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hindi-newz · 5 years ago

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How to make money with a blog for Beginners in 2020

Ever thought about launching your own blog? Ever wondered what it is, not only to start that blog but to successfully build it over time to make money online or generate a passive income? Frankly, you are not alone. Millions of people try their hand at blogging, but never really earn enough from their efforts. However, if you are starting a blog for the purposes of making money, and you are not really passionate about writing at first, then you are wasting your time to a great extent. The art of blogging is not just scientific or formulaic. Without a deep-seated passion for your craft, you will face disappointment and upset. Why? While it is relatively simple to start a blog, it is a monumental undertaking to generate any share of traffic and profit from your hard efforts. You need laser-focus and persistence to build an audience or reach mass saturation with your prose. It takes time and a long and drawn evening to burn the cosmic midnight oil. take it from me. As a blogger who has created a substantial platform with thousands of monthly visitors, I can bask in the hot flashes of success. However, I cannot enjoy the freedom and passive income that my blog has created for so long. Without continuously adding unsaturated content, any blog can be closed. So, what does it take to start a successful blog and actually make money online? I think it depends on what you believe to be successful and whether you consider making money. If millions of other potential bloggers get out there, you want to rake it, you'll have a long road ahead. But if you are willing to put in the time and effort, and you can be consistent for years (and yes, I have said years), you can certainly generate substantial income online. In fact, your blog is probably the best center for passive income generation, and if done properly, it can attract the right customers and customers, whether you're in any industry or niche. How to start a blog: step by step Okay, if I haven't forbidden you yet, and you're serious about launching the next Mashable or TechCrunch or whatever another blog you think might be wildly successful in your vision, here's a step to you Need to do in -Step fashion. The more you prepare and plan, the longer you are likely to succeed. 1. Pick a topic Be clear on what you will write about. Define a topic or niche, and design all your content around those things. This will help you not only to focus on your writing but also to create digital products and services that compliment your content. This allows you to entice customers with your highly informative posts, then entice them with a lead magnet before dropping them into your sales funnel (more on that shortly). 2. Choose a platform While Wordpress is by far the most popular platform for blogging, there are some out there that can be leveraged to micro-blogging platforms such as Tumblr, Blogger.com, and even Medium. However, if you are serious about your blogging efforts, you might want to go with a self-hosted WordPress installation on a custom domain. When you can set up a blog on Wordpress.com with a subdomain like myblog.wordpress.com, you'll get more traction with a self-hosted solution, and then use subdomains on popular platforms for your content-marketing efforts. -The domain will be able to use it. 3. Choose a domain name Custom domain names are important if you are serious about making money from a blog, to begin with. Instead of relying on third-party-hosted subdomains, find a small but relevant keyword-rich (if possible) domain name that is descriptive of your intended topic, industry, or niche. Use BlueHost, HostGator, 1 & 1 Hosting or any other domain name provider to source your domain. If you are concerned about things like SEO while choosing your domain name, then you should follow the following suggestions: Use a known top-level domain (TLD) such as .com or .net Keep domain short, not more than 15 characters or more Do not try to buy a domain name with a hyphen, as they are more often associated with spammers Avoid using self-hosted subdomains to rank or rank posts 4. Find a good web hosting company There are loads of good hosting companies out there. If you are starting a Wordpress, self-hosted blog, there are a near-endless amount of options. The important thing is to do your due diligence and choose the one suitable for your budget and ensure that the service-level and punctuality are guaranteed. In the beginning, you might want to start with a managed Wordpress solution or a virtual private server (VPS), and scale from there. Eventually, you will need a dedicated-hosting solution with CDN (below) after a few thousand visitors arrive daily. 5. Caching and Content-Delivery Network (CDN) Use a system such as W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache and turn on browser caching to ensure that you speed up the delivery of your webpages. In the beginning, it may not seem as important. But as you grow and your traffic increases to thousands of visitors per day, this will be important. Use Google's Page Speed Insights to test things before and after installation. It is also important that you set up a CDN, which will speed up the global distribution of your content. For example, your page may load relatively quickly in the United States, but what happens when someone in Australia tries to load your content? CDNs replicate data in many repositories around the world and make content delivery ultra-fast. This is important to the user experience because most people who are focused on waiting a few seconds to load a page often leave the website and move on to the next one in the search results. The W3 Total Cache integrates with Amazon's AWS and MaxCDN, two very good options when it comes to CDN. 6. Enable Permalinks In Wordpress, you should enable permalinks before getting things off the ground, which will give you good canonical URLs that are SEO friendly. Permalinks are located within the Settings> Permalinks section of your Wordpress admin and select the Post Name option. 7. Install the AMP plugin The Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project is an initiative by Google to accelerate mobile access to a greater level of its content. The AMP specification, which you can read more about here, helps thin a webpage for its basic structural components with scaled-back JS and minimized CSS code, making for lightning-fast speeds. 8. Install Google Analytics Install Google Analytics so that you can monitor your efforts while building your blog. Leaving links in social media and other places is a great way to track your results when using the URL Campaign Builder so that you can effectively determine where your traffic is coming from. 9. Setup Google's Webmaster Tools Anyone who is serious about building a blog and making money needs to take advantage of Google's webmaster tools to see which keywords they are ranking and any messages that will improve their ability to rank Will affect It will also allow you to submit XML sitemaps and track keyword impressions with click-through rates. It is one of the most useful tools to enhance your site or blog through continuous analysis of your efforts. 10. Learn SEO the right way Although you should not start with the intention of obliterating the blog, you should definitely understand the basic principles of search engine optimization so that you pay attention to the key aspects that will affect your ability to rank on search engines like Google . . Start with Google's Webmaster Guidelines, and digest and implement that information. Learning SEO is a long and drawn journey. You should always increase your knowledge and expand your skillset. 11. Regulatory Build Useful Content If you are serious about being successful with your blog, then you need to create useful anchor content. It should be engaging, keyword-focused, practical, unique, and well written. Do not write your content for search engines. Rather, write your content for humans as well as paying homage to search engines for what they want. Simply put, it is a skill that develops over time. It is also important to publish your content on a regular weekly basis. 12. Sign up on an email marketing platform The best avenue to earn money from your blog is email marketing, plain and simple. Hands down, it provides one of the fastest and surest strategies to earn income through your blog. But before you get there, you have to sign up on email marketing platforms such as Auber, ConvertKit, MailChimp, Constant Contact, InfusionSoft, or any other platforms that are out there. 13. Create Lead Magnets If you're serious about doing anything online, rather than running ads on your blog (which won't give you real money, unless you have at least hundreds of thousands of visitors per day) or by engaging in affiliate marketing, You should manufacture an occasional lead magnet that will sell a digital product or be made by you in the back-end. The lead magnet will entice people to sign up to your list and provide you with their email address. 14. Creating a Digital Product and Positioning Your Proposals Email marketing and lead magnets are all designed to help create an automated sales machine. However, to do this you need a digital product, service, or other types of offer in the back-end. You can create many offers or products that can take people up a value chain for your high-ticket sales. 15. Create a Sales Funnel Take time to build your automated sales funnel. There is a lot involved with the sales funnel, but the basic premise is that your visitors will discover your content and show it to your site, fall into your sales funnel through offers through your lead magnet or any other tripwire, and then they will Be led through a journey with some periodically drip-fed messages that will allow you to sell your products and services on autopilot. 16. Get Social Creating a blog is not easy by any means. To help you move towards success, you have to be social. Not only by engaging with other like-minded bloggers interested in online marketing but by sharing and engaging with others on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms. 17. Market Your Content One of the most important strategies you'll find to build a blog and increase your visibility on search engines like Google, and my all-time strategy to increase search rankings on Google's SERPs, is content marketing. Marketing your content is a complex process that involves creating long, never-ending hours in the creation of more useful off-site content that connects to your primary anchor content, but it is worth it. If you do things correctly, you can use this single strategy to rank number one on Google's searches for any keyword. It definitely has art as well as a technical framework and the art of doing it properly. Do not try to spam or overstuff keywords in an attempt to market your content in any way. Content marketing can be done on sites like Medium.com or Scripped.com, it can be done by answering Reddit or Quora questions, and it can be done on YouTube or Vimeo in various other ways, along with videos is. The point is that all content needs to be useful, period. Try not to do the least amount of work for the greatest return. If you want to succeed then you have to do the opposite. 18. Monetize your content Let's face it, starting and running a blog can be expensive. Do not expect to get rich overnight. However, you can take some measures to get some of your content out of the way. Make sure you stay topical with your content and help your lead magnates leave people in a sales funnel that will eventually sell your high-ticket items. However, aside from this, you can always opt to generate cash flow by doing other things such as creating articles that will lead people to courses or audiobooks you have developed or creating video tutorials that will eventually lead to something bigger. Will sell Package or system that will help teach people that whatever it is is really good. There are many ways to monetize your content and earn money from your blog, but don't try to take shortcuts along the way. If you are serious about your long term results, do not look for a fast buck. If you want to succeed and achieve your goals then take action and be persistent. Read the full article

#earnbyblogging #howtostartablog #makemoneyblogging #MakeMoneyOnline

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xhostcom · 5 years ago

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9 Best Managed WordPress Hosting Options Compared

In this post I take a look at the best Managed Wordpress Hosting options for businesses of any size, because running a WordPress site is not an easy task. All the content, marketing, site design, social media, maintenance, backups, updates and much more have to be taken care of, and this can be pretty time consuming. But before you do that, you have to make sure your WordPress site is running smoothly and your current WordPress hosting provider isn’t giving you any headaches or issues. Today, most of the web hosting companies out there focus on providing affordable solutions. It costs you less than $5 to get an account with a shared hosting provider. And that’s a great solution if you’re just getting started. But for a medium-sized or business site going for high-quality WordPress hosting is a better alternative. By quality hosting, I mean managed hosting, which is specifically created for WordPress users. This new breed of WordPress hosting is becoming an increasingly popular option among WordPress bloggers and developers. It all started with WordPress.com VIP, but now there are numerous different players in the market. If you’re in a hurry, here are the top 3 hosting providers I recommend! WPEngine — WPEngine is for those who want a bit of everything. They are perfect is for you if want to scale without compromising the quality of support or losing developer friendly tools, all while not spending a fortune. Don’t forget to use our special WP Engine offer link to get 20% off. SiteGround — Perfect for beginner / advance users, super easy to setup, and comes with a fantastic support. Unmatched rates & support is usually under 10 or 15 minutes, which makes them a perfect host for WordPress users. Use our Discount link to get 60% off, coupon already applied to above link. FlyWheel — Flywheel is the kind of host you wouldn’t want to change. They are perfect for bloggers, agencies, and small business. Flywheel has a ton of unique features such as billing transfer, demo site, and blueprint (a tool that basically allows you to create sites with default theme & plugin configurations of your choice). Here’s a quick comparison of the 3 managed hosting providers listed above (last updated on November 2019): Managed WordPress hosting aims to provide faster loading times, better security, and expert WordPress support. But it’s a bit costlier than shared hosting companies. Managed WordPress Host’s servers are configured to provide better and faster WordPress performance. In this article, I am going to provide some basic information on the 8 most trusted and best WordPress managed hosting services, so you can make an educated decision about what’s best for you and your business.

What is Managed WordPress Hosting?

Managed WordPress Hosting is specifically designed and optimized for WordPress websites. In other words, it takes care of all the technical aspects of WordPress for you, allowing you to focus on creating and sharing great content. You don’t have to worry about site updates, site speed, up-time, or anything like that. Many hosting companies use their own CDN and server-level caching, so you don’t have to rely on cache plugins such as W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache. This type of hosting is perfect for those who don’t have any technical skills or time to manage a server.

The Pros of Managed Hosting for WordPress

Security – The main aim of premium managed hosting is to provide bulletproof security. They have a very tight layer of security on their servers, so you don’t have to worry about hacking, DoS attacks, malware, or other security issues. Expert Support – It wouldn’t be fair to say that shared hosting providers have poor support. In fact, most companies have excellent staff who are well-trained and possess a good knowledge of WordPress. But they can’t assist you with things like performance, site functionality, WordPress errors, etc. With managed hosting support, you will get expert WordPress assistance, always. Speed – Speed plays a significant role in site rankings and there a lot of things you can do improve it like implementing a caching plugin, using a content delivery network such as MaxCDN, and reducing image sizes. Most of the managed hosting companies out there enable content caching at the server level, so you don’t have to rely on any external caching plugins. If you’re going with a normal plan, then you might need to use a content delivery network to improve site speed. Daily Backups – They take a daily backup of your site including content, data, themes, and plugins, which you can then download from the dashboard. This can save you some money, especially if you are using a paid backup or maintenance service such as VaultPress or BlogVault. They also create a restore point. In case something goes wrong, you can easily restore your site to a previously working version with just one click. Automatic Updates – They will automatically update your WordPress Core files to the latest version, as soon as an update is released. You don’t have to pay someone extra to update your site anymore—your managed hosting provider does it for you. No Downtime – No matter how much traffic your site gets, it will never go down. That means, if you hit the homepage of Hacker News or Reddit, you site will still be up and running without any issues.

The Cons of Managed Hosting for WordPress

Expensive – There is a huge difference in the price of managed and shared hosting. An average shared hosting plan will cost you a mere $3.95 while a managed hosting plan will set you back $30. Limitations – Basically, any plugin that consumes resources isn’t allowed. They also do not allow any cache plugins including W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache. Here’s the full list of disallowed plugins shared by most managed hosts. cPanel – If you are moving from shared hosting to Managed hosting, then you might find it difficult as they have a very different kind of user portal.

