking will drop below your competitors that do. Making sure that a website is SSL Secure is one of the most important action items that we include in the Website Tune Up Roadmap.
Benefit #3 = Technical Support
Why is this important? That’s like asking “why is a hospital important?” to someone who just broke their leg.
You’ve chosen a host and migrated your site. Everything is working fine until it isn’t. Your site is broken or not displaying properly or the content you added has disappeared.
Panicking, you scramble to find your host’s customer support line, only to be met with a contact form (and a promise that they’ll respond when they can) or an FAQ page. But don’t get me wrong, many cheap providers do have a number you can call but most of the time it’s only during certain hours because they simply don’t have and can’t afford the resources or technical staff. This means that you’ll have to squeeze in line behind a whole slew of other people trying to get their problems fixed in that condensed amount of time. So you wait helplessly and wonder where you went wrong. I think you know what I’m going to say so let’s just get to it. You chose a cheap provider instead of investing in one that offers 24/7 US-based support and a minimal wait time.
If you haven’t picked up on the running theme here, it’s that yes, you can “save” some money by choosing a cheap hosting provider but I promise you, you’ll end up costing yourself a whole lot more in lost revenue. Weren’t you listening when your wise, old grandfather told you for the one-thousandth time that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”? Roll your eyes all you want but once again, he was right.
Here’s your takeaway: when you choose a more expensive provider, it’s not just the hosting that you’re paying for, it’s the support, resources, security, and reliability. Opt for a cheap one instead and you sacrifice all that.
Our Pick — WP Engine
Ok, so you’ve made it this far and don’t want cheap WordPress hosting. You smartly agree to avoid that big, shiny “$5 per month hosting” sign that is flashing in front of you like an arrow to a brothel in Times Square. Where do you go now?
Our pick is WP Engine. Because the “WP” in WP Engine literally stands for WordPress, you know this isn’t amateur hour. As a dedicated WordPress hosting provider, its servers are optimized to run your WordPress site, making it faster, better secured and more stable. And since they have an intimate knowledge of everything WordPress, they proactively search for and stay on top of the latest WordPress security flaws and ensure your protection (so feel free to taunt the hackers on the other side of the firewall like a drunk tourist at the zoo tapping on the plexiglass that’s separating them from a salivating lion). In the small chance that you do get hacked though, WP Engine will fix it free of charge.
What else do we like? 99.99% uptime guarantee, 24/7 chat support, short waiting times (avg 1.45 min), daily backups, free SSL certificate, supercharged speed, page performance analytics and so much more.
What We Can Do For You
So why should you purchase WP Engine hosting through us when you can go directly to the source? Easy, even more benefits for HALF the price. Plus, do you really want to spend all that time migrating the site, updating everything, auditing…etc.?
We can help! Check out the Website Tune Up Roadmap. You’ll get 5 actionable tips to get more traffic, qualified leads, and sales from your website. (Don’t believe me? Try it out, and if you don’t get 300% more traffic in 30 days, I’ll pay you $100!) Plus, no design or coding skills necessary!
To your continuous success,
Hendrik
P.S. We’ll help you do all of the following when you move your WordPress website hosting to WP Engine:
- We’ll migrate your site for you
- Proactively update your WordPress version, theme and plugins for you
- Even faster performance (up to 400K visits per month)
