In the age of the internet, an online presence has become important to everyone. You may be small businesses owner selling your products on the internet, a travel blogger, an artist or even social media influencer looking to build a beautiful site dedicated to you, your brand and community of followers. If you have a business or a brand, a website is an imperative. In this article, we’ll look at WordPress hosting and standard web hosting services.
Luckily, today everything is being made easier – even for the less-than-tech-savvy individual. Want to create a website to put your brand or business out there? You can and it only takes a matter of minutes! The first thing to know about developing and publishing a website is that, with just a bit of practice, even you can do it. Content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress make it a lot easier to develop a website without knowledge of coding.
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What is WordPress?
WordPress (sometimes abbreviated as WP) is an open-source content management system. It functions as a simple platform of tools enabling you to build and manage a website without using HTML or any coding (unless you can and/or want to). It is designed in a way to be intuitive and to enable designing, building, editing and adding multiple features to a website through its seeming limitless availability of templates (themes), plugins and tools.
WordPress was originally used for creating blogs which is why one of its core functions involves providing templates, as many other traditional blogging platforms would. However, as it’s functionality expanded, it’s use has been extended to creating many different kinds of websites such as online stores, galleries, forums, subscription sites and mailing lists.
You can create almost anything with WordPress from professional art portfolio websites to learning management systems, just name it.
WP’s plethora of available plugins can let you add useful widgets and tools, allowing you to add, for example, live social media feeds and e-commerce features for transactions.
With its vast list of diverse, easy-to-use features, it’s no wonder that WordPress has a hefty 65% market share of content management systems and 42% of all websites in existence use WordPress.
(According to stats as of July 2021)
Many small and large businesses, independent professionals, bloggers, influencers, communities and even professional web developers choose WP for their websites and projects because it’s just that useful.
What is a web host
Okay. So you want to build a website and you now know that WordPress is an excellent tool! What is a host and why do you need one?
Remember that everything on the internet (every image, video, application and text) has to be stored somewhere. That location needs to be secured from viruses, malware, spammers and hackers that could run on these websites and the devices of visitors to that site. Speaking of visitors, the sight must be stable “up and running 24/7” and accessible to the public. This is where web hosts come in.
Web hosts provide web servers that store all the data for a website and allows access to that website by whatever interested party is visiting. Web host services also typically include buying and registering custom domain names, providing domain email services and SQL (Structured Query Language) databases and monitoring and maintaining the stability and security of the websites and the servers on which they are hosted.
What services do web hosts offer?
There are different types of general hosting services, based on how they function and what they offer. Some examples include :
1. Free hosting
Some web hosts offer free hosting. However they are often very limited or come with some sort of catch.
2. Shared servers
The most popular hosting service is typically on shared servers where multiple websites are hosted on a single server, sharing the space and other resources of that server, which can be limiting if you intend for your site to be very large and with heavy traffic.
3. Virtual Private Servers (VPS)
These servers are between the spaces of shared servers and dedicated servers. With VPS the physical hardware is still shared, but through virtualization the server is partitioned into dedicated spaces that functions as dedicated servers having its own amount of resources alloted. These servers are a lot more robust (more storage and bandwidth) and stable than shared hosting. They are also scalable, facilitating site growth and allowing you to upsize and downsize as necessary.
4. Dedicated servers
Exactly as it sounds, you get a single dedicated server, complete with all its resources, to host your website.
Overall, web hosting is just an umbrella term for all such services offered by web hosts.
How to choose a subscription?
Most web hosts operate under a subscription basis where you pay a regular fee for storage space, bandwidth and certain maintenance features. They will offer a range of packages extending from basic packages (that might be on a shared server for clients who don’t require too much storage, bandwidth or support) to premium packages on dedicated servers with the highest bandwidth and storage capacity anyone could want.
However, the standard host doesn’t typically build the website for you. That’s where tools such as WordPress come in. WordPress is a separate platform, a CMS application which you can use to build your website that can then be mounted on the host server.
While most hosting services will accommodate the WP platform, allowing you to install it for building websites on their servers, that’s not necessarily the same as WordPress Hosting.That’s just standard hosting with the option to use WordPress.
Learn more about the best hosting options for businesses.
WordPress Hosting vs. Regular Hosting
We now know what WordPress is and what hosting is in general, but what is WordPress hosting and how is that different from regular hosting? Let’s look into that and do a WordPress hosting comparison with standard hosting.
Hosting services can offer the storage space, bandwidth and servers for any web developer to create a website with or without tools like WordPress. If a techie wanted to create a website from scratch using only HTML, a standard hosting service will allow for that. However, CMS tools such as WordPress are used to make web building easier, and work so well that even many technically proficient web developers might opt to use it for some of their projects. But, it is an extra tool that must be downloaded, installed and used in addition to having a host server.
