allthingshosting-blog

[allthingshosting-blog]

8 Reasons to Move to Self-Hosted WordPress Today!

Not many people know that WordPress.com and WordPress.org (or Self-Hosted WordPress) are two entirely different entities. While WordPress.com has its limits being a Blog Engine, WordPress.org is an open-source Content Management System with limitless possibilities.

WordPress.org is a fully customizable Content Management System that is fully owned and controlled by you. You can make changes to the content, the code and the hosting server anytime you like. Apart from this, WordPress.org has several powerful features that makes it one of the best CMS’s available today.

Let us take a look at 8 unbeatable reasons why should you move to Self-hosted WordPress Hosting.

1. Plugins

Plugins are what make using WordPress a smooth experience. They are add-ons with specific functions which can be integrated seamlessly to your WordPress website. There are many third-party plugins (free and premium) which can be used for various enhancements including optimizing your WordPress website for SEO, adding social sharing icons, etc.

You can install custom third-party plugins from WordPress.org without any additional cost. However, this is only possible with WordPress.com when you upgrade to their Business plan.

2. Speed

If you choose self-hosted WordPress, that means everything in it is customized by you and for you. It also means that you can select the ideal hosting provider for your website. The performance of your web-hosting provider directly affects the speed of your website which is considered a huge factor when it comes to search engine rankings.

According to Kissmetrics:

A 1-second delay in page load time can cause a 7% reduction in conversion rates

40% of online visitors will abandon sites that don’t load within 3 seconds

79% of online shoppers who face problems with website performance won’t return again

HostGator India’s highly secure servers guarantee up to 2X speed on WordPress hosting. If your website loads faster it will:

Rank higher in the SERPS

Get more conversions

Generate more revenue

3. Themes

Your theme says a lot about your website. Irrelevant or boring website designs can easily drive users away. There are only a few dozen free themes to choose from on WordPress.com. If you want to use custom themes or browse more premium themes, you need to upgrade to their premium plans.

Since WordPress.org is an open-source platform, you have the freedom to choose from thousands of free, premium and custom themes and further customize them as per your needs – without paying anything extra. The number of themes available for WordPress.org are figuratively endless including the possibility of creating your own themes.

4. Monetize Your Website

Wordpress.com is able to sustain its free model and offer free features due to the revenue it earns from on page advertisements. However, these ads affect user experience and some websites would never want to show an ad to their visitors. You can opt for an upgrade which will turn off the ads but will involved extra cost. Additionally, if you want to monetize your website, you will need to further upgrade to their Premium plan at the very least.

A self-hosted WordPress.org is fully customizable and hence allows you to run your own advertisements or affiliate links wherever you want and generate revenue from your website or blog.

5. E-commerce Web Store

The increase in online retail sales year after year, is an indication that E-commerce stores are becoming popular. This indicates that now is the best time to take your business online and open an e-commerce web store.

Although it may sound like a tough task, with Wordpress.org it is fairly simple to launch and run your own e-commerce store. Wordpress.org has powerful in-built features, boasts of an awesome CMS and Visual Editor, lets you have full control of your user’s data and allows you to easily add a blog to your e-commerce site.

6. Custom Code and Layout

If your business is centered on a theme, you’ll want to customize your layout and design accordingly. There are very limited options for customization of code on WordPress.com, and there is no scope for adding a custom code by editing the PHP file.

WordPress.org gives you the freedom edit the PHP files and customize the layout and code as much as you want. You can even create your own theme and add the code to your site.

7. Instant Scalability

When your business is in its starting phase, most of the time there will be a minimal traffic on your website. But once your business starts growing, you’ll need a larger website that can manage the higher influx of traffic. WordPress.com offers a VIP program which can solve the issue but is very expensive.

WordPress.org websites are fully customizable and completely yours. You can scale your resources as required depending on your hosting provider. HostGator India ‘WordPress Hosting’ offers instant scaling so you can increase your resources in case of unexpected traffic spikes without experiencing any downtime.

8. Customized Emails

Along with a domain name that provides credibility to your business, your email address too needs to provide an air of confidence, thus allowing readers to want to interact with you. A personal Gmail will probably get the job done, if you're engaging with friends. But as a business, a custom email address makes your business look more reliable and increases brand identity.

WordPress.com doesn’t offer any business/custom emails along with their hosting services even with premium accounts.

Being an open-source platform, WordPress.org allows you to choose your hosting provider.

On choosing a WordPress hosting plan at HostGator India, they also provide up to 300K visitors (inclusive of your plan) to your website every month. HostGator is also one of the world’s top web-hosting companies having an (award-winning) round-the-clock customer support available 24/7/365 via phone, Live Chat or Email.

Below is a comparison between the Business plans of WordPress.com and HostGator India’s Business WordPress.org Plan.

WordPress.org (Content Management System) is a better option compared to WordPress.com (Blog Engine) because:

A Self Hosted WordPress site is fully customizable and allows you to choose from thousands of plugins and themes – without the additional cost

It is even more user-friendly and fast if opted with a hosting provider like HostGator India

The PHP code is fully customizable.

For a soon-to-be or potential large businesses, it is more cost-effective in the long run

Resources can be increased and decreased as per the requirements of your business

WordPress.com is like that video game where you get all the cool gears only if you spend money. You can play all you want for free, but you can’t really level up unless you upgrade to premium. If you want to take your site to the next level, you should upgrade to self-hosted WordPress hosting or WordPress.org asap.

