Enhancing Website Performance

Enhancing Website Performance through Optimized WordPress Hosting WordPress hosting for your business is the silent killer. Ok, ok, maybe that was a little over-dramatic. The fact remains that WordPress is the platform that powers around 42% of the web. With that kind of usage, comes a ton of responsibility for businesses to get their hosting right. Here's the problem… Most businesses ignore or take WordPress hosting for granted. The primary focus is understandably on design, content and SEO. But what they fail to realize is that it's the underlying infrastructure, the hosting environment itself, which directly influences the speed, security and ultimately the revenue of their website. Poor or non-optimized hosting cripples a website no matter how well-designed it is. In This Article: Why WordPress Hosting Matters for Business The Real Impact of Website Speed Key Features of Optimized WordPress Hosting How to Choose the Right Hosting Solution Why WordPress Hosting Matters for Business WordPress is the undisputed king of content management systems. If you go to W3Techs and check the market share of content management systems, you will find that WordPress owns the world with about 43.5% of all websites using it as their backend. WordPress is used across the board. From personal blogs to small-medium businesses to large-scale e-commerce websites. But here's the thing… Just because WordPress can run on any hosting solution out there, doesn't mean it should. Normal shared hosting platforms or general-purpose VPSes are fine for a hobby blog. But when you're talking about business websites, that is throwing money away. WordPress optimized hosting is specially tailored to suit the needs of the WordPress platform. Faster speeds, better security, fewer bugs. Overall, it just creates a better environment for your WordPress website to run in. Allow me to break this down further… Are you going to put sub-par fuel in a high-performance car? No, right? You're going to put the best fuel to get the most performance out of it, and that logic applies to websites as well. Selecting reliable WordPress hosting for your business will help your website to deliver the best possible performance. Here are some of the reasons why I want you to use optimized WordPress hosting: Faster speeds Tighter security Hassle-free updates WordPress knowledge at your fingertips Totally straight forward right? The Real Impact of Website Speed Before you ask me, yes speed is important. Don't believe me? Take a look at this speed test. According to these results, a 100% speed increase would make a website conversion rate go up from 5% to 10%. Pretty huge jump, right? Website visitors are notoriously impatient. A slow loading website means a high bounce rate. According to Unbounce, 70% of consumers admit that page speed is important when it comes to purchase decisions. Think about it this way… A website has 10 products on it. Each of those products is making $100 a day. Now if a 100% speed increase would double your conversion rate, would you not want to get that speed increase for your website? If you've got a website with more than 10 products on it, just do the math. Site speed also factors into the SERP ranking factors, so a slow-loading site will be outranked by faster competing sites. Google considers user experience to be a factor, so your slow site will be pushed down, and your competitor will take your place. Website speed affects your bottom line. Period. Key Features of Optimized WordPress Hosting If speed is important, what can you do to help your website load faster? Simple. Get WordPress optimized hosting. But not all WordPress optimized hosting services are equal. What are some of the key features you want to look out for? Server-Level Caching Caching is when you store data for repeated access. WordPress optimized hosts have server-level caching which means that frequently accessed data is cached for later use, so your pages are served almost instantly. Think about that every time a visitor comes to your site, it's loading the pages fresh, like they were being built for the first time. That is a big, big no-no for business websites. Content Delivery Network (CDN) A CDN works by distributing your website content to multiple servers spread all over the world. This ensures that a visitor no matter where in the world they are connecting from, will get to your website as quickly as possible. This is one of the important features to look out for if you have a specific geographic area that you are trying to target with your business. Automatic Backups Computers were designed by humans. Humans make mistakes. Computers follow instructions. One of those instructions could end up deleting your website, and then you will need the power of automatic backups. A good hosting provider will have automatic backups configured for your website. That way, in the event of disaster, you can restore your website with the click of a button. WordPress-Specific Security Security is one of the most important aspects for business websites. I can't stress this enough. WordPress-specific security is different from generic website security, as WordPress software and themes have different vulnerabilities that require special measures to secure them. Malware Scanning Custom Firewall rules that protect against common WordPress vulnerabilities Brute-force login protection Regular security patches & updates Staging Environment The final key feature that every business website needs is the staging environment. Staging environments allow you to test themes, plugins and upgrades without running the risk of breaking your live website. Every business optimized WordPress host should offer this feature as standard. How to Choose the Right Hosting Solution Choosing the right hosting provider can make all the difference. So how do you sift through the various providers out there to make sure that you are selecting the right one for your business? Here are some of the most important questions to ask before making that choice: Performance Benchmarks: Do they offer any? Actual speed results are the only way to know for sure. Don't take word-of-mouth for it, get the actual numbers. How about uptime guarantees? Anything less than 99.9% uptime should be an automatic disqualification. Scalability Options: What if your traffic shoots through the roof? What if you suddenly become viral? Your website needs to be able to handle traffic spikes without slowing down or crashing. Check to see that the hosting provider has auto-scaling features for these situations. Pricing: Compare total pricing, including all the bells and whistles that you require. Are there hidden charges? Be sure to confirm that, as some hosting providers will offer a low base price, but then tack on other charges for security, backups or staging environments. Migration Support: Do they support site migrations? If you are moving your existing website from another provider to them, you don't want to be dealing with the technical headaches of manual migration. Most providers worth their salt will have free migration services for you. Migration without hassle. Migration without downtime. Migration without stress. Reviews: What do the actual customers have to say? Reviews from real users are an excellent way to get an idea of what you should expect. Bringing It All Together WordPress hosting for your business website is so critical, and as a business, the last thing you want to be doing is not capitalizing on your hard work. If you run a fast-loading website, your conversion rate will improve. If your website has better security, your business reputation will be more intact. If your website is reliable, your customers will come back again and again. WordPress optimized hosting will make or break your business website. So please, choose carefully, as the entire success of your online presence will depend on it.