Top Managed WordPress Hosting Providers:

1. WPEngine

(Loads under 0.26s, starts at $35, and comes with fantastic support)

WPEngine hosting is one of the best managed options available out there. The price is a little bit higher compared to other managed hosting providers but that’s because the company emphasizes providing great support, fast loading times, and more secure servers. It has a team of WordPress experts who will keep your site fast and secure and it’s one of the most popular hosting companies. I mean, brands like HTC, Foursquare, and SoundCloud use it! It also has a one-click backup and restore process included with all hosting plans. WPEngine will scan and monitor for hacking attempts and if your site does get hacked, the company will fix it for free. Some other features include: Staging area – It creates replica of your live site, so you can test new themes and plugins before applying changes to your live site. One Click Restore Point – In case anything goes wrong with your site, theme, or plugins, you can use the one-click restore point to set things back to how they were when everything was working. No need for any cache plugins – WP Engine’s custom-built EverCache technology delivers WordPress fast enough for Google and at scale. Hacking scans — If your site gets hacked, the company will fix it for free. Pros: Easily add a CDN to your site with just one click, fantastic support for your WordPress site, extremely fast, and secure servers. It comes with EverCache, so no external caching plugins are needed, and regular scans for hacking attempts keep your site safe and secure. Cons: WPEngine is a bit expensive compared to other managed WordPress hosting providers. Doesn’t offer the flexibility you might require in the plugin department. Review: WPEngine Review: Does it Really Make Your Site Load Faster? Visit WP Engine

2. SiteGround

(Loads under .4s, starts at $7.95, and usually responds to support questions in 15 minutes)

Note: SiteGround support is the hands down best and super fast. But you should know that their priority support is not available in their Startup plan. Also, you won’t get access to their premium caching solution & One-click staging on the Startup plan. So if you are looking for all those features, go with the GoGeek plan. SiteGround is perfect for those who don’t have the money to spend on the more expensive hosting providers. SiteGround provides unique WordPress security and speed solutions at a very affordable price. It provides all the shared hosting features such as free WordPress installation, free domain name, support, free WordPress migration, email accounts and a lot more for just $3.95 per month. Other features include: Unique WordPress Autoinstaller — Makes for easier setup. Autoupdater — Automatically update WordPress Core files and all of your plugins WordPress SuperCacher — For improving site performance. WordPress staging — So you can easily test out new features before a live launch. HHVM — For improving site speed, it loads faster (around 200ms) than PHP. But you should know this feature is only available on cloud hosting. WP-CLI comes pre-installed — So you can take the command line route to updates and multisite management, if you wish. Pros: Offers convenient autoinstall, autoupdate, caching, and staging features for a super low price. Also comes with Git, WP-CLI pre-installed, and offers WordPress migration for no added cost. Plus, the security team is very proactive when it comes to security, they have an account isolation option, and they regularly patch security exploits, instead of just sitting back and waiting for a security release to come out. Cons: Only comes with Cloudflare, if you are like me and want to use MaxCDN, you will have to use a third-party plugin such as W3 Total Cache or WP Total Cache plugin. Review: SiteGround Review – Inexpensive WordPress Hosting with Excellent Support Visit Siteground

3. Flywheel

(Loads under 1s, costs $23, amazing dashboard, a lot of useful features, and a ton of happy customers)

Flywheel was built with designers and creatives in mind, offering managed hosting that specifically suits their needs. It’s more than just a hosting provider and instead focuses on streamlining the workflow for web designers everywhere. Some particularly nifty features include easy collaboration, billing transfers to your clients, and staging sites. Plus, you can manage all of your sites from within one attractive dashboard. The Flywheel support team is staffed with WordPress experts, many of whom are designers so your biggest problems will always be entrusted to capable hands. The pricing is very reasonable and scales up to meet your needs. It starts off with a pay-per-site plan that begins at $23/month. After that, there are bulk plans for more serious developers that start at $105/month. Custom plans are also available. Key Features: Lightning speed – Designed specifically for WordPress sites so takes various factors that could affect speed into account. CDN is available. Nightly backups – Your sites will be automatically backed up each and every night so you can rest easy. Around the clock security – Flywheel constantly monitors your sites for hacking attempts and malware and will fix any discovered problems for free. More intuitive SFTP – Collaborating with other designers and working on client sites has never been easier. Pros: Quick page load times, easy scalability, and the ability to use whatever plugins you want. Flywheel also has a highly-qualified staff of WordPress experts who can take care of your every need and concern. Cons: Lacks the clout of big names like WPEngine. More expensive than shared hosting. Might be daunting to learn a new dashboard or interface on top of all of those you already use in the management of your business. Note: I recently started using FlyWheel for a new project that I am working on, and their dashboard is super easy to use. Visit Flywheel

4. Bluehost WP Hosting

(Loads under 2s, starts at $12.49, and comes with bad customer support)

Bluehost promises fast and secure managed WordPress hosting at an affordable price. The most basic plan allows for 100 million visits per month and includes 2GB RAM, 30GB storage, and 30GB backup storage. It also offers an enhanced cPanel, 24/7 support from WordPress experts, and up to 5 ManageWP sites for added convenience. Security is top-notch, too, and comes with a SiteLock CDN and SiteLock Pro. Pricing starts at just $2.95 for the first month and switches to $24.99/month after that. Notable features include: VPS-based — Built on a VPS platform, making for enhanced performance and site speeds. Includes ManageWP — Manage and migrate multiple WordPress sites all from within one hosting plan. Robust security — Includes SiteLock, an advanced CDN, and SiteLock WAF. Expert support — All hosting plans include 24/7 access to WordPress experts. Enhanced cPanel — Makes the transition from shared to managed hosting more seamless when working within a familiar interface. Pros: Relatively affordable price, SiteLock security, VPS, and includes ManageWP for added convenience. It also has 24/7 support and an enhanced cPanel for a more robust yet familiar experience. Cons: More expensive than some managed WordPress hosting plans, might not include as many features as other plans listed here, and doesn’t scale up as high for the largest developer needs. Review: Bluehost WordPress Hosting Review and How-To Guide Visit Bluehost

5. Kinsta

Kinsta is a performance-focused managed WordPress host that’s rapidly shot up in popularity over the past couple of years. Kinsta started as a high-end host, with the cheapest plan costing $100 per month. However, that changed in late-2017 and Kinsta has now become a lot more accessible to regular WordPress users with prices starting at just $30 per month. So – why has Kinsta had so much success lately? First off, it has all the features that you’d expect from a managed WordPress host like staging sites, automatic backups, server-level caching, etc. Then, it’s built on the Premium Tier of the Google Cloud Platform. Beyond giving you access to the same infrastructure that Google uses for its own products, this also means that you can choose from 18 different data centers available on every habitable continent. Other reasons to consider Kinsta include: Custom hosting dashboard – Kinsta’s custom hosting dashboard is super user-friendly and makes it easy to manage your site/server. Smart staging/backup features – Kinsta automatically backs up your site whenever you move from staging to production which makes it easy to roll back changes if needed. Performance-focused architecture – Kinsta is powered by the Premium Tier of Google Cloud Platform and includes the latest technologies like NGINX, PHP 7+, LXD containers, MariaDB, HTTP/2, and more. You also get a KeyCDN credit and premium DNS from Amazon Route 53 for no extra cost. 24/7 live chat support – Kinsta offers 24/7 live chat support through the always-present Intercom widget. Solid security – beyond firewalls and DDoS detection, Kinsta also adds WordPress login hardening, uptime monitoring, and plenty of other important security features. Free migrations – Kinsta offers unlimited free migrations from WP Engine or Flywheel. Otherwise, the number of migrations depends on your plan. Pros: Kinsta has awesome performance, especially under scale, so your site will load fast no matter how many people are visiting. The custom dashboard also makes it easy to manage your site, and the built-in features like staging and automatic backups are really convenient. The Intercom chat widget also makes it easy to get help and the 24/7 support has quick response times. Cons: Still not as affordable as something like SiteGround, especially if you have multiple sites. No phone support. Visit Kinsta

6. Pagely Hosting

(Loads under 0.09s, starts at $299, and overall perfect hosting for big businesses)

Pagely is well-known for its managed WordPress hosting with an emphasis on security. The company focuses on providing high-class security and fast loading websites. It has a number of great features such as automatic WordPress Core updates, plugin updates, daily backups, and a PressArmor custom WordPress security configuration that will keep the bad guys out and your site safe. Plus you’re free to use any plugin or app. Pricing starts $499/month for 30 sites and 200 GB bandwidth (& all the core features), which include: Convenient updates: Automatic WordPress Core and plugin upgrades with minimal interaction required. Varnish caching: Advanced varnish caching layer for millisecond load times. Free reign on plugins: Use nearly any plugin or theme you want. Complete site scans: Includes real-time malware scanning and removal plus redundant firewalls and DDoS protection. PRESSCDN: This service starts at $9/month. Pros: Feature-rich, security-focused managed WordPress hosting with an open attitude toward plugins and themes. Also offers PRESSCDN and varnish caching for quicker site load times. Cons: More costly than some managed hosting providers. Visit Pagely

7. Pressable

(Loads under 2s and starts at $25)

Formerly known as ZippyKid, Pressable is a unique managed hosting service, and advertises itself as rated #1 in customer satisfaction. Its services are built on custom RackSpace hardware and has an appealing list of clients and testimonials. Pricing plans start at $25/month, which is capable of handling 15,000 shared pageviews per month. All plans include the following features: Rackspace Hybrid cloud — The best servers for storing your sites. Daily backups — Your content will always be backed up on-time and automatically. SFTP access — Secure file transfer protocol so your data is safe even while in transit. SSL support — So you can set up shop and keep your customers secure, too. Malware scanning and removal — Never feel the effects of malicious hackers again. Pros: Reliable, high-quality hosting designed specifically for businesses and developers. Includes malware scanning and removal, SFTP, SSL, and CDN for added convenience. Cons: On the pricier side of managed hosting providers and might not offer the largest plans for those with extraordinary hosting needs. Visit Pressable

8. Synthesis

WebSynthesis was started by CopyBlogger Media, the producers of some of the most popular WordPress-related products on the internet including the Genesis theme framework and ScribeSEO. Synthesis uses NGINX architecture to sustain twice the traffic while consuming 1/8 of the resources. It also uses the MediaTemple dedicated servers. Plans start at $47/month. Some of its features include: High quality servers — Experience superior uptime and page load speed. SEO — Keyword and social media research included. Robust security — Enhanced security defenses. Content marketing — Content and website optimization included. Site Sensor uptime monitoring — Keep tabs on site uptime at all times. Pros: Uses NGINX architecture for fast load times and comes with SEO and content marketing tools. Also includes Site Sensor uptime monitoring and enhanced security features for ultimate protection of your content. Cons: Price tag is much higher than competitors and might be out of reach of newer developers. Visit Synthesis

9. WordPress VIP

WordPress.com VIP isn’t your normal Managed WordPress hosting provider. Pricing starts at $5,000 per month and is fine-tuned for high traffic websites such as Time, GigaOM, MSNBC, and TechCrunch. The hosting is perfect fit for those who are looking for an enterprise level solution. Some features include: SaaS — Turnkey infrastructure lets you build your site with confidence. CDN — Security is a top priority. Hourly backups — So you’ll never lose a bit of data again. Flat pricing — Pay a set monthly rate and get unlimited traffic, bandwidth, and storage without paying a penny more. 24/7 support — For answering your most pressing middle-of-the-night WordPress questions. Pros: Includes SaaS, CDN, backups, 24/7 support all for a flat price. Cons: Designed for enterprise customers with a price tag to match. Definitely not appropriate for new developers or even those who build smaller websites. Visit WP VIP

Do You Really Need Managed WordPress Hosting?

It directly comes down to you and your needs. Managed Hosting is perfect for both small business owners & enterprise / high traffic websites. For bloggers & developers, SiteGround is perfect solution, costs less than other managed hosting companies and provides high quality support. You need to think about the big picture here. What do you want to achieve with your site? What’s your top priority? If you anticipate building a lot of traffic to your site very quickly, then you’ll definitely need to consider a managed host, since it will likely allow for greater traffic volume and offers greater stability for WordPress sites specifically. If you just want to dabble in building a site for the first time, a managed host might be overkill. Another thing to think about is the level of support and customization you require. While shared hosting offers one-click installations for your convenience, these can preload your site with settings you might not like, especially if you have some development know-how. Using a managed host gives you the control you need to make smart decisions during the installation process, particularly with respect to security. Again, it ultimately depends on what you want to do with your site for how you approach this hosting decision.

