WordPress Hosting Myths Debunked
It helps to review some WordPress hosting myths that may have been true at one time but either is no longer the case or you need to hear the other side to get a true picture. So let’s review a few myths to help you as you evaluate the type of hosting service you want for your WordPress website:
Myth #1: An inexpensive hosting service is all you need for WordPress. There are many inexpensive partially-managed WordPress hosting services. These may be fine to start with, but there are many things to consider to really get the true picture of the total cost of your site.
With partially-managed hosting services, you are going to need to set up, configure and tune your WordPress site quite frequently. If you have unlimited time, go for it. It may not be the best option, however, for small business, non-profit organizations and other organizations. Cheaper is not always better. You need to consider the total cost of the service.
Myth #2: The unlimited resources of shared hosting is enough for WordPress. There is no such thing as an unlimited service. This is a marketing tactic that was started and copied by many of the general purpose web hosting vendors back in the mid-2000s.
Some hosting vendors still use this language. The reality is that these messages are a bit misleading—there is no unlimited anything. Don’t be swayed by thinking you are getting unlimited resources just because the marketing language on the vendor’s website says so.
Myth #3: Traditional general purpose hosting vendors do not provide fully managed WordPress hosting. One idea is that you need one of the newer WordPress-only hosting services to get fully managed WordPress hosting.
Not so. A select few general purpose hosting companies offer excellent fully managed WordPress hosting. They definitely should be considered. Some of these companies have been hosting WordPress for over 10 years and have a lot of experience with WordPress hosting.
Myth #4: To get good WordPress performance, all you need is a good caching plugin. While caching plugins are helpful, they are not the only solution to improve your WordPress website performance.
In fact, most fully managed WordPress hosting services provide caching at the hosting service level. Some provide multiple levels of caching to provide exceptional performance. In addition, many of the caching plugins have a lot of options to tune the plugin for performance.
This can get quite complex. Having your hosting vendor handle this for you takes a lot of the burden off your plate to deal with these configuration questions.
Myth #5: To get good WordPress technical support, you are going to need incoming phone support. Incoming phone support is nice, but what is more important is the quality of the technical support team that you are working with.
The goal of some fully managed WordPress hosting services is to provide VIP-level support with highly qualified support agents to help you with your WordPress hosting issues.
It doesn’t do any good to be able to talk to someone on the phone if they can’t help you because your question isn’t a simple or the best they can do is send you a link to a help desk article or put you on a list to get a callback from a more qualified support professional. Quite often, companies with phone support have more junior level agents that take the initial call.
In addition, incoming phone support is subject to social engineering. A better approach is to offer phone call back support and require that the request to the phone call back be made through the service’s control panel.
This requires panel authentication, which prevents nearly all social engineering attacks. So don’t be fooled by these popular WordPress Hosting Myths. Choose a good reliable hosting provider that will help you to realize your Online presence.
