Common Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing A WordPress Hosting
Web hosting is a key element of every website that thrives. Finding the right hosting can influence your website’s speed, Google ranking, or the quality of the user’s experience it brings. So, before you create the first WordPress blog post, take some time and inform on each hosting type and its features. Although there are various great cheap WordPress hosting, only one of them can perfectly match your needs and help you grow your business with ease. We recommend you to inform about server speed, the storage capacity, and control options before deciding on one. Whether you decide on shared hosting, VPS hosting plan or go with dedicated and cloud hosting offer, carefully analyze the benefits and disadvantages of each option. If you’re not quite sure what WordPress hosting type is ideal for your website’s needs, check out what WordPress experts find most important. In this article, we spoke with the owners of hosting companies, digital marketers and SEO consultants who shared their thoughts on the most common mistakes people make when choosing a WordPress hosting package.
Istiak Rayhan, the owner of WPLeaders.com
Choosing the Wrong WordPress Hosting Plan
Choosing the right hosting plan is very crucial. Most of the people end up buying the wrong plan.
When you just start a new blog/site, chances that you won’t get a lot of traffic on the site are high. In that case, shared hosting is the right choice for you. But if you think that you’re going to get a lot of traffic, then you can consider going with managed or VPS hosting.
My suggestion is, start with shared hosting. And if you feel that shared hosting can’t handle your traffic, then upgrade your plan.
Not Checking Online Reviews
Not checking online reviews is another huge mistake.
I know most of the online reviews are biased. But if you check several reviews, you’ll get a good idea. Specially check the reviews of sites like Trustpilot, G2, etc. where people can give their independent reviews.
So check the reviews first and then decide.
Buying Domain & Hosting From the Same Company
It’s not a huge mistake. But it’s a good practice to buy a domain and hosting from the separate companies.
It will make website migration easier and keep your site secure from hackers. And when you keep your domain in one place, it makes things easier to manage.
So my suggestion is to register the domain name from top registrars like Namecheap, GoDaddy, etc. and buy hosting from a top web hosting provider.
Valerio Gioia, Product Manager for EasyWP
Basing the decision purely on the cheapest price. Check the reviews first, and make sure that the companies are not overselling and trying to host as many customers as possible with limited resources.
Hidden costs: always check that the price you are paying includes all the features that you need. Some providers will offer you a very low price, and only after purchase, you will discover that most of the features you need are not included in your plan and require a paid upgrade.
Check that the renewal price is clearly stated on the website: the super low price could be only for the first year or month, with the renewal at a different, higher price.
Kyle Kroeger, Founder of FinancialWolves
The biggest mistake people make is solely thinking about price. You pay for what you get for when it comes to hosting. If you choose the cheapest option, you’ll likely end up with slow customer service and slow host response times. Paying a premium generally ends up with better outcomes.
Pay for your hosting upfront for a full year to save a few extra bucks. Hosting is very important and people have taken that for granted a bit. Ensure you get the best speed for the price and you will do just fine. If you opt for cheap, slower service, you are simply losing out on revenue opportunities. Websites with faster response times are generally better from an SEO and conversion standpoint.
Dylan Houlihan, Founder of Swift Salary
I think for a beginner, the most common mistake made when choosing a hosting package is going for the lowest price. A lot of hosting providers typically provide introductory rates for new customers, and these introductory rates are typically available for 1-3 years, depending on what the user chooses. However, if they choose the lowest priced package, there’s a good chance they’ll have to upgrade somewhere down the line, which will cost them more money.
On the other hand, if they choose just the middle priced package, they’ll be getting a much better service and they won’t have to worry about upgrading as soon. Plus, they’ll still be getting this better hosting package at an introductory rate, which means they most likely won’t even have to pay much more than they were going to for the lowest priced package.
Alex Tran, Founder of Schimiggy Reviews
One of the most common mistakes is not considering the impact of scaling. If you’re serious about growing your blog/business, you need to find a host that can support your blog as it grows. Cheap hosting companies will charge you less but the performance will slow down your busy site and ruin a potential business. Go with a more expensive hosting company that is dedicated to helping your business succeed by offering fast servers and not cutting corners when it comes to supporting your business.
Another mistake is the level of service that is offered by hosting companies. If you choose an inexpensive hosting company, you will most likely run into a difficult support center experience. More expensive hosting companies not only invest in their servers, but they also invest in their support team. The level and quality of service from when I was on Bluehost to when I switched to WPengine was so obvious that I wish I had switched sooner!