My Top Picks

After reviewing each of these hosting providers, I’m a strong proponent of these four hosting providers. Let’s take a look at their features, shall we? SiteGround is for developers and bloggers who want features such as Git integration, a staging area, and SSL support at low prices. They are pretty inexpensive, plus offer free migration, and their support is relatively quick. Most of support questions were answered within an hour or two. Though, the guys who handle live chat aren’t the knowledgeable bunch. Meaning you will have to use their ticket support system for technical questions, instead of live chat support. Flywheel is for people who aren’t developers. Flywheel entered the market very late, but were able to quickly establish themselves as an easy to use managed hosting solution for designers, small business owners, and bloggers. If you don’t want to deal with all the technical jargon, go with Flywheel. I don’t think any other company has a dashboard as slick and easy to use as Flywheel’s is. In a nutshell, Flywheel is for people who can configure & setup WordPress sites, but aren’t developers. Are you a developer? Go with Pagely (they are now a bit expensive, though, costs $499 / month). Last year, Pagely moved their servers to Amazon and since then they have been pioneers in providing world-class infrastructure for small blogs, major WooCommere stores, membership sites, global corporate sites, and SaaS solutions. Their infrastructure technology includes HHVM, automatic daily backups, real time malware monitoring, built-in redundancy, developer friendly tools (SSH + GIT + Staging + WP-CLI + REST API), SPDY SSL acceleration, PressCDN, and Press Armour. If you want a bit of everything, go with WPEngine or Kinsta. These options are for you if want to scale without compromising the quality of support and losing developer friendly tools…all without breaking the bank. I have been using WPEngine for a long time and never had any problems with them. So which hosting provider are you using? What do you think about managed WordPress hosting as a whole? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. Data for speed tests data was taken from designbombs.com. If you enjoyed this post, why not also check out these articles on Best Woocommerce Hosting and Wordpress Building Trends! Post by Xhostcom Wordpress & Digital Services, subscribe to newsletter for more! Read the full article

#managedhosting #managedwordpresshosting

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seotipsandtricks-me · 6 years ago

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Choosing the best WordPress hosting for your site is critical. And the most important thing you need to consider is… How fast it is! Why? Because if your website loads slowly, you will suffer from- Lower search engine rankings Higher bounce rates Lower page view numbers Lower conversion rates And last but not least… A SLOW WEBSITE = LOWER PROFITS!�� Your websites speed is critical to the bottom line of your business. And all of that starts by making sure you choose the best WordPress hosting for you. PRO TIP: With WordPress hosting- “best” does not mean “most expensive” Keep reading and you’ll understand exactly what I mean… Because the tests below will help you save $,080 this year. Which Is The Best WordPress Hosting? Choosing the best WordPress hosting is easy. You want to make sure that the host you choose- Is super fast on the front and back end Loads your website quickly globally Takes security seriously (automatic backups & SSL) Offers great support Provides value for money The problem is, that is much easier said than done. So to find out who really offers the best WordPress hosting… I setup 8 test blogs across 7 popular managed WordPress hosting providers. And then I ran tests across each of those 8 blogs- Speed of loading from different locations around the world Ability to cope with a plugin-heavy WP blog Ability to handle a heavy simultaneous traffic load How each hosts hardware benchmarks Support speed & quality Value for money (very surprising result!) Note: I chose the cheapest plan with multiple sites. Cheaper plans are available. Kinsta – Who are the current host of this blog Cost: websites, $0 monthly, $00 annually CDN: Yes – KeyCDN included WPX Hosting – The previous host of this blog before Kinsta Cost: websites, $.99 monthly, $9.99 annually CDN: Yes – WPX Cloud included WP Engine – My host before WPX Hosting (it wasn’t great) Cost: websites, $ monthly, $0 annually CDN: Yes – MaxCDN>Stackpath included SiteGround – Specifically their managed WordPress hosting option Cost: unlimited website, normally $9.9 monthly, $9.0 annually CDN: No – Free CloudFlare recommended Hostgator – The managed WordPress Hosting package Cost: websites, $7.9 monthly, $.0 annually CDN: No – Free CloudFlare recommended Liquid Web – Again, their managed WordPress hosting offering Cost: 0 websites, $99 monthly, $,88 annually CDN: No – Free CloudFlare recommended Amazon EC – Not a managed WordPress host, but a DIY wildcard alternative Cost: Unlimited websites, $.99 monthly, $79.88 annually CDN: No – Free CloudFlare recommended So with WPEngine & LiquidWeb being the most expensive of all of them by a long way. You would expect them to be the clear winners… Right? WRONG! Not even close. How I Tested WordPress Hosting Speed I setup a total of 8 test sites across each of the 7 hosts. Hosts that included a CDN as part of their package had sites installed on them (WPXHosting, Kinsta & WP Engine). Hosts that ask you to use a free CDN like CloudFlare had sites installed on them (Siteground, Hostgator, Amazon EC & LiquidWeb). All of the sites are hosted in the USA. Then I created different types of blog on host and cloned that across each host using this plugin– Blog Type Heavy Cronus Theme photos ,000 words Blog Type Heavy Cronus Theme 0 plugins No text/images Blog Type Blog Type Plus Free CloudFlare CDN And to help make things a little easier for you… You can see the live versions of all of test blogs below- Siteground Blog Type (image heavy) Blog Type (plugin heavy) Blog Type (type + Cloudflare) HostGator Blog Type (image heavy) Blog Type (plugin heavy) Blog Type (type + Cloudflare) LiquidWeb Blog Type (image heavy) Blog Type (plugin heavy) Blog Type (type + Cloudflare) Amazon EC Blog Type (image heavy) Blog Type (plugin heavy) Blog Type (type + Cloudflare) WPX Hosting Blog Type (image heavy) Blog Type (plugin heavy) Kinsta Blog Type (image heavy) Blog Type (plugin heavy) WP Engine Blog Type (image heavy) Blog Type (plugin heavy) Feel free to click through to any of them and run your own tests! But if you’re too lazy to do that… Here are the results of my tests- Test – Image Heavy Site Loading Speed In this test: I took the Blog Type (image heavy) install for each host and ran it through GTMetrix twice. Often a sites content is cached on the hosting server and CDN. So I ran passes of GTMetrix to make sure all caches were primed. Then I tested each site from 7 global locations and averaged out the results. This is what it looks like- USACanadaUKAustraliaChinaBrazilIndia Tested From Dallas, USA. Host Page Load Time(lower is better) TTFB(lower is better) Test Result WPX Hosting . seconds ms View Result Kinsta . seconds 00 ms View Result SiteGround . seconds ms View Result WP Engine . seconds ms View Result Liquid Web .8 seconds ms View Result HostGator . seconds 9 ms View Result Amazon EC . seconds 900 ms View Result Tested From Vancouver, Canada. Host Page Load Time(lower is better) TTFB(lower is better) Test Result Kinsta . seconds 8 ms View Result WPX Hosting . seconds 89 ms View Result HostGator .7 seconds ms View Result SiteGround .8 seconds ms View Result WP Engine . seconds 9 ms View Result LiquidWeb . seconds ms View Result Amazon EC .8 seconds 900 ms View Result Tested From London, United Kingdom. Host Page Load Time(lower is better) TTFB(lower is better) Test Result WPX Hosting 0. seconds 7 ms View Result SiteGround . seconds 9 ms View Result WP Engine .7 seconds 8 ms View Result Kinsta .0 seconds ms View Result Liquid Web . seconds ms View Result Amazon EC . seconds 800 ms View Result HostGator .0 seconds 7 ms View Result Tested From Sydney, Australia. Host Page Load Time(lower is better) TTFB(lower is better) Test Result WPX Hosting 0.8 seconds ms View Result Kinsta . seconds 00 ms View Result SiteGround .7 seconds 800 ms View Result WP Engine . seconds 800 ms View Result Liquid Web . seconds 900 ms View Result HostGator .0 seconds 00 ms View Result Amazon EC .0 seconds 00 ms View Result Tested From Hong Kong, China. Host Page Load Time(lower is better) TTFB(lower is better) Test Result WPX Hosting . seconds 700 ms View Result Kinsta . seconds 00 ms View Result SiteGround . seconds 900 ms View Result WP Engine . seconds 900 ms View Result HostGator .8 seconds 8 ms View Result Liquid Web .0 seconds 000 ms View Result Amazon EC 9.0 seconds 800 ms View Result Tested From Sao Paulo, Brazil. Host Page Load Time(lower is better) TTFB(lower is better) Test Result WPX Hosting .7 seconds 0 ms View Result WP Engine . seconds 700 ms View Result Kinsta . seconds 00 ms View Result SiteGround . seconds 000 ms View Result Liquid Web .7 seconds 00 ms View Result HostGator . seconds 00 ms View Result Amazon EC .7 seconds 800 ms View Result Tested From Mumbai, India. Host Page Load Time(lower is better) TTFB(lower is better) Test Result WPX Hosting 0.9 seconds 0 ms View Result SiteGround . seconds 00 ms View Result Kinsta .7 seconds 00 ms View Result WP Engine .8 seconds 000 ms View Result Liquid Web . seconds 00 ms View Result Amazon EC . seconds 00 ms View Result HostGator . seconds 00 ms View Result Click Here To See The Test Data Hide The Test Data Test Conclusions The clear winner here is WPX Hosting. But it’s fair to say that all of the hosts performed within acceptable levels in Canada and North America (except for Amazon EC). It’s only when you start taking a global look at things do you see dramatic differences in the load times. But having globally fast loading times is critical in the modern economy. Test – Plugin Heavy Site Loading Speed A plugin heavy site can cause huge problems when it comes to load times. And it’s easy to get carried away! This blog has active plugins at the time of writing- And plugins can have such a big impact on load time… WP Engine maintains a list of plugins that are banned on their platform. So for the Blog Type (plugin heavy) installs, I installed 0 popular plugins with no other content whatsoever. Thrive Architect Yoast SEO Smushit Contact Form 7 All In One Schema WooCommerce TinyMCE Advanced Really Simple SSL MailChimp for WordPress Insert Headers and Footers Redirection WP Statistics AMP for WordPress Google Analyticator WP Sitemap Page Login LockDown WP-Polls WP Google Fonts Cookie Notice for GDPR Social Media Share Buttons & Icons Quiz & Survey Master PDF Embedder WP Project Manager ManageWP Worker Code Snippets Tablepress PrettyLinks bbPress WordPress Download Manager Business Directory Plugin Click Here To See All 0 Plugins Hide The Plugin List This test is different because we are testing the computing power of the host, rather than the speed of delivering static image files. Then I tested each plugin heavy install from 7 global locations & averaged out the results- USACanadaUKAustraliaChinaBrazilIndia Tested From Dallas, USA. Host Page Load Time(lower is better) Test Result WP Engine . seconds View Result Amazon EC . seconds View Result WPX Hosting .0 seconds View Result Kinsta . seconds View Result HostGator . seconds View Result SiteGround . seconds View Result Liquid Web . seconds View Result Tested From Vancouver, Canada. Host Page Load Time(lower is better) Test Result WPX Hosting . seconds View Result WP Engine .7 seconds View Result SiteGround .7 seconds View Result LiquidWeb .7 seconds View Result Kinsta .8 seconds View Result HostGator .8 seconds View Result Amazon EC .8 seconds View Result Tested From London, United Kingdom. Host Page Load Time(lower is better) Test Result WPX Hosting . seconds View Result WP Engine . seconds View Result Kinsta . seconds View Result Liquid Web . seconds View Result Amazon EC .8 seconds View Result SiteGround .0 seconds View Result HostGator . seconds View Result Tested From Sydney, Australia. Host Page Load Time(lower is better) Test Result WPX Hosting . seconds View Result WP Engine . seconds View Result SiteGround .7 seconds View Result Liquid Web . seconds View Result Kinsta .7 seconds View Result Amazon EC .7 seconds View Result HostGator . seconds View Result Tested From Hong Kong, China. Host Page Load Time(lower is better) Test Result WPX Hosting .0 seconds View Result Kinsta .8 seconds View Result SiteGround .9 seconds View Result WP Engine . seconds View Result HostGator . seconds View Result Liquid Web .9 seconds View Result Amazon EC .8 seconds View Result Tested From Sao Paulo, Brazil. Host Page Load Time(lower is better) Test Result WP Engine . seconds View Result SiteGround .0 seconds View Result Kinsta .9 seconds View Result WPX Hosting .0 seconds View Result Amazon EC . seconds View Result Liquid Web .8 seconds View Result HostGator . seconds View Result Tested From Mumbai, India. Host Page Load Time(lower is better) Test Result WPX Hosting . seconds View Result SiteGround .9 seconds View Result WP Engine .0 seconds View Result Kinsta .0 seconds View Result Amazon EC . seconds View Result Liquid Web . seconds View Result HostGator . seconds View Result Click Here To See The Test Data Hide The Test Data Test Conclusions Like the first test, WPX Hosting is the winner here. Although it is a marginal win over WP Engine. It’s worth bearing in mind that the tested page had absolutely zero content. And the slower hosts seem to have started choking with the higher number of requests. Test – WordPress Performance Tester Benchmarks The WordPress Performance Tester plugin is specifically designed to stress test WordPress hosting servers. It does that by running a number of tests- Math – 00,000 math function tests String Manipulation – 00,000 string manipulation tests Loops – ,000,000 loop iterations Conditionals – ,000,000 conditional logic checks MySql – basic mysql functions and ,000,000 ENCODE() iterations $wpdb – 0 insert, select, update and delete operations And then outputs performance metrics- Execution Time – how long it took to do all of those tests (lower is better) Queries Per Second – how many queries per second processed (higher is better) I ran each of the Blog Type (image heavy) installs for each host through the plugin. And these were the results… Host Execution Time(lower is better) Queries Per Second(higher is better) Test Result WPX Hosting 0.70 ,8 View Result SiteGround 0.7 ,0 View Result Kinsta 0.89 , View Result Liquid Web 0.98 ,0 View Result Amazon EC .00 View Result WP Engine . 9 View Result HostGator 9. 08 View Result Click Here To See The Test Data Hide The Test Data Test Conclusion As you can see x of the more budget friendly hosts WPX Hosting & Siteground performed incredibly well here. But interestingly: The more expensive hosts like Kinsta, LiquidWeb and WP Engine failed to perform. That is the exact opposite of what I would expect to happen… You would think those extra $$$ translate into better hosting hardware and setups! But the data is telling a different story. Test – Load Impact Next I wanted to know: How would each host perform under stress from 00 simultaneous visitors? However I had a huge problem: Most hosts automatically block tests like this because it reseambles a DDOS attack. But it was critical that I conducted anonymous testing because I didn’t want the hosts to know I was testing them. So I created a new page on each Blog Type (image heavy) install with ,000 words- WPX Hosting – https://hostingtest.space/load-impact/ WP Engine – https://hostingtest.space/load-impact/ Kinsta – https://hostingtest.space/load-impact/ SiteGround – https://hostingtest7.space/load-impact/ Hostgator – https://hostingtest0.space/load-impact/ Amazon – https://hostingtest.space/load-impact/ Liquid Web – https://hostingtest.space/load-impact/ Then I set Load Impact to work by sending 00 simulated visitors to load each page on each host. This is how it played out- Host Maximum Page Load Time(lower is better) Maximum Requests Handled(higher is better) Test Result WPX Hosting 0.7 seconds ,70 View Result Liquid Web . seconds 99 View Result WP Engine .7 seconds ,0 View Result Amazon EC 0. seconds 0 View Result Click Here To See The Test Data Hide The Test Data Test Conclusion From the tests I was able to complete- WPX Hosting was the hands down winner here – it wasn’t even close. And although WPEngine, Amazon and LiquidWeb were slower… They did not collapse under the testing and remained online. As for the other hosts I had problems testing with- Kinsta – LoadImpact was reporting a problem with overloaded Amazon VPS’s SiteGround – Either the hosting failed or they automatically blocked LoadImpact HostGator – Fell down during testing , the site went offline with a 0 error And while I would have loved to get a result for them… It would have brought attention to my testing & I wanted to test anonymously. Perhaps in the future I will be able to run this test again for the missing hosts. Test – Hosting Support Speed of your website is one thing. But speed (and quality) of support is another. And given that the tested hosts are self proclaimed “WordPress Experts”… I wanted to put that to the test. So I opened an identical support ticket with each host to see- How long it took to respond If they would fix the problem for me Here is the support ticket I sent to each host- Hi Support, I am not a very technical person and need help with the setup of this redirect on my site hosted with you thanks: hostingtest.space – all pages except hostingtest.space/wp-admin to redirect to hostingtest.space Thanks in advance. Matt It’s not a super easy problem to fix… But it’s not super difficult either. Any WordPress expert should be able to tackle it. In my opinion the easiest way to solve this problem is with a .htaccess edit like this- RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^(/wp-admin|.wp-login.php.) [NC] RewriteRule (.*) http:/hostingtest.space//$ [R=0,L] But: There is always more than one way to skin a cat! Test Conclusion As expected – the test results varied wildly here. Some hosts took full control and deployed a solution on my behalf… Where as others… didn’t. Here is how they performed- WPEngineSitegroundLiquidwebHostgatorWPXHostingKinstaAmazon WP Engine There was minute delay on live chat support initially- And ultimately… They said it wasn’t possible to do- Eric Roiz: This unfortunately wouldn’t be something that can work with a WordPress setup. With the way that WordPress loads out it’s content that wouldn’t be able to work Matthew Woodward: Can it be done in the htaccess file? Eric Roiz: No, it’s not a matter or being able to redirect or not, but rather that the way the sites individually load their content, that wouldn’t be able to work Matthew Woodward: OK Eric, I appreciate you trying. Thanks and have a good day there. It wasn’t that the WP Engine Support Agent didn’t necessarily want to do it for me. But he certainly didn’t know how to do it. Siteground Live chat response was pretty fast! But the support team wasn’t willing to apply the change for me and wanted me to read an article and use their tool myself: Martin T.: Sure, we do have a tool just for that and an article dedicated to it as well: https://www.siteground.com/kb/how_do_i_redirect_one_domain_to_another_domain_name/ Matthew Woodward: I always screw up things like this and would greatly appreciate you doing it for me thanks. Martin T.: I would be able to assist you if you’re facing any difficulties, but don’t worry it’s really easy and you can’t really mess anything up :) Matthew Woodward: I always find a way! Matthew Woodward: And it will take me along time to go through the article and understand the exact steps. Martin T.: It’s ok Martin T.: Believe me it’s really easy and you can’t mess anything up as the redirects can always be removed :) Matthew Woodward: I guess it’s not your policy to do stuff like that. It’s OK I understand. Martin T.: As customer support representative we’re here to help whenever you’re facing any difficulties, of course, I would love to assist you with any difficulties that might come up when trying to manage your account with us :) Matthew Woodward: Sure Martin, I appreciate that and have a good day there. Bye for now. I did take comfort in the fact that if I applied the changes myself and messed them up, that the SiteGround support team would help me out if I did mess it up. Liquid Web Accessing live chat was very fast and the support agency was willing to help. Although he stated that it wasn’t their normal policy- “that is out of the scope of our support. normally that would fall under your responsibility. but as a courtesy i can attempt that. just keep in mind that we don’t normally do this.” And as Liquid Web are one of the more expensive hosts, I was pleased to see them take control of requests like this. Hostgator Hostgators live chat response was very fast. However: Their solution failed when tested and the subsequent workaround seemed much more complex- While it was overly complex, they did demonstrate that why were willing to take control of requests rather than palming them off on support documents. WPX Hosting WPX Hosting were the most impressive of the bunch. Not only did they answer almost immediately but they also completed the request for me in about 0 minutes- Luchezar: I have set the redirection as requested, can you please test on your end and see if it’s working? Please clear your browser’s cache. Just press CTRL + F or use Incognito Mode (CTRL + SHIFT + N) for Chrome and (CTRL + SHIFT + P) for Firefox. For reference, please check this article: https://wpxhosting.c…er-cache-chrome-firefox-edge-/ Matthew: Sure, one moment. Yes that works. Thank you and have a good day there. Bye for now. You can’t ask for a better customer experience than that! Kinsta Kinsta (my current host) have always offered great, responsive support that takes control of issues. They responded quickly to the live chat, but it seemed this issue stumped them – even though I have challenged them with much more complex issues in the past. The Kinsta agent spent a very long time ( hours+) trying to fix it but couldn’t get it working fully- But they were committed to the resolution and prepared to invest significant time to help. Amazon Amazon is not a managed service like the other hosts here and is strictly do it yourself I know from past experience that you have to submit a ticket/email and they reply within hours typically. However, if their hardware is working- they expect the user to do everything in terms of configuration and software so their service wasn’t relevant for this test. Click Here To See The Support Requests Hide The Support Requests Kinsta, LiquidWeb & WPXHosting solved the problem successfully. And out of those - It was WPXhosting that solved the problem the quickest and with minimum fuss. However: WPEngine & SiteGround seriously fell short here Their “WordPress experts” were not able to solve the problem. Test – The Free CloudFlare CDN x of the hosts I tested did not include any kind of CDN- SiteGround LiquidWeb HostGator Amazon EC And it is common advice for hosting companies to recommend you setup the free version of the CloudFlare CDN. Supposedly this will help increase site speed. But is that really true? To find out I cloned the Blog Type (image heavy) install to a new domain on each host and then activated the free CloudFlare CDN- Siteground No CDN Free CloudFlare CDN HostGator No CDN Free CloudFlare CDN Amazon EC No CDN Free CloudFlare CDN LiquidWeb No CDN Free CloudFlare CDN Then I tested each of these installs with GTMetrix from 7 different global locations. And the results were very interesting… WordPress Hosting Features Compared So far we have focused purely on speed, reliabiliy and support. But what about other hosting features… As you can see: There really isn’t that much difference between them on the face of it… Except for price! It’s only with the nitty gritty testing that you see huge differences in quality of service. The Worst Things About Each Host Regardless of which host you look at, each of them have their own cons. The best wordpress hosting for me, isn’t necessarily the best WordPress hosting for you. For example: WPX Hosting is clearly the fastest, but if you need phone support… They aren’t right for you. So here is what I didn’t like about each of the managed WordPress hosting options- WP Engine They are the most expensive +$0/month for UK hosting No email support – additional costs with Google Apps etc Long banned plugins list Majority owned by GoDaddy’s owner Poor ratings & very bad experience WPX Hosting No phone support No Git support Servers are only available in USA and UK Back end control panel could be easier to use Hostgator Terrible trust score No CDN on base plan No free SSLs, only paid No staging area Long list of banned plugins Automatic backups are a paid upgrade Terrible loading speed from non-US locations (see above tests) Liquid Web Very expensive Not exactly the quickest based on my testing No CDN on base plan (but free Cloudflare CDN worked best of tested hosts here) No free email, costs $0 monthly extra + $-$ per email address No discounts for annual subscription Kinsta No phone support Expensive for multiple websites No email support – additional costs with Google Apps etc List of banned plugins No live chat for pre-sales questions No free migration on the base plan SiteGround Pricing virtually triples in year No staging area on base plan After first month, no monthly payment option No real CDN on base plan (free Cloudflare doesn’t count) Amazon Not really a WordPress host You need to configure everything Very technical, requires command line No CDN No automatic backups Support is for their hardware only No cost saving reason to choose Amazon over dedicated WP hosts Wrapping It Up While it is usually true that

