Carl Taylor

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I find many people talking about content and quality of their website but they often forget about web hosting.

Every successful website starts with a good web hosting service so that the traffic can be increased and sustained without worrying about the site slowing down to unusable speeds. It also ensures that your websites SEO is top notch because Google now pays a lot of attention to the speed that your site loads when it comes to ranking your site.

WordPress is one of the most popular platforms to build a website, but what is the best hosting to use?

When it comes to the best web hosting for WordPress, you have numerous options from free hosting, shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, and managed hosting. My goal is to ensure that, through this article, you get to find out about the best web hosting for WordPress that you can use for your current or next site you build.

I’ve ranked them in the order that I personally currently rate them and showed which one I personally use as well.

1. WP Engine – Just for WordPress, Lighting Fast, Automatic Backups, No Hack Guarantee (I Personally Use This For My Important WordPress Sites)

Tp[ 5 Best Web Hosting WordPress - 1 is WPEngine

This is one of the best and largest web hosting services for WordPress and I use it personally.

It falls under managed web hosting and the base monthly cost is $29.

The best feature is the ease it offers for launching a new website, and its Staging Area allowing you to update plugins, make changes to your site completely to see what affect it has on the site before you actually publish the changes to your live site.

However, what I like the most about WP Engine is that they take care of all the security updates, they actually manage your security updates for wordpress and even in some of the themes and plugins you use to ensure you are protected from exploits and hacks.

In fact, they go a step further and guarantee the security of your site.

If you ever get hacked while on their hosting, all the clean-up costs is covered by the company, they have that much confidence on their security systems. And if you’ve ever been hacked, you know how frustrating and costly it can be to fix so this is a great guarantee.

As far as speed is concerned, a test was conducted, comparing the speed of WP Engine with other popular high speed wordpress only hosting choices like Synthesis and Page.ly. WP Engine emerged victorious as the fastest.
The local storage offered is 10GB. However, you can go for Professional and Business versions, depending on the size of your site, where you get support for 100,000 and 250,000 visitors per month with 20GB and 30GB local storage. This web hosting is a favorite for  many serious WordPress users I know and I completely understand why.
If your site is mission critical, you’re sick of getting hacked or load speed is important, I highly recommend WPEngine for wordpress hosting.

2. BlueHost – Affordable, Scalable, and Great for Beginners.

Top 5 Best Web Hosting WordPress - 2 is Bluehost

It started way back in 1996 and is still one of the biggest brand names when it comes to web hosting for WordPress. It costs merely $4.95 per month and for that cost, the features provided are amazing. I prefer WP Engine for the simple reason that it moves beyond the basic and caters to all my speed, backups and security requirements. However, for beginners of WordPress, I would definitely recommend starting with BlueHost. The bandwidth and hosting space is unlimited and BlueHost is recommended by WordPress itself. It is extremely user friendly and they also provide a network uptime guarantee of 99.9%.

A lot of free services come with choosing this hosting company. The intuitive navigation is excellent and preferred by WordPress users who value simplicity. What stands apart in this service, however, is the excellent and unmatched customer service that is offered. The only con, it seems, is that international domains are not supported by BlueHost. The features offered are respectable and most customer testimonials are favorable about this hosting service provider.

If you’re after affordable, scalable and stable hosting for beginners then check out bluehost for wordpress.

3. HostGator – Popular, Affordable but Poor Customer Service

Top 5 Best Web Hosting WordPress - 3 is Hostgator

This extremely popular web hosting for WordPress falls bang in the middle of my top 5 because it has some great points and some not-so-good points. The web hosting section currently has some discounts, so you can visit HostGator for more information. The plans start at $3.96 per month (after 20% discount) for the hatchling plan. Unlimited bandwidth and disk space is offered. The control panel is extremely user friendly and full of utility. Usually, most web hosting services offer a 30 day money back guarantee but HostGator offers a 45-day money back guarantee.