Ryan Scollon, Digital Marketing Consultant
The most common mistake I see people make when choosing a WordPress hosting packing is choosing the cheapest. When you have popular domain registration websites such as 123reg and GoDaddy that often run TV ads to raise awareness, they become very well known by business owners. The problem here is that when people register a domain name, one of the many upsells offered by these sites is standard hosting, usually around £5 a month. This hosting tends to be very slow and often stops working.
This is why I always suggest to my clients that invest that little bit more and choose a more premium hosting option. The one that I always recommend is super-fast and reliable and comes with a bunch of cool features such as a staging website, free and easy to install SSL, firewall and the customer support team is really helpful.
Gary Stevens, the Owner of Hosting Canada
The biggest mistake people make when trying to figure out which hosting company to go with is not figuring out which type of hosting service is right for them. There are three tiers of hosting services out there: ultra-cheap, affordable, and premium. The main issue I see is that the premium hosting services like Kinsta and WPengine are ignored because of the price tag. Business owners sometimes just want to save money without really finding out what a premium host can do for them ahead of time. If you’re running a business, using a premium host can actually save you a ton of money. Ultra-cheap is for people who just need to get a website up and running and are expecting little to no traffic to start. These services won’t come with many frills or add-ons.
Everything regarding security and set-up will fall on the shoulders of the website owner. Speeds will generally be slow and server uptime won’t be the best. Affordable hosting is the most common type of hosting service on the market. Most hosting companies are competing in price and have amazing promotional pricing. This is great for the consumer as they can purchase solid hosting plans for cheap. It’s ideal for companies just starting out. Website speeds and uptime can be solid from a lot of affordable companies but there won’t be many extras thrown in. Premium hosting looks expensive but what you get is worth it. Premium hosts offer security features that save time and money like frequent scanning and backups. These hosting services will also have dedicated WordPress customer support that can help you with any WordPress issue you encounter which could save thousands on developer costs. Premium hosting services will also have the best infrastructure for speed and server uptime.
John Frigo, Digital Marketing Lead at My Supplement Store
The most common mistake people make when buying a web hosting for their WordPress site or blog is either paying for the entire year upfront, or buying a package that’s either above or below their needs.
Now, when it comes to buying hosting typically there’s a substantial discount given for paying for an entire year upfront. The downside, however, is that probably upwards of 70% plus new bloggers, and new websites don’t last 6 months or a year. Many people start a blog and quickly realize they lose interest, they run out of things to write about, or they don’t see results quickly enough and give up. I would suggest people pay month to month for about 3 months before deciding to buy a year upfront. Yes, you’ll wind up paying a few bucks more but you’ll also potentially save yourself hundreds of dollars if you don’t wind up sticking with it.
Another common mistake I see new people make is buying a hosting package either way above what they need – their new blog has 300 visitors a month and they are paying for expensive hosting that could handle 100x that, or people cheap out and go with cheap shared hosting, but wind up having a slow site because of it, or wind up having more of an audience than their hosting is set up for.
Sean Clancy, SEO Director at Edge
The most common and often the biggest mistake is people opting for speed first without considering the other options.
With Google pushing page speed and a particular speed on mobile/cell phones, a lot of WordPress users have only focused on this, thinking it is the most important, they have chosen fast hosts first and foremost.
The mistake is that some of these ‘fastest’ hosts have vastly inferior customer service any issues are hard to resolve, as can be hard to get them on the phone or get quick and accurate customer support. If you have an eCommerce website, it being down for any amount of time can result in a massive loss of sales and revenue.
Maxime Jobin, Co-founder and Technology Strategist at SatelliteWP
As a WordPress maintenance service, we often see people thinking that price is the ultimate criterion. The price shouldn’t be that important when you see your website as a team member that works 24/7 to help you get leads, sell products and services, and reduce the number of calls to your support team.
Business owners should focus on how great the infrastructure is: is it up to date? Are technicians knowledgeable? Even if you are not a tech person, you surely know a developer that can contact support for you and evaluate how they react. Saving 5 dollars per month should not be your priority here. What you want is a company that does not oversell their servers, that is transparent when there is a breakdown (yes, it will happen at some point) and that answers fast.
A lot of hosts look good until something bad happens. It is not about how much you save in a month. It is about how much you will lose when something happens.
We hope this article was helpful. If you liked it, feel free to check out some of these articles as well!
Rodney B
Lots of great advice, here! I agree with Brett that speed should be a consideration, but not the only one.