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hafizhamza313 · 6 years ago

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Best CDN providers of 2019 to speed up any website

A content delivery network (CDN) works to accelerate almost any website by caching its files in servers around the world. Whether your visitors come from Europe, North America, Asia or anywhere else, content is automatically served from the nearest location for the fastest possible speeds. If you're new to the technology then it might seem intimidating, and there's no doubt that prices can be high, but don't let that put you off. A CDN is not just for massive corporations. You can set up the simplest services in less than five minutes, and if you choose your plan wisely, it might not cost you anything at all. Whatever your website, from a simple blog to a sprawling site for a big business, we've picked out some of the best services around to help point you in the right direction. If you find anything that looks interesting, give it a try – you can explore many of these CDNs for free, without handing over payment details or signing up for any contract.

Cloudflare is a hugely popular American content delivery service which combines novice-friendly ease of use with expert-level features and functionality. Setup is simple, with no need to edit your code. Just update your DNS nameservers to use Cloudflare and the service kicks in automatically, caching content and serving it to visitors from their nearest location. But there's much, much more. Web filtering can block bots, limit content spam, keep you safe from hackers or detect and mitigate DDoS attacks. Smart image optimizations can reduce image file sizes by up to 35%, further improving speeds. There's wide support for standards like IPv6, HTTP/2 and SPDY, clever page rules to help you manipulate traffic, and a REST API allows developers to take full control of what the service is doing. Cloudflare's free plan allows you to see what the service can do, without making any commitments. It's very usable, with unlimited bandwidth and no annoying restrictions to try and force you to upgrade. Upgrading to the Pro plan costs a reasonable $20 (£16) a month, and adds the image optimization rules, extra configurability and improved support. Whatever you choose, Cloudflare delivers great performance. As we write, the benchmarking site CDNPerf ranks Cloudflare at seventh place for worldwide HTTP request response times out of a field of 20 top CDNs. You can sign up for Cloudflare here

Fastly provides CDN tricks for some really big organizations, including the likes of Spotify and Reddit, and the firm lives up to its name, delivering impressively fast performance levels. Going by the rough guideline of CDNPerf’s rankings, it’s the second fastest CDN for the UK, and worldwide speeds are mostly good, too. Perhaps Fastly’s strongest point, however, is just how configurable the service is. For example, there’s diverse support for different types of video caching, and tons of low-level controls for those who want to get stuck into the likes of manipulating HTTP headers to customize how content is served. Of course, some know-how is required to set up everything, and novices to the CDN world will doubtless be confused by all the options on offer. But for those who need this level of flexibility and configurability, it’s priceless to have. Speaking of which, Fastly operates a pay-as-you-go model with a minimum charge of $50 (£37) per month. In addition, you can test up to $50 of traffic for free. You can sign up for Fastly here

KeyCDN is an easy-to-use budget CDN that might be a good pick for first-time users. Getting started couldn't be much simpler. Sign up with your email address and you get an immediate 25GB to play with, no payment details required. A well-designed web dashboard enables creating your first zone with the minimum of clicks, and there are guides to help you integrate the service with WordPress and other apps. Worth mentioning is that as of late November 2018, KeyCDN fully supports IPv6. More experienced users will appreciate options like Origin Shield – this allows you to specify a KeyCDN server to be the source for updates rather than the origin, reducing your server load. You're able to manipulate headers, cache or strip cookies, or set up a custom robots.txt. Once the service is running, a capable set of reporting tools enable watching CDN performance in near real-time. Also, all customers have access to the Image Processing feature, which is great for image optimization. KeyCDN's standout feature has to be its low prices. Bandwidth charges start at $0.04 (£0.032) per GB, less than half the price you'll pay with some of the high-end competition. The minimum usage is a tiny $4 (£3.2) per month and the minimum payment is $29 (£23.3). The company doesn't even try to cash in on the extras, for example offering shared SSL and custom Let's encrypt SSL certificates for free. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these low prices don't get you leading-edge performance, but there's still plenty of power here and you do get a lot for your money. You can sign up for KeyCDN here