[allthingshosting-blog]

7 Things to Keep in Mind Before you Buy Web Hosting

A bad hosting provider can do more harm than you can imagine. You run the risk of being offline (loss of business), incur a negative effect on your search rankings, lower your domain authority and ultimately waste your time, money and resources. 

Choosing a web host is tough, especially with a huge number of hosting companies out there promising the same things - 99% Uptime, cheap hosting and round the clock support. To cut through the noise, and make the right decision, you must consider the following before you buy Web Hosting

1. A Hosting Solution suitable for your business requirements

Before launching a website, it is important to understand the requirements of your website and choose a hosting plan accordingly.

Dedicated or VPS hosting - If you have an e-commerce website, you would need instant scalability to handle large amounts of traffic, you should go for a Dedicated or VPS hosting.

WordPress Hosting - If you have a personal blog that gets a predictable number of visitors, WordPress Hosting would be the best choice for you.

Cloud Hosting - If you are starting out in a business that you believe will grow big in the near future, you should invest in Cloud Hosting.

Shared Hosting - If saving some bucks is a bigger concern right now, go for Shared Hosting.

It is important to assess the requirement of your website and decide on a Hosting Solution before you decide on a Hosting provider.

2. Disk Space & Bandwidth

Disk Space is the amount of storage space you get on the server. Depending on the nature of your business and its goals, you must decide the disk space that your website will require because as your business grows, your website will attract more traffic, resulting in the need for more storage. To accommodate the increasing number of customers you should opt for a plan with disk-space that is enough and scalable.

Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be downloaded or transferred from a website. The bandwidth of a website depends on its layout, traffic, and future scope. Some websites offer unlimited bandwidth with all plans, which may or may not be true. You can also calculate the required bandwidth of your site used after one month of it going live. Based on your current usage and the future scope of your business, you can derive a fair idea of the amount of bandwidth you need.

3. Tech Support

Go for a hosting provider that offers you 24/7 availability via email, phone or chat. Don’t take their word for it. Read several third-party reviews over the internet, especially on social networks. Beware of paid positive reviews that sound too good to be true or hate reviews put in by competitors. Additionally, it is also good to check if they provide support in your local language.

 4. Server Location

The location of your hosting provider can make a significant difference in your website’s response time. As a best practice, select the server location (local or international) of your web-hosting as per your target audience and geographical location.

If your business and its audience, both are located in India but the server is located in the USA, the response time and page load speed of the website will be slower for the audience in India with high latency.

According to a survey by Kissmetrics:

47% of consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less

40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load

5. Other Technical Considerations

Scalability - A website is always growing bigger and thus, scalability is of paramount importance. Therefore, when deciding which web-hosting to buy, make sure that you ask your hosting provider if there is a scope to the change plan or upgrade in future.

Quality of Hardware - A web hosting company that used outdated hardware will have an adverse impact on your website causing it to slow down and become unstable as well as vulnerable to security breaches. Therefore check with the hosting provider what server hardware they use and research online to confirm if it is the latest and best server hardware out there.

Email - Ask questions like how many emails will the Web Host provide and if there are any space limitations? If you have multiple domains hosted on the account, can you get emails for all of them or just one? You do not want to be unpleasantly surprised after you have invested.

Supported Technologies - Are scripts like PHP, MySQL, .htaccess, Perl, crontabs supported or any other than you may be using supported. If yes, then how often are they updated? If you need the latest versions for your application or CMS, ensure that your Hosting provider supports it.

Web Hosting Control Panel - You Web Host should provide a control Panel whether it is cPanel, WHM or Plesk for free. Also choosing the Control Panel that you have used before and are most comfortable with is helpful in the long run.

  6. Cost

 You’ll always want to get the services at the lowest prices. But cheap isn’t best in every case. Make sure you read reviews of web-hosts before choosing any host just based on the price. Social Media is the best place to read authentic reviews. Whatever you do, do not compromise on quality because it will end up costing you dearly.

Did you know?

Amazon calculated that a page slowdown of just 1 second cost the company USD1.6 billion in sales every year.

7. Security

 Look for information on the level of security provided by the Web Host. Is data backup part of the deal or paid separately and how often is data backed up.  Website security is crucial because a malicious access or even an accidental deletion could wipe out all your hard work. 

So what is the most suitable Hosting provider?

I have been using HostGator at my workplace and have been very satisfied with my experience.

- My website hasn’t had an outage or downtime yet (Hostgator claims 99.9% uptime). They also take regular backups of your data and their security is robust.

- We were able to create 3 sub-domains and several email Ids. There was no cap on Sub Domains, FTP Accounts, and Email Accounts.

- They offer a 45-day money back guarantee, which is good in case you are not satisfied with them.

- Hostgator’s Support team is prompt and knowledgeable. You can also check-out their Forum where you can seek answers from peers.

- HostGator India has tied up with GPX, the first company in South Asia to secure a Tier IV design certification.

- Most importantly, their plans are most competitively priced.

It is always wise to do a thorough research before you settle for a Web Host, as it is a long-term decision that is going to have a direct impact on your online business.

Do let me know which Web Host has worked the best for you in the comments below.