Standard Hosting with WordPress
These days, most standard web hosting services will facilitate the installation of WordPress to their servers. However, the regular hosting service will also facilitate many other CMS tools to run on those same servers, stretching resources to accommodate and serve whatever kinds of websites that can be built on their servers. Of course, this can have an impact on the level of performance, stability and security for websites on these servers.
What is optimised hosting?
WordPress hosting is simply a hosting service where the server is specialised and optimised for WordPress. Their servers are tailored specifically with WP and its unique systems, coding and vulnerabilities in mind. This means you can expect optimal speeds, stability, security and function of a WordPress website on these servers. WordPress hosting also offers support that is specialized for the needs of WP users.
The harmonious integration of the WP platform with their servers means that web hosts, such as MonsterHost, who offer WordPress hosting, can deliver the best service to their WP clients. In other words, your WordPress site will run faster and be more stable and secure. Your WordPress platform will always be kept up-to-date with automatic update installations and they’ll provide customer support if needed. WordPress is also quick and easy to install on the host’s platform — up and running in seconds.
So, which is better? WordPress or Standard Hosting
Regular hosting only provides the storage and servers and a few other essential features. However, this standard hosting does not come with the optimization for WordPress. If you develop a website using WordPress on regular hosting servers, it might be slower, less stable, less secure, and a bit more complicated to handle. With WordPress hosting, performance is maximized and service is optimal.
Finally, similar to standard hosting, WordPress hosting services will offer a range of packages based on customer needs with various hosting server structures from shared to dedicated, all optimised for WP.
8 Reason to choose WordPress Hosting
If you plan to build a website using WordPress or already have a website built with WordPress, then using WordPress Hosting will have many advantages :
1. Optimised for WordPress CMS
As mentioned before, WordPress Hosting is hosting specialised and optimised for websites built on the WordPress platform. This means the entire WordPress Hosting server will be tailored to accommodate WordPress websites.
2. Faster website performance
Since the server is built for WordPress, you can expect optimal speeds in its function. Response time and page loading would be reduced for visitors to your site and the process of creating and managing your site will be easier.
3. More secure servers
WordPress Hosting services pay close attention to any existing vulnerabilities that might be in a WordPress CMS and build protocols into their servers that ensure your site remains secure regardless. You can expect that they will remain up-to-date on any new or potential security issues and their specialised team can help you in case any issues arise.
4. Better support
Speaking of support, WordPress Hosting services, such as MonsterHost, typically have specialised customer support available to help with issues relating to your WP site.
5. Up-to-date version of WordPress
WordPress regularly releases new, improved versions of their platform. WordPress Hosting services make staying up-to-date easy with automatic updates of the newest versions. This ensures that you always have the latest version available without any extra effort.
6. More uptime
Of course, with a server optimised and working in harmony with WordPress websites, that always stays up-to-date on software and security, less downtime is to be expected. Downtime can be detrimental, particularly for businesses that use their website to sell products. You can count on your website running smoothly 24/7 for your visitors with WP optimised hosting.
7. Easy migration
Already have a WordPress website but not using WordPress Hosting? WordPress Hosting typically makes it easy to migrate your website to the new host.
8. One-click installations
If you don’t already have a WordPress website, WordPress Hosting comes with the ability to install the platform to its servers with just a click. You don’t need to download and install WordPress to your local computer in order to build and edit your website.
Are there disadvantages to WordPress hosting?
Well it depends on how you look at it. If you don’t plan to develop your website using WordPress, then obviously WordPress hosting will not be for you. Also, WordPress hosting tends to come at a higher cost; however, the features and services you will receive will make it more than worth it. Additionally, WordPress hosts such as MonsterHost offer many different options and packages for every budget. Depending on the size of the website you can find suitable plans and services to secure your site.
Using WordPress hosting would also mean that your website will be limited by what the WordPress platform can do. But, as you have already seen, WordPress is already quite vast in its functionality. It offers enough features that many professional developers would opt to use this tool anyway. It’s just that powerful.
How to choose the best WordPress hosting
If you want to know about how to choose the best WordPress hosting option, first evaluate your own hosting needs. As with standard web hosting, WordPress web hosts typically have a range of packages for varying budgets and website needs. MonsterHost, for example, offers basic packages for smaller websites with not much storage or bandwidth needs. They also offer premium packages with unlimited storage and bandwidth for an individual or company needs. Get your site with a little or a very high-traffic website the best WordPress hosting price.
Conclusion
It’s important to think about the size and scale of your website and the amount of traffic you’ll expect. It may take a some research, but once you have a good idea of how much resource you will need, examine WordPress hosting services. Check which package offering you need on MonsterHost fast, secure and fully optmised servers.