MetaCDN is an Australian company which combines the CDNs of Amazon Cloudfront, Fastly and Verizon's EdgeCast into a single speedy service. Why? It's all about performance. When a visitor accesses your site, MetaCDN has three networks and more than 120 locations to choose from – way more than anyone else. In other words, there’s a much greater chance any visitor will have a server near them. This matters because every CDN delivers its best performance in different areas. EdgeCast scores highly in North America, for instance, but Fastly is quicker in the UK. MetaCDN automatically chooses the best network for every visitor's location, giving you the best of all worlds. This approach does have a catch. When you sign up with a single CDN, you can get access to all its individual settings and options, but combining three means you only get settings which apply to all of them (for obvious reasons). Which essentially means MetaCDN has barely any configuration options at all. (Check the Support site to get a rough feel for how the system works.) Still, MetaCDN is nicely user-friendly and it could be a good pick if speed is your top priority. Pricing is complicated (although not bad for access to enterprise-level CDNs) and there are three plans, Basic, Lite and Pro. The most popular one, Lite, is $50 on a monthly basis (you can also choose a yearly rate, for a $39 a month). You can sign up for MetaCDN here

This CDN provider focuses mainly on the West, with 14 points of presence (PoPs) in North America, and nine in Europe. There are only five PoPs in Asia, and two in Australia and South America (Brazil). StackPath is user-friendly, complete with a straightforward web console to manage your settings, and if you do get stuck, there’s extremely efficient technical support available via either live chat or phone. Performance seems good in the US and UK, and indeed Europe, but further afield you may see things tail off a bit, which is hardly a surprise given StackPath’s aforementioned focus on Western nations. Another strength here comes on the security front, with this CDN giving users free shared SSL (or the option to use your own SSL certificate, if you prefer). There’s also anti-DDoS technology and a capable Web Application Firewall. All in all, this is a tempting offering with a baseline plan that charges $10 (£7.6) for up to 1TB of bandwidth per month. The first month is also free. You can sign up for StackPath here

Update: The service has been now integrated with StackPath - "Everything you love about MaxCDN is being integrated into the new StackPath CDN service." MaxCDN is actually owned by StackPath now (the previously mentioned CDN) but provides a standalone service of its own which is well-suited for novices. You get 24/7 tech support with speedy responses promised (and indeed these claims stood up to our testing), and it’s easy enough to set up, and indeed use going forward. You don’t get as many settings to play with as some of the more advanced services, but that’s hardly surprising when trying to keep things more user-friendly. Another definite benefit is a range of useful reports and a solid core network. MaxCDN offers eight edge locations in the US, five in Europe – and you can add additional locations in Asia (and Australia), but you have to pay extra for those. Overall, though, pricing is a strong point, starting from $9 (£6.75) a month for a 100GB account, with a clear pricing structure which isn’t confusing in the slightest (often not the case with CDN offerings). Performance is, generally speaking, solid enough, and this CDN does pretty well for speeds in the UK and US. You can sign up for MaxCDN here

Amazon CloudFront is the CDN facet of AWS (Amazon Web Services), so it’s certainly part of a heavyweight operation. And indeed CloudFront offers a raft of advanced features as you might expect, and you can customize all manner of things such as enabling automatic GZip compression for better speeds. Another strength here is the in-depth analytics on tap, showing you details of your visitors’ device type, OS and so forth. There’s also the handy ability to set up alerts, meaning you can be warned when data transfer usage goes above a certain level. The downside to all the options on offer is that relative novices to the CDN world may find CloudFront’s control panel a little intimidating, at least initially. The other slight sticking points are that calculating pricing can be a rather tricky matter, and if you aren’t an experienced user familiar with CDN basics, tech support isn’t free – if you need help, you’ll have to fork out for it. Prices vary depending on region, but the good news is there’s a free tier (which gives you 50GB of data per month for one year). Performance levels are fairly average, too, but there’s no denying the power and configurability that Amazon offers to the slightly more tech-savvy user. You can sign up for Amazon CloudFront here

As you’re doubtless aware, Microsoft Azure is a big old stack of integrated cloud tools for building and managing applications and services, with a wide range of coverage including a CDN offering, which is what we’re focusing on here, naturally. Note that this doesn’t use Microsoft’s own edge servers, but rather three plans that use other CDN networks: Standard Akamai, Standard Verizon, and Premium Verizon. We fully discuss these various plans in our review of Microsoft’s CDN service, linked below, but suffice it to say that in terms of pricing – which can be somewhat confusing to work out – this isn’t the cheapest offering around. Still, those who want integration with other Microsoft technologies and services may well find the price worth paying. You get a web dashboard which is absolutely crammed with features, although as ever, this means it’s not particularly easy to use for beginners (and the setup process is pretty involved, too). Performance levels are impressive, and at the time of writing, according to CDNPerf, Azure CDN is the third fastest content delivery network in the US and worldwide. This has to be a tempting prospect if you’re using other Azure services, or if you’re a developer who will appreciate the likes of .NET or PowerShell management features. You can create a free account and get started with 12 months of free services. You can sign up for Microsoft Azure CDN here

CDN77 is a big-name player in the content delivery game, with some heavyweight clients signed up including the European Space Agency. It has an expansive CDN network with 35 data centers across the globe, with many of those in Europe and the US, but there are also locations in South America, Asia and one in Australia. The web console interface is very streamlined and keeps any jargon to a minimum, making it suitably user-friendly for novices to the CDN world. The flipside of this is that there aren’t a huge amount of options, although you can do some tweaking of various settings. In terms of performance, CDN77 is solid enough, and it ranks as a lower-to-mid pack player that’s unlikely to disappoint, but certainly isn’t the fastest CDN network we found when reviewing these various services. You get a free Let's Encrypt SSL certificate, and CDN77 is a pretty good value for money overall in terms of its per-GB pricing, although it’s not the cheapest outfit we’ve highlighted here. Pricing starts at $0.049 per GB of data for US and European locations, with Asia and Latin America being more expensive. If you want to test the waters, there’s a 14-day risk-free trial, and you don’t need to supply any payment details for this. You can sign up for CDN77 here

If you need a powerful CDN, look no further than Leaseweb, an enterprise-level operation which is still suitable for regular business users – just about, although we should say up front that it isn’t cheap, as you might imagine. Pricing starts at $113 (£88, €99) per month for an entry-level plan with a 2TB data allowance, the good news being that even with this ‘basic’ subscription, you get all the same security and CDN features as the heavyweight enterprise plans. That includes a smartly designed console for overseeing your CDN needs, complete with an extensive raft of potential settings and tweaks, featuring many options you don’t get with your average service (like the ability to set the cache-control header or determine how long to cache 404 responses). There’s also an in-depth statistics section which displays graphs and charts showing many interesting stats, such as visitor and traffic breakdowns, cache performance and the top file types which are seeing action. The one somewhat bleak spot is Leaseweb’s performance, which seems somewhat off the pace going by CDNPerf’s findings, although it’s difficult to gauge exactly what results you’ll get in practice. Users who want a powerful range of features in their CDN could give the 30-day trial a go to find out. You can sign up for Leaseweb here Check our tips to improve your SEO rankings! Read the full article

#bestcdnproviders #cdn #contentdelivery

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latestblogorg · 6 years ago

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How to Setup CloudFlare Free CDN in WordPress https://www.latestblog.org/how-to-setup-cloudflare-free-cdn-in-wordpress/ Page speed is a crucial element in determining your website’s search engine rankings. Not to mention, slow websites lead to a bad user experience. We are often asked by our users how does WPBeginner load so fast. The answer is simple, we use W3 Total Cache and MaxCDN. However, some Latest Blog

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discovervibe · 6 years ago

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Stackpath CDN review | pros/cons, alternative, competitors

Website performance can make or break businesses in today’s scenario. CDN has potential to insanely speeding up your website & boost all key parameters, which matters alot. Stackpath CDN has grown big in previous two years, and largely credit goes to its uniquely built platform which leveraged the strengths of leading market players and integrated them into one unified cloud based most secured…

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#how to setup stackpath cdn #how to use stackpath cdn #stackpath cdn #stackpath cdn review #stackpath cdn setup #stackpath cdn wordpress #stackpath dns #stackpath edge compute #stackpath full site integration #stackpath maxcdn #stackpath review #stackpath vpn #stackpath vs cloudflare #stackpath vs maxcdn #stackpath vs sucuri #stackpath wordpress

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megasoft012 · 8 years ago

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How to Setup MAXCDN with WordPress Utilizing WP Quickest Cache Plugin

Okay, now you have got determined to arrange MAXCDN with WordPress. However dont know the place to begin out. No worries, Ive prepared a MAXCDN tutorial to put in MAXCDN with WP quickest cache plugin. It’s going to take solely 5 to 10 minutes to stroll you thru with this guide. In this information, Unwell additionally describe how does MAXCDN work? The method to create a pull zone and the method…

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#CDN #maxcdn with wordpress #plugin #Search Engine Optimization #Setup #wordpress #Wordpress Plugins

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oweayndler-blog · 5 years ago

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Dedicated Servers

WordPress websites require constant care and attention, especially when the site has a large number of daily visitors. "Managing" WordPress includes optimizing WordPress for Speed, Security, Efficiency, Fault Tolerance, Scalability and even Disaster Recovery. This means ensuring that the WordPress website is always available to visitors and there is minimum downtime. This article discusses whether you really need "Managed" WordPress Hosting or any ordinary shared hosting will also suffice. The aim of this article is to introduce a newbie or a novice WordPress Webmaster from deciphering the jargon and hype created about "Managed" WordPress Hosting.

What is Managed WordPress Hosting?

Managed WordPress Hosting is when you outsource the management of your WordPress installation to your hosting company (or to a specialized agency, which will handle it for you). It may be called a special type of hosting which may have been optimized for WordPress or special tools which will enhance the overall WordPress experience.

Most "managed" hosting providers provide services specially fine-tuned for WordPress which can broadly be categorized as Caching Tools, Web Application Firewalls, Version-Control Tools, Content Delivery Network (CDN) routing, Staging Areas and more.

Is there a difference between ordinary shared hosting for WordPress and Managed WordPress Hosting?

Yes and No. Some hosts who provide managed WordPress Hosting indicate the exact distinction between their WordPress Plans and ordinary hosting plans. They also mention that you can add more features for a price. They often sell features like CDN and Version WordPress Hosting Control as add-on packs which you have to pay for. If a provider has not specifically mentioned that they offer "Managed" WordPress hosting, you can assume that their WordPress plans have minor variations from their regular shared hosting plans.

Can you "Do-It-Yourself" for WordPress Hosting

The short answer is Yes but with certain limitations. Lets take a look at some options which the "Managed WordPress" providers sell and also list the alternatives which are available on ordinary shared hosting.

Website Speed

Content Delivery Networks (CDN) cache the static parts of your website like images and directly provide the visitor with the images from their servers. You can always purchase a CDN solution to boost your website's speed and availability. This can be purchased independent of your shared hosting account. Options like CloudFlare, Photon, MaxCDN can be purchased separately as and when you need them.

WordPress also includes great plugins like W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache and WP Fastest Cache which will do the caching in your hosting account. This will be a similar technology used by the Manage WordPress Providers. However, some providers will have their own proprietary software to do the caching, which maybe significantly faster or use a different technology. Many of them also use HTTP Accelerator's like Varnish to speed up pages at the Web Server level, something which you maybe able to achieve only if you have your own server.

Website Security

Most hosting providers have multiple levels of security implemented by default on their servers. This means that Web Application Firewalls are implemented by default. You can also use reverse-proxy services like CloudFlare to enhance the security level.

Developer Tools and Aids

While you may not be able to setup a professional staging area for your website, you can make do with a couple of plugins for WordPress, which will be able to provide you some limited functionality for staging. An ideal plugin is SitePush which can easily move content and code between WordPress sites and also pull your site's database to a development site or push new code to a staging site. The same applies to version control tools like git as well. However, some of these software's may need you to have server level control, which maybe possible only if you have your own server. This maybe an expensive affair and taking the managed solution maybe worth it.

Do you really need Managed WordPress Hosting?

Managed WordPress services hand-hold you and perform routine tasks on your behalf. They may also have some unique technology to offer. They do come at a price, but if you feel that you cannot handle your website on your own, you are better off with such a service. If you are even a little tech savvy and have a bit of programming knowledge, you can Do It Yourself and achieve reasonably good results without having to pay a fortune. Having a managed service on a very high traffic site will definitely show some performance improvements. But if your daily visitors are in the thousands, then you will notice only a marginal difference. Be sure to do a cost-benefit analysis and take a trial account before you actually put your money into it.

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skqq-net · 6 years ago

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How to Setup CloudFlare Free CDN in WordPress

Dwell you are fervent on to should make make use of of Cloudflare CDN to your wordpress residing?

Cloudflare is greater than seemingly the most effective wordpress CDN and firewall companies accessible accessible inside the market. They supply a free CDN that quickens your web websites alongside with a collection of grand safety substances for tiny commerce web sites.

The enterprise is that many entry-stage customers are not capable of make use of Cloudflare ensuing from they assume it’s not simple to state of affairs up.

On this recordsdata, we’ll traipse you thru a complete Cloudflare setup in wordpress to allow you to toughen your web websites velocity.

Desk of Contents:

What’s CDN? Why You Want It?

What’s Cloudflare CDN?

MaxCDN vs Cloudflare

Environment Up Cloudflare CDN in wordpress

Intention 1: Cloudflare Setup from Web Host cPanel (SiteGround)

Intention 2: Environment Up Cloudflare Manually

Configuring Most Most essential Cloudflare Settings

Optimizing Cloudflare for wordpress

What’s CDN? Why You Need a CDN for Your Position?