All the general features are offered by HostGator and the email features are especially exceptional. A powerful and free spam protection program is provided by all the packages this is a favorite with many users. The service is user friendly, once you start using it regularly and work your way around it. The con is the lack of intuitive usability and slow response time from the support. It is ideal for people who are new to WordPress web hosting.

To find out more visit Hostgators website

5. GoDaddy – Affordable, User Friendly, Additional Extra’s can add up

Top 5 Best Web Hosting WordPress - 4 is GoDaddy

The biggest reason for this service being so popular is because of the variety of features that is offered by it. Its yearly cost (basic) is $12.99. GoDaddy is extremely user friendly and simple to understand by everyone, no matter what their experience in WordPress blogging is. The online file manager that is provided is extremely flexible. For security, GoDaddy offers a Site Scanner which looks for malware, hackers, site seal and stops Google from banning your site. However, this feature comes at an extra cost of $6.99 per month.

Their web hosting offers unlimited bandwidth and 100GB disk space for the basic economy package, a network uptime guarantee of 99.9%, and flexibility in using the control panel. The only con that I can find with GoDaddy is that the features offered are too basic and if you want more features, you have to pay more. Any and every feature can practically be included in your existing package but even certain basic features like SEO tools come for a fee.

To find out more visit GoDaddy’s website

5. DreamHost – Affordable, Optimized for WordPress, No Phone Support

Top 5 Best Web Hosting WordPress - 5 is Dreamhost

This web hosting used to be on the top of the charts but recent years have seen it falling down. The cost is $8.95 per month and 50GB of free backup space is provided as well. The bandwidth and storage is unlimited. Because DreamHost is optimized for WordPress, many people prefer to use it. This service is  number 5 in the list because of its customer service which is extremely impersonal and slow. The downtime is also a huge issue with users everywhere. There is no telephone line for solving customer issues and when you are in a tight spot, the live chat and technical support are not usually enough.

The good thing about DreamHost is that they take action against users who cause problems for other users. Not many sites are like this and it is a welcome change. Also, anonymous FTP is provided. DreamHost is ideal for small websites that don’t care much about occasional downtimes. The features provided are excellent, security is great and it is extremely user friendly too.

For web developers who are experienced or new users who don’t stand to lose money due to their websites downtime, DreamHost might be suitable.

**UPDATE** 6. GreenGeeks – Reliable, Affordable and EcoFriendly

GreenGeeks - Top WordPress Hosting

After first publishing this list, I’ve since come across another host that I believe is worth a mention. Green Geeks are a full featured hosting company for wordpress websites just like the ones above, but they have 2 standout features for me.

Firstly, they are 300% Wind Powered – that means they aren’t just carbon neutral but carbon reducing. You may not realise it but the internet and all these servers sitting out there that run websites just like this one are chewing through power at an incredible rate and to see an eco friendly alternative power hosting company is really refreshing.

The second feature I think is great to many, if that they will transfer your website from your old host for you for free. So if you’re not a tech savy person or you just have better things to do, their support team will take care of the migration over and you just get to enjoy the new hosting services. On top of these 2 features, they have 24.7 support, nightly backups, a money back guarantee and are extremely affordable.

To learn more visit Green Geeks ecofriendly hosting for wordpress.

$30 DISCOUNT: The guys at Greengeeks reached out to me after seeing this post and offered a coupon code for any readers to get $30 off any shared hosting plans. Use TODAYOFFER to get the discount

So Bottom Line – What is the Best Web Hosting for WordPress?

All the above selections are excellent in their own way and if you are looking for a good web hosting service for an important business WordPress site, I would recommend WP Engin which is excellent, in spite of its high price.

If you’re just starting out or its only going to get a little bit of traffic, then I’d start with Bluehost, as its affordable, reliable and easy to use.

And if you’re someone who cares a lot about the environment and affordable hosting, then Green Geeks are a great choice to look at too.

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  1. Thanks for this article on wordpress hosting, is there any way I can receive an email whenever you publish a new update?

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