WordPress hosting is a huge topic of conversation on the internet, mainly due to the significance it can 
have to the success of a website. If you choose the right hosting provider, not only will you see great improvements to the reliability and performance of your website, you should be able to gain much better SEO too.
However, when it comes to choosing the right server, it can be quite a challenge, A/B testing and deciding which is best for you. I previously use to look at reviews on the internet, such as Matthew Woodward’s hosting testing. However, I see flaws in such testing which makes me question the results of some of the tests. For this reason, sometimes it is good to see what each host provides.
On that note, I have actually (and continually) compared the top 15 WordPress hosting to see who is the best, although my results are not finalized. But, from doing this test, here are the main pointers you should take into consideration when choosing hosting.
Speed
One of the most important elements to WordPress hosting is speed. You want to make sure that the speed of your website is as quick as possible, since the speed is directly linked to UX, SEO and many more factors.
Already, just from comparing the top 15 WordPress hosts, I’ve noticed differences in speed of up to 2 seconds, making clear that there is quite a discrepancy between the best and worst hosts.
Reliability
Whilst you want speed, you want to make sure the speed is reliable too.
For example, some hosts could be lightning quick on some days, and incredible slow on other days. When traffic varies, speed could vary too – you do not want this to be the case.
For this reason, I genuinely look for the quickest host, that is consistently the quickest, making sure the up time of the website is as high as possible too.
Price
Price is hugely important for WordPress hosting, especially if you commit for onwards of years.
Between different WordPress hosting, there are differences of hundreds of dollars a month. However, do you get double the performance if you pay double the price? Not always the case.
This is why it is important to look out for the best value for money host, instead of necessarily who is the best, irrespective of cost.
Support
Having a good support team to help you through any issues is vital. When your website goes down, you want to make sure you have experts quick at hand to help you – to some extent, this is as important as the performance of the hosting itself.
Scalability
Depending on your long term plan of your website depends if this matters. Having a scalable hosting is key if you are looking to continually increase traffic.
Some hosting makes it rather awkward to upgrade (or downgrade servers), so make sure you take into consideration this (and how easy it is to do).
Extras (SSL, CDN, Staging etc.)
Many WordPress hosts incorporate other features into their plans. Such features could include:
- Free SSL certificates
- Content Delivery Network
- Staging of site to help testing
- Automatic backups
- DDoS protection
- Malware scanning and removal
- Multiple WordPress installations
For this reason, look into how much it would cost for each of the individual things above, and take that into consideration when working out value for money too.