A CDN or Suppose materials Present Group is a gadget of allotted servers which helps carry your web websites recordsdata sooner to the customers in accordance with their geographic prepare.

On the full, a web cyber web cyber web internet hosting supplier serves your web websites friends from a single prepare. Your complete customers fetch entry to the an identical server, whatever the construct they’re positioned. This may end up in a delay in relate provide for customers residing extra a great distance out of your web websites’s central cyber web cyber web internet hosting server.

CDN solves this wretchedness by creating a number of edge servers in various areas world large. These CDN servers cache static relate out of your residing’s origin/central server, retailer, and most trendy them to the customers after they search recordsdata from for it.

When there is a person search recordsdata from, the CDN server closest from the person’s prepare will take care of it. For instance, if any particular person inside the usa wishes to fetch entry to a UK-hosted web websites, then a CDN server inside the usa will inspire that search recordsdata from, not the precept scale back inside the UK.

With CDN, the full person requests are dealt with by the closest CDN servers. This mitigates the bodily distance between the friends and your web websites’s server. Because of this, your web websites masses sooner for all customers no matter their geographic prepare.

A sooner web websites moreover improves person abilities and affords your web websites a crAMPed improve in website positioning rankings.

The make use of of a CDN moreover reduces the load to your basic server and protects it from crashing all through site visitors spikes. Everytime you occur to like to have to be taught extra, take a look at our recordsdata on why you may need a CDN to your wordpress weblog.

What Is Cloudflare CDN?

Cloudflare is essentially the most widespread free CDN supplier accessible on the web. It is a licensed community of worldwide allotted servers which robotically cache static relate and carry dynamic relate abruptly.

On prime of a CDN supplier, Cloudflare is moreover a cloud-primarily based mostly totally web websites firewall and a allotted proxy server. It screens all incoming site visitors to your web websites and blocks suspicious site visitors even previous to it reaches your server.

They supply a free fundamental understanding that’s most gripping for tiny commerce web sites and blogs. They moreover present paid plans beginning at $20 monthly.

Cloudflare is a unbelievable desire for tiny corporations shopping for for a free CDN. Then once more, for those who occur to like to should totally make use of all Cloudflare substances, you then definately will want the Commerce understanding which bills $200 / month.

Editor’s expose: We assassinate not make use of Cloudflare on WPBeginner. In its construct we make use of MaxCDN (now fragment of StackPath) for our CDN supplier. They assassinate not energy you to make make use of of their DNS and supply extra low-cost pricing at scale.

MaxCDN vs. Cloudflare – What’s the Incompatibility?

MaxCDN and Cloudflare are every fairly various companies absolutely. Whereas MaxCDN is centered on serving your relate by means of their CDN, Cloudflare is extra centered on safety and spam administration.

They every make use of various applied sciences to inspire relate by means of their networks. MaxCDN serves relate out of your web websites’s DNS the make use of of pullzones, merely construct apart they mirror your web websites. Cloudflare, on the completely different hand, serves relate by means of their bear DNS, and as well as you is inclined to be requested to alternate your web websites’s DNS to designate their servers.

Cloudflare acts as a proxy between you and your web websites’s friends, that approach you stop completely different administration. Whereas MaxCDN acts as a reverse proxy, that approach you luxuriate within the whole administration.

Cloudflare is best at optimizing your web page speeds by combating your residing from malicious bots, attackers, and suspicious crawlers. MaxCDN is best at bettering your web websites velocity by serving your static relate by means of their servers positioned around the sphere.

Cons of The make use of of Cloudflare

The best person grievance with Cloudflare is that whereas it quickens your web websites, typically it is going to add a 2nd loading disguise for safety verification capabilities which defeats the explanation of velocity ensuing from customers typically should help 5 seconds previous to they will take a look at your web websites.

Usually it is going to moreover designate a CAPTCHA web page asking customers to disguise that they are human. This creates a unhealthy abilities for first-time friends who could nicely perhaps additionally merely by no means revisit the residing.

Environment Up Cloudflare on Your wordpress Position

Establishing Cloudflare on a wordpress residing could be very easy. There are two various recommendations:

By the make use of of a single-click on Cloudflare setup danger to your host’s administration panel

By signing up manually on Cloudflare web websites

The elemental approach is essentially the most appropriate selection to allow Cloudflare CDN to your wordpress weblog. A number of the terminate wordpress cyber web cyber web internet hosting companies love SiteGround luxuriate in partnered with Cloudflare to current a simple setup danger by means of their administration panel.

In case your web host doesn’t present a constructed-in Cloudflare setup danger, you then definately can manually add the supplier to your residing. We are able to disguise every of these recommendations in data beneath.

Intention 1: Establishing Cloudflare CDN with One-Click on on Setup Selection in cPanel

As we talked about earlier that some wordpress cyber web cyber web internet hosting suppliers love SiteGround present a simple danger to configure Cloudflare CDN in wordpress.

These web hosts current a constructed-in Cloudflare integration app to your cyber web cyber web internet hosting cPanel to allow the supplier with factual a pair of clicks.

This Cloudflare setup danger works equally with most cyber web cyber web internet hosting suppliers that luxuriate within the mixture. To your reference, we’ll disguise the setup path of on SiteGround cyber web cyber web internet hosting.

Enabling Cloudflare CDN on SiteGround

Everytime you occur to is inclined to be the make use of of SiteGround as your wordpress cyber web cyber web internet hosting firm, you then definately can state of affairs up Cloudflare CDN to your residing in factual a instantaneous time.

To fetch began, login to your cPanel and navigate to the ‘Position Enchancment Devices’ fragment. After that, click on on on the ‘Cloudflare’ icon.

SiteGround solely inside the close to earlier began switching to a current administration panel. Everytime you occur to’re the make use of of the current panel, you then definately’ll take a look at Cloudflare listed beneath Bolt tab. For instance, seize a gaze at the screenshot beneath.

To allow Cloudflare free CDN to your web websites, factual click on on on the ‘State of affairs Up’ button to proceed.

After that, it’s seemingly you may perhaps perhaps take a look at a popup asking you to assassinate a Cloudflare yarn or be part of to your current one.

Subsequent, it’s seemingly you may perhaps perhaps take a look at a message indicating that the CDN activation is in development. As quickly as a result of it’s complete, the Cloudflare CDN could also be lively to your wordpress residing.

Intention 2: Establishing Cloudflare CDN in wordpress Manually

In case your web cyber web cyber web internet hosting doesn’t luxuriate in a single click on on Cloudflare configuration danger, you then definately can make use of this technique. It is a great distance going to seize a pair of extra minutes, however it completely is moreover easy and user-apt.

To start, it’s a great distance wished to check with CloudFlare web websites and click on on on on the ‘Mark Up’ button.

On the subsequent web page, it’s a great distance wished to enter your e mail take care of and password to assassinate a Cloudflare yarn. Merely enter the recordsdata required, after which click on on on the ‘Create Account’ button.

After that, it’s a great distance wished to enter your web websites’s URL.

On the subsequent disguise, it’s seemingly you may perhaps perhaps be requested to bewitch a understanding. For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll seize out a free understanding.

After that, Cloudflare will disguise you a guidelines of all DNS data their applications came upon. This is ready to perhaps perhaps nicely additionally merely embody your subdomains as efficiently.

The DNS data you are fervent on to luxuriate in to be handed by means of Cloudflare could nicely perhaps luxuriate in orange cloud icon. The DNS data that may bypass Cloudflare could nicely perhaps luxuriate in a gray cloud icon.

It might nicely perhaps nicely be an awfully grand to guage the guidelines to variety apparent that your basic enviornment is lively on Cloudflare with an orange cloud icon.

As quickly as you evaluate your DNS data, click on on on the Proceed danger on the underside.

On the subsequent and the ultimate step of your setup, Cloudflare will ask you to replace your nameservers. You’ll seemingly be requested to alternate your title servers and level them to Cloudflare nameservers.

Leer: Altering title server can seize a while to propagate by means of real all through the web. For the size of this time, your web websites could nicely perhaps additionally merely develop to be inaccessible for some customers.

You might nicely perhaps alternate title servers both out of your enviornment registrar yarn love Space.com, or for those who occur to purchased a free enviornment out of your web cyber web cyber web internet hosting supplier love bluehost, you then definately’ve bought to alternate the title server by logging into your cyber web cyber web internet hosting yarn.

For the sake of this tutorial, we can be exhibiting you be taught the way to alternate the title servers from the bluehost administration panel. Whereas the approach is similar throughout cyber web cyber web internet hosting corporations, it’s seemingly you may perhaps perhaps constantly ask your cyber web cyber web internet hosting supplier for detailed directions for his or her administration panel.

As quickly as you is inclined to be logged on to your bluehost cPanel dashboard, roam to ‘Domains’ fragment, and seize out your enviornment title. After that, click on on on the ‘Title Servers’ tab and ‘Edit’ danger.

Subsequent, it’s a great distance wished to bewitch ‘Customized’ and enter the nameservers geared up by Cloudflare.

After that, it’s a great distance wished to switch help to Cloudflare setup web page, and click on on on on ‘Carried out, take a look at nameservers’ button to develop the setup.

That’s it! Now it is going to seize a instantaneous time to replace your enviornment nameservers and set off Cloudflare.

As quickly as activated, it’s seemingly you may perhaps perhaps take a look at the success message to your Cloudflare dashboard.

You might nicely perhaps now customise your Cloudflare settings from this dashboard. We are able to disguise you essentially the most excessive settings inside the subsequent fragment.

Reward: The above screenshots disguise bluehost administration panel. Your nameserver settings could nicely perhaps additionally merely gaze various for those who occur to’re the make use of of a selected cyber web cyber web internet hosting supplier.

Configuring Most Most essential Cloudflare Settings

Your fundamental Cloudflare state of affairs up is complete, however there are a pair of a should luxuriate in settings it’s a great distance wished to configure to seize care of your wordpress residing rating.

1. Configure wordpress Squawk Web web page Ideas

By creating web page rules, it’s seemingly you may perhaps perhaps customise how Cloudflare works on explicit pages to your residing. It is a great distance terribly purposeful in securing excessive pages love login web page, wp-admin prepare, and so forth.

Cloudflare free yarn enables you to state of affairs up three page-principles. Everytime you occur to like to should add extra web page rules, then it’s a great distance wished to pay $5 monthly for 5 extra rules.

First, it’s a great distance wished to click on on on the Web web page Ideas danger on the terminate after which click on on on the Create Web web page Rule button.

After that, it’s seemingly you may perhaps perhaps state of affairs up the next three page-principles.

a) Steady your wordpress login web page

Web web page URL: occasion.com/wp-login.php* Environment: Safety Diploma; Extreme

b) Exclude wordpress Dashboard from Cloudflare and Allow Extreme Safety

Web web page URL: occasion.com/wp-admin* Settings: Safety Diploma; Extreme Cache Diploma; Bypass Disable Effectivity Disable Apps

c) Energy HTTPS

Web web page URL: http://*occasion.com/* Environment: At all times make use of HTTPS

2. Configure SSL Certificates Settings

But another essential ambiance is the SSL certificates accessible inside the ‘SSL/TSL’ menu on the terminate.

Create apparent to bewitch ‘Corpulent’ for those who occur to is inclined to be already the make use of of SSL.

Everytime you occur to don’t luxuriate in an SSL certificates, then take a look at our recordsdata on be taught the way to fetch a free SSL certificates to your web websites.

As quickly as carried out, Cloudflare will current a coveted inexperienced padlock to point that your web websites is rating.

Optimizing Cloudflare for wordpress The make use of of a Plugin

Cloudflare provides a loyal wordpress plugin for one-click on wordpress-optimized settings. The plugin enables you to fast state of affairs up Cloudflare to your wordpress residing, add web utility firewall (WAF) rulesets, robotically purge the cache, and extra.

To fetch began, set up and set off the Cloudflare plugin to your web websites. For more information, take a look at our tiny by tiny recordsdata on be taught the way to set up a wordpress plugin.

As quickly as carried out, it’s a great distance wished to check with Settings » Cloudflare out of your admin panel to configure Cloudflare settings.

On the settings web page, it’s seemingly you may perhaps perhaps take a look at a Create Your Free Account button and Mark-in danger for already current accounts. Merely click on on on the signal-in danger.

On the subsequent disguise, it’s seemingly you may perhaps perhaps should enter your Cloudflare e mail and API key.

You might nicely perhaps achieve your API key to your yarn prepare on the Cloudflare web websites.

Merely start the ‘My Profile’ web page after which click on on on the API tokens. After that, roam to the Worldwide API Key fragment and click on on on on the Uncover button.

This is ready to perhaps perhaps nicely additionally merely start a popup and designate your API key. It might nicely perhaps nicely be an awfully grand to replica essentially the most primary.

Subsequent, scheme help to your wordpress dashboard and enter your e mail take care of and API key.

After that, Cloudflare residence web page will appear to your dashboard. From there, it’s seemingly you may perhaps perhaps apply a single-click on wordpress optimization, purge cache, allow automated cache, and so forth.

You might nicely perhaps achieve extra Cloudflare decisions by clicking on the Settings danger.

It moreover shows stats akin to friends, bandwidth saved, threats blocked, and so forth. from the Analytics danger.

We hope this text helped you to be taught to state of affairs up Cloudflare free CDN in wordpress. You might nicely perhaps perhaps additionally merely moreover should gaze our complete wordpress web websites safety recordsdata.

Everytime you occur to cherished this text, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for wordpress video tutorials. You might nicely perhaps moreover achieve us on Twitter and Fb.

The publish Straightforward Setup CloudFlare Free CDN in wordpress regarded first on WPBeginner.

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onlinemarketingcourses · 7 years ago

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Which Is The Best WordPress Hosting? 7 Hosts

Choosing the best WordPress hosting for your site is critical.

And the most important thing you need to consider is…

How fast it is!

Why?

Because if your website loads slowly, you will suffer from-

Lower search engine rankings

Higher bounce rates

Lower page view numbers

Lower conversion rates

And last but not least…

A SLOW WEBSITE = LOWER PROFITS!

Your websites speed is critical to the bottom line of your business.

And all of that starts by making sure you choose the best WordPress hosting for you.

PRO TIP: With WordPress hosting- “best” does not mean “most expensive”

Keep reading and you’ll understand exactly what I mean…

Because the tests below will help you save $1,080 this year.

Which Is The Best WordPress Hosting?

Choosing the best WordPress hosting is easy.

You want to make sure that the host you choose-

Is super fast on the front and back end

Loads your website quickly globally

Takes security seriously (automatic backups & SSL)

Offers great support

Provides value for money

The problem is, that is much easier said than done.

So to find out who really offers the best WordPress hosting…

I setup 18 test blogs across 7 popular managed WordPress hosting providers.

And then I ran 6 tests across each of those 18 blogs-

Speed of loading from different locations around the world

Ability to cope with a plugin-heavy WP blog

Ability to handle a heavy simultaneous traffic load

How each hosts hardware benchmarks

Support speed & quality

Value for money (very surprising result!)

Note: I chose the cheapest plan with multiple sites. Cheaper plans are available.

Kinsta – Who are the current host of this blog

Cost: 2 websites, $60 monthly, $600 annually

CDN: Yes – KeyCDN included

WPX Hosting – The previous host of this blog before Kinsta

Cost: 5 websites, $24.99 monthly, $249.99 annually

CDN: Yes – WPX Cloud included

WP Engine – My host before WPX Hosting (it wasn’t great)

Cost: 5 websites, $115 monthly, $1150 annually

CDN: Yes – MaxCDN>Stackpath included

SiteGround – Specifically their managed WordPress hosting option

Cost: unlimited website, normally $19.95 monthly, $239.40 annually

CDN: No – Free CloudFlare recommended

Hostgator – The managed WordPress Hosting package

Cost: 3 websites, $27.95 monthly, $335.40 annually

CDN: No – Free CloudFlare recommended

Liquid Web – Again, their managed WordPress hosting offering

Cost: 10 websites, $99 monthly, $1,188 annually

CDN: No – Free CloudFlare recommended

Amazon EC2 – Not a managed WordPress host, but a DIY wildcard alternative

Cost: Unlimited websites, $14.99 monthly, $179.88 annually

CDN: No – Free CloudFlare recommended

So with WPEngine & LiquidWeb being the most expensive of all of them by a long way.

You would expect them to be the clear winners…

Right?

WRONG!

Not even close.

How I Tested WordPress Hosting Speed

I setup a total of 18 test sites across each of the 7 hosts.

Hosts that included a CDN as part of their package had 2 sites installed on them (WPXHosting, Kinsta & WP Engine).

Hosts that ask you to use a free CDN like CloudFlare had 3 sites installed on them (Siteground, Hostgator, Amazon EC2 & LiquidWeb).

All of the sites are hosted in the USA.

Then I created 3 different types of blog on 1 host and cloned that across each host using this plugin–

Blog Type #1 Image Heavy

Cronus Theme 11 photos 2,000 words

Blog Type #2 Plugin Heavy

Cronus Theme 30 plugins No text/images

Blog Type #3 CloudFlare

Blog Type #1 Plus Free CloudFlare CDN

And to help make things a little easier for you…

You can see the live versions of all of test blogs below-

Siteground

HostGator

LiquidWeb

Amazon EC2

WPX Hosting

Kinsta

WP Engine

Feel free to click through to any of them and run your own tests!

But if you’re too lazy to do that…

Here are the results of my 6 tests-

Test #1 – Image Heavy Site Loading Speed

In this test:

I took the Blog Type 1 (image heavy) install for each host and ran it through GTMetrix twice.

Often a sites content is cached on the hosting server and CDN.

So I ran 2 passes of GTMetrix to make sure all caches were primed.

Then I tested each site from 7 global locations and averaged out the results.

This is what it looks like-

USA

Canada

Australia

China

Brazil

India

Tested From Vancouver, Canada.

Tested From London, United Kingdom.

Tested From Sydney, Australia.

Tested From Hong Kong, China.

Tested From Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Tested From Mumbai, India.

Test #1 Conclusions

But it’s fair to say that all of the hosts performed within acceptable levels in Canada and North America (except for Amazon EC2).

It’s only when you start taking a global look at things do you see dramatic differences in the load times.

But having globally fast loading times is critical in the modern economy.

Test #2 – Plugin Heavy Site Loading Speed

A plugin heavy site can cause huge problems when it comes to load times.

And it’s easy to get carried away!

This blog has 56 active plugins at the time of writing-

And plugins can have such a big impact on load time…

WP Engine maintains a list of plugins that are banned on their platform.

So for the Blog Type 2 (plugin heavy) installs, I installed 30 popular plugins with no other content whatsoever.

Thrive Architect

Yoast SEO

Smushit

Contact Form 7

All In One Schema

WooCommerce

TinyMCE Advanced

Really Simple SSL

MailChimp for WordPress

Insert Headers and Footers

Redirection

WP Statistics

AMP for WordPress

Google Analyticator

WP Sitemap Page

WP-Polls

WP Google Fonts

Cookie Notice for GDPR

Social Media Share Buttons & Icons

Quiz & Survey Master

PDF Embedder

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This test is different because we are testing the computing power of the host, rather than the speed of delivering static image files.

Then I tested each plugin heavy install from 7 global locations & averaged out the results-

USA

Canada

Australia

China

Brazil

India

Tested From Vancouver, Canada.

Tested From London, United Kingdom.

Tested From Sydney, Australia.

Tested From Hong Kong, China.

Tested From Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Tested From Mumbai, India.

Test #2 Conclusions

Like the first test, WPX Hosting is the winner here.

Although it is a marginal win over WP Engine.

It’s worth bearing in mind that the tested page had absolutely zero content.

And the slower hosts seem to have started choking with the higher number of requests.

Test #3 – WordPress Performance Tester Benchmarks

The WordPress Performance Tester plugin is specifically designed to stress test WordPress hosting servers.

It does that by running a number of tests-

Math – 100,000 math function tests

String Manipulation – 100,000 string manipulation tests

Loops – 1,000,000 loop iterations

Conditionals – 1,000,000 conditional logic checks

MySql – basic mysql functions and 1,000,000 ENCODE() iterations

$wpdb – 250 insert, select, update and delete operations

And then outputs 2 performance metrics-

Execution Time – how long it took to do all of those tests (lower is better)

Queries Per Second – how many queries per second processed (higher is better)

I ran each of the Blog Type 1 (image heavy) installs for each host through the plugin.

And these were the results…

Test #3 Conclusion

As you can see 2x of the more budget friendly hosts WPX Hosting & Siteground performed incredibly well here.

But interestingly:

The more expensive hosts like Kinsta, LiquidWeb and WP Engine failed to perform.

That is the exact opposite of what I would expect to happen…

You would think those extra $$$ translate into better hosting hardware and setups!

But the data is telling a different story.

Test #4 – Load Impact

Next I wanted to know:

How would each host perform under stress from 500 simultaneous visitors?

However I had a huge problem:

Most hosts automatically block tests like this because it reseambles a DDOS attack.

But it was critical that I conducted anonymous testing because I didn’t want the hosts to know I was testing them.

So I created a new page on each Blog Type 1 (image heavy) install with 1,000 words-

Then I set Load Impact to work by sending 500 simulated visitors to load each page on each host.

This is how it played out-

Host Maximum Page Load Time (lower is better) Maximum Requests Handled (higher is better) Test Result WPX Hosting 0.371 seconds 3,370 View Result Liquid Web 2.56 seconds 599 View Result WP Engine 3.57 seconds 2,430 View Result Amazon EC2 10.1 seconds 305 View Result

Test #4 Conclusion

From the tests I was able to complete-

WPX Hosting was the hands down winner here – it wasn’t even close.

And although WPEngine, Amazon and LiquidWeb were slower…

They did not collapse under the testing and remained online.

As for the other hosts I had problems testing with-

Kinsta – LoadImpact was reporting a problem with overloaded Amazon VPS’s

SiteGround – Either the hosting failed or they automatically blocked LoadImpact

HostGator – Fell down during testing , the site went offline with a 503 error

And while I would have loved to get a result for them…

It would have brought attention to my testing & I wanted to test anonymously.

Perhaps in the future I will be able to run this test again for the missing hosts.

Test #5 – Hosting Support

Speed of your website is one thing.

But speed (and quality) of support is another.

And given that the tested hosts are self proclaimed “WordPress Experts”…

I wanted to put that to the test.

So I opened an identical support ticket with each host to see-

How long it took to respond

If they would fix the problem for me

Here is the support ticket I sent to each host-

Hi Support,

I am not a very technical person and need help with the setup of this redirect on my site hosted with you thanks:

hostingtest2.space – all pages except hostingtest2.space/wp-admin

to redirect to

hostingtest2.space

Thanks in advance.

Matt

It’s not a super easy problem to fix…

But it’s not super difficult either.

Any WordPress expert should be able to tackle it.

In my opinion the easiest way to solve this problem is with a .htaccess edit like this-

RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^(/wp-admin|.wp-login.php.) [NC] RewriteRule (.*) http:/hostingtest3.space//$1 [R=301,L]

But:

There is always more than one way to skin a cat!

Test #5 Conclusion

As expected – the test results varied wildly here.

Some hosts took full control and deployed a solution on my behalf…

Where as others… didn’t.

Here is how they performed-

WPEngine

Siteground

Liquidweb

Hostgator

WPXHosting

Kinsta

Amazon

WP Engine

There was 14 minute delay on live chat support initially-

And ultimately…

They said it wasn’t possible to do-

Eric Roiz: This unfortunately wouldn’t be something that can work with a WordPress setup. With the way that WordPress loads out it’s content that wouldn’t be able to work

Matthew Woodward: Can it be done in the htaccess file?

Eric Roiz: No, it’s not a matter or being able to redirect or not, but rather that the way the sites individually load their content, that wouldn’t be able to work

Matthew Woodward: OK Eric, I appreciate you trying. Thanks and have a good day there.

It wasn’t that the WP Engine Support Agent didn’t necessarily want to do it for me.

But he certainly didn’t know how to do it.

Siteground

Live chat response was pretty fast!

But the support team wasn’t willing to apply the change for me and wanted me to read an article and use their tool myself:

Martin T.: Sure, we do have a tool just for that and an article dedicated to it as well: https://ift.tt/1qT7ma2

Matthew Woodward: I always s**** up things like this and would greatly appreciate you doing it for me thanks.

Martin T.: I would be able to assist you if you’re facing any difficulties, but don’t worry it’s really easy and you can’t really mess anything up 🙂

Matthew Woodward: I always find a way!

Matthew Woodward: And it will take me along time to go through the article and understand the exact steps.

Martin T.: It’s ok

Martin T.: Believe me it’s really easy and you can’t mess anything up as the redirects can always be removed 🙂

Matthew Woodward: I guess it’s not your policy to do stuff like that. It’s OK I understand.

Martin T.: As customer support representative we’re here to help whenever you’re facing any difficulties, of course, I would love to assist you with any difficulties that might come up when trying to manage your account with us 🙂

Matthew Woodward: Sure Martin, I appreciate that and have a good day there. Bye for now.

I did take comfort in the fact that if I applied the changes myself and messed them up, that the SiteGround support team would help me out if I did mess it up.

Liquid Web

Accessing live chat was very fast and the support agency was willing to help.

Although he stated that it wasn’t their normal policy-

“that is out of the scope of our support. normally that would fall under your responsibility. but as a courtesy i can attempt that. just keep in mind that we don’t normally do this.”

And as Liquid Web are one of the more expensive hosts, I was pleased to see them take control of requests like this.

Hostgator

Hostgators live chat response was very fast.

However:

Their solution failed when tested and the subsequent workaround seemed much more complex-

While it was overly complex, they did demonstrate that why were willing to take control of requests rather than palming them off on support documents.

WPX Hosting

WPX Hosting were the most impressive of the bunch.

Not only did they answer almost immediately but they also completed the request for me in about 10 minutes-

Luchezar: I have set the redirection as requested, can you please test on your end and see if it’s working?

Please clear your browser’s cache. Just press CTRL + F5 or use Incognito Mode (CTRL + SHIFT + N) for Chrome and (CTRL + SHIFT + P) for Firefox.

For reference, please check this article: https://wpxhosting.c…er-cache-chrome-firefox-edge-/

Matthew: Sure, one moment. Yes that works. Thank you and have a good day there. Bye for now.

You can’t ask for a better customer experience than that!

Kinsta

Kinsta (my current host) have always offered great, responsive support that takes control of issues.

They responded quickly to the live chat, but it seemed this issue stumped them – even though I have challenged them with much more complex issues in the past.

The Kinsta agent spent a very long time (2 hours+) trying to fix it but couldn’t get it working fully-

But they were committed to the resolution and prepared to invest significant time to help.

Amazon

Amazon is not a managed service like the other hosts here and is strictly do it yourself

I know from past experience that you have to submit a ticket/email and they reply within 24 hours typically.

However, if their hardware is working- they expect the user to do everything in terms of configuration and software so their service wasn’t relevant for this test.

And out of those 3-

It was WPXhosting that solved the problem the quickest and with minimum fuss.

However:

WPEngine & SiteGround seriously fell short here

Their “WordPress experts” were not able to solve the problem.

Test #6 – The Free CloudFlare CDN

4x of the hosts I tested did not include any kind of CDN-

SiteGround

LiquidWeb

HostGator

Amazon EC2

And it is common advice for hosting companies to recommend you setup the free version of the CloudFlare CDN.

Supposedly this will help increase site speed.

But is that really true?

To find out I cloned the Blog Type 1 (image heavy) install to a new domain on each host and then activated the free CloudFlare CDN-

Then I tested each of these installs with GTMetrix from 7 different global locations.

And the results were very interesting…

WordPress Hosting Features Compared

So far we have focused purely on speed, reliabiliy and support.

But what about other hosting features…

As you can see:

There really isn’t that much difference between them on the face of it…

Except for price!

It’s only with the nitty gritty testing that you see huge differences in quality of service.

The Worst Things About Each Host

Regardless of which host you look at, each of them have their own cons.

The best wordpress hosting for me, isn’t necessarily the best WordPress hosting for you.

For example:

WPX Hosting is clearly the fastest, but if you need phone support…

They aren’t right for you.

So here is what I didn’t like about each of the managed WordPress hosting options-

WP Engine

WPX Hosting

No phone support

No Git support

Servers are only available in USA and UK

Back end control panel could be easier to use

Hostgator

Terrible trust score

No CDN on base plan

No free SSLs, only paid

No staging area

Long list of banned plugins

Automatic backups are a paid upgrade

Terrible loading speed from non-US locations (see above tests)

Liquid Web

Very expensive

Not exactly the quickest based on my testing

No CDN on base plan (but free Cloudflare CDN worked best of tested hosts here)

No free email, costs $10 monthly extra + $1-$3 per email address

No discounts for annual subscription

Kinsta

No phone support

Expensive for multiple websites

No email support – additional costs with Google Apps etc

List of banned plugins

No live chat for pre-sales questions

No free migration on the base plan

SiteGround

Pricing virtually triples in year 2

No staging area on base plan

After first month, no monthly payment option

No real CDN on base plan (free Cloudflare doesn’t count)

Amazon

Not really a WordPress host

You need to configure everything

Very technical, requires command line

No CDN

No automatic backups

Support is for their hardware only

No cost saving reason to choose Amazon over dedicated WP hosts

Wrapping It Up

While it is usually true that “you get what you pay for” in life..

That isn’t true when it comes to choosing the best wordpress hosting.

WP Engine ($115/mo) & Liquid Web ($99/mo) are the most expensive but also failed to perform.

HostGator were also consistently poor.

That leaves SiteGround, Kinsta and WPX Hosting to consider.

Kinsta and WPX Hosting performed consistently faster than Siteground.

But Siteground did hold steady throughout all of my testing.

I suspect if you added a quality CDN to SiteGround rather than the free CloudFlare suggestion they would perform much better.

But that’s an extra cost and Kinsta & WPX Hosting already include good CDNs for free.

So if I was going to rank them…

The Best WordPress Hosting Is…

WPX Hosting – Cheap but also the fastest with the best support

Kinsta – Solid performance, fantastic support & the current host of this blog

SiteGround – Budget friendly and fast but support was lacking

The great irony of these results is that…

WPX Hosting used to host this blog (I famously ditched WPEngine for them).

Then 2 years ago…

I moved the blogs hosting over to Kinsta because I needed-

A server level backup/restore system

A staging area

Access to new technologies like HHVM (which is now deceased)

But:

Since I moved this blog to Kinsta…

The WPX Hosting team have added a bunch of new features such as-

Their own backup/restore system

A staging area

A free custom CDN called “WPX Cloud”

In fact I still have 9 sites hosted with WPX Hosting including my SEO agency site and my black friday deals site (neither of which have WPX Cloud activated right now).

Where as Kinsta are currently hosting this blog and my SEO course.

But as they say:

The proof is in the pudding.

And based on all of my testing and personal experiences…

The best WordPress hosting is WPX Hosting (assuming you don’t need phone support)

And remember this:

A faster website will result in-

Higher search engine rankings

Lower bounce rates

Higher page view numbers

Higher conversion rates

And most importantly…

HIGHER PROFITS!

So don’t waste your time and money with a slower host.

Who do you think the best WordPress host is right now?

I would love to know!

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sheilalmartinia · 7 years ago

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How to Add LiveChat to Your WooCommerce Store (and Boost Sales)

Do you want to add LiveChat to your WooCommerce store? Live chat helps you connect with website visitors in real-time, so you can offer help, generate leads, and convert them into a customer. In this article, we will show you how to easily add LiveChat to your WordPress eCommerce store like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and more.

Why Add LiveChat to Your WooCommerce Store

LiveChat helps you connect with your website visitors in real-time, and it’s proven to boost satisfaction levels. According to eConsultancy, live chat has the highest satisfaction levels of any customer service channel at 73%, compared to 61% for email and 44% for phone.

This is inline with our experience at OptinMonster because our live chat satisfaction score is at 85%.

But the biggest reason for adding LiveChat on your eCommerce website is the boost in conversion.

We saw a massive increase in overall conversion when we added live chat on OptinMonster website. A person who chats with us is 11x more likely to convert than an average website visitor.

Now you might be thinking, isn’t adding live chat expensive? Don’t you need trained support and sales agents to successfully run live chat.

Yes, that’s actually the biggest challenge to Live Chat, but we solved the problem.

Solving The Biggest Challenge of Live Chat

The biggest challenge of adding live chat to your eCommerce store is to manage agents. You will need to add trained support and sales agents to run live chat.

This is where LTVPlus comes in. They provide dedicated and well-trained live chat agents to manage your pre-sales live chat and simple support inquiries. These agents work with you to understand your product / business and act as an extension of your existing team.

LTVPlus is started by the co-founder of MaxCDN, the content delivery network that we use here on WPBeginner, so we decided to give them a try.

We use LTVPlus on OptinMonster and have witnessed significant increase in our eCommerce conversions. The best part is that we don’t have to worry about hiring or training agents.

Since the entire setup is out-sourced, it’s very affordable, and setting up livechat pays for itself within the first week.

How to Easily Add LiveChat to Your WooCommerce Site

On our eCommerce website, we use LiveChat as our chat software. You can use any of the top live chat software, but for the sake of this tutorial, we’ll only show the platform that we’re using ourselves.

First, you need to visit the LiveChat website and signup for an account.

LiveChat is a paid solution (starting from $16.99 per agent). They also offer a free 30-day trial allowing you to check out the features and see if its a good fit for your business.

After registration, you will see the LiveChat dashboard. From here you need to click on the Settings button to customize the LiveChat window’s appearance.

From here, you can choose the chat window colors and theme to match your website’s color scheme. After that, click on ‘Advanced window tweaks’ link to upload your own logo and add your social media profiles.

Next, you need to select an eye-catcher. These eye-catchers are images that are displayed when the LiveChat window is minimized.

LiveChat has several eyecatcher styles that you can use. Alternatively, you can also upload your own images and use them as your eyecatcher.

Now that you are satisfied with the chat window’s appearance, its time to add LiveChat agents. Switch to the ‘Agents’ tab and then click on the ‘Invite teammates’ link.

This will bring you to add agent screen. You need to provide name, job title, and email address for the team member you want to invite.

Don’t forget to change ��Permissions’ for the team member you are adding. You can add them as agents with limited control on your account or as an administrator with full access to the app. If you are unsure, then select agent.

Your LiveChat setup is now ready, and you can add it to your WooCommerce store.

Adding the LiveChat to Your Website

LiveChat makes it super easy to add the chat window and buttons to your online store.

In your WordPress site, you need to install and activate the LiveChat plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, the plugin will add a new menu item labeled ‘LiveChat’ to your WordPress admin. Clicking on it will take you to plugin’s settings page.

From here you need to click on the ‘Sign in with LiveChat’ button to connect your WordPress site to your LiveChat account.

Once connected, you will see some basic LiveChat settings. You can turn it off on mobile devices, turn off sounds, or hide chat window from non-logged in users.

If you are unsure, then we recommend leaving these options as they are. You can now visit your website to see live chat in action on your website.

If you are running a non-WordPress website, then you can still easily add LiveChat to your website. Click on Channels » Chat Widget under your LiveChat settings.

From here, you can copy the code snippet that you can add to your website or view other available integrations. LiveChat has apps and integrations for all popular WordPress alternatives like Shopify, Squarespace, Magento, and more.

Combined with Live Chat and LTVPlus, we’re seeing some really good results on our eCommerce website, and we will be adding LiveChat to more ofo ur websites.

We hope this article helped you add LiveChat to your WooCommerce store. You may also want to see our list of best business phone services for small businesses.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Add LiveChat to Your WooCommerce Store (and Boost Sales) appeared first on WPBeginner.

from WPBeginner https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-add-livechat-to-your-woocommerce-store-and-boost-sales/

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elenaturnerge · 7 years ago

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What is a content delivery network (CDN)?

A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of servers in different geographic locations working together to get content to load faster by serving it from a location near the visitor. Here, I’ll explain what this all means and what a CDN can do for you and your SEO.

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Info What does a CDN do?

A CDN caches static content. Static content is files like HTML, CSS, JavaScript and image files that stay the same for every user. These files don’t have to be dynamically generated based on a set of rules — that’s dynamic content; static files are just there and everyone uses these. By making these static files available on a CDN with many servers all around the world, you can get them to your visitors super fast.

Picture this: you’ve hosted your site on a server in San Francisco, California. I hear you asking: “But I have a web host, why would I need a CDN?” Well, whenever you load your site from your house near Oakland, it loads lightning fast. You’re physically close by, right? But do you think someone from Mumbai, India would have the same experience if he or she were to visit your site? Probably not. Why is that? Among other things, latency.

The longer the distance between a server and client — a.k.a. your browser —, the longer the latency will be. Latency is the time needed for the server to respond to a request. In suboptimal conditions that latency will keep getting worse. You can use a content delivery network — or CDN — to move your site closer to your visitor, so to say. The result? Less latency and a fast loading site. But a CDN can do a lot more, and we’ll get to that in a minute.

On the left a typical situation without a cdn. Every visitor requests the site from the same server, no matter how far away they are. Right: with a cdn, every user requests the same site from a location near them. CC image: Wikipedia

What are the benefits of using a CDN?

There are several reasons for using a CDN for your site. Remember, you can do a lot of complicated stuff with a CDN, but most people will use it to get that nasty latency down and speed up the loading times of their sites. Here are several reasons to use a CDN:

Speeds up your site

Reduces bandwidth costs

Adds scalability: improves availability and uptime

Improves security

A CDN speeds up your site

For most people, the speed bump a CDN can deliver will be their main focus point. We’ve talked about that first reason already. Everyone wants a fast site and site owners do everything in their power to make their sites as fast as possible. A fast site offers a great experience for everyone. Plus, Google loves fast sites!

A CDN reduces bandwidth

The other reasons might be less obvious. A CDN helps you to get your bandwidth costs down because it serves up static content to users for their servers, not yours. This can have a drastic impact on your costs for web hosting. Often, traffic comes in waves and if the traffic exceeds the limits set by your hosting plan, you have to pay — big time. Of course, you have to pay for a solid CDN so you won’t keep a lot of extra cash in hand, but it does give you a firmer grip on what you’re spending.

A CDN can add a layer of security to your site

Adding a CDN in front of your site is a great way to improve security. The CDN provider has all kinds of tools that help with that. It can serve as a kind of firewall to protect your site from going down during a so-called Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDoS), for instance. It helps you guard against the most common threats out there. There are even specific settings to keep hackers out of your WordPress sites.

A CDN is scalable and improves availability and uptime

By hosting part of your website’s content, a CDN can help you enhance uptime and availability of your site. Also, many CDN providers also use tactics to make sure that your site doesn’t go down, whatever happens. Load balancing, for instance, can help your site stay online whenever you have a sudden, massive spike in your traffic.

Does using a CDN have any implications for SEO?

Your SEO won’t suffer if you activate a CDN. It might even help your rankings a bit because your site speed might get a big boost. In addition, by installing a CDN you can also use state-of-the-art technology like forcing a secure HTTPS connection and using the new HTTP/2 protocol to improve your site speed and uptime. In general, users should be happier if your site is excellent, snappy and secure. You should, however, take care that you implement it correctly. Most providers have specific instructions to set up a CDN without hurting SEO.

What CDN should I use?

There are numerous CDN providers out there. You should try and find one that offers the best mix of performance, features and price for your specific situation. We use Cloudflare at Yoast, but you could also consider some of the other well-known CDN providers like, for instance, Sucuri, MaxCDN, Microsoft Azure or Amazon CloudFront.

Most CDN providers have easy-to-follow setup instructions for WordPress sites, so you should be up and running in a couple of minutes. Some even offer WordPress plugins to improve the process even more. After setting up the account, you can get to work to improve the speed and security of your WordPress site.

Conclusion

A CDN is a great tool to improve the loading speed of your site. Not only that, but it also adds a layer of security to your site and improves uptime and reliability. If you are not using a CDN yet, you might be missing out. Pretty much every site can benefit from a CDN, so please investigate if it might help yours.