With the fastest-growing of blogging and building websites, WordPress-managed hosting has become one of the frequent topics on the web. However, the main idea is not clear to many people, especially business owners, who need a premium service for their blogs and websites.
Today, I’ll show you the benefits of managed hosting and when you need it. At the same time, I’ll give you some helpful tips to succeed your websites, with this type of hosting that is completely different from the standard host.
An affordable and managed WordPress hosting will cost more than the shared hosting services. That’s because of the quality, security, and other features that make a website faster and more secure at the same time.
Regular vs. managed WordPress web hosts
The managed hosting service for WordPress is simply a way to host the software without the need to worry about technical settings and maintenance. You get premium hosting with a fast loading time to run your site at maximum performance. In addition, you get a website with top security levels and a completely customized environment.
With managed hosting, your website security, updates, and maintenance will be controlled by WordPress technical experts.
What created the managed hosting server service is the huge demand for speed and security. There are lots of hosting providers who offer one-click installation services for WordPress and other software. But, the main problems are speed, performance, and security.
The Shared hosting service is good for beginners who have regular sites. But, at a certain level of traffic, it becomes a real issue, and the website will get lots of downtime every day. That causes many problems, of course, and it will cost money in the end.
When it comes to high-traffic sites (websites that receive at least a few thousand visitors per day), these sites need, at least, a VPS or a managed dedicated server to work properly. That needs lots of technical knowledge, and it can cost thousands of dollars if something wrong happens.
In this case, the security is not guaranteed unless you’re an expert or someone with years of experience, or who has a dedicated security team that works for you.
Faster loading time
One of the main features that characterize managed hosting for WordPress is the super-fast loading time. That means more traffic, and Google itself said that their traffic dropped by 20%, for a half-second slower loading time.
They tried to test a search result page with 30 results instead of the actual 10. So, they simply proved the importance of speed these days. The same thing happened to Amazon and other popular sites. Remember that these are the best of the best companies, and they use advanced technologies to speed up their sites. So, imagine a person or a small business company, and what are the results if the site is slow?
All WordPress premium hosting providers use advanced server technologies to give the site the maximum speed. Also, they provide the performance needed to make websites work well, even in the high traffic periods. Unlike standard web hosting, managed hosting controls the traffic and expects what will happen in the next minutes.
WP Engine, for example, uses a super powerful system called EverCache. It’s a caching and scalability system that balances the traffic and the server resources. In the end, the site is still loading fast, even if there are thousands of visitors as extra traffic. That’s because of the fast WordPress hosting infrastructure and also the optimizations.
WordPress optimized servers
As you know, WordPress is a mix of PHP, HTML, CSS, and MySQL connections. You can add others, such as JavaScript if you want. All that needs powerful resources to handle the thousands of requests every minute. The server receives lots of HTTP requests, and then it turns a response back to the browser.
All that happens in a fraction of a second depends on the hosting configuration and the system used. But, in general, a managed WP hosting should not exceed 0.2 seconds as a server response time. The WP Engine server response time is 0.15 seconds, and that’s super fast compared to the others.
The response time is a big matter in web hosting, and it affects the organic traffic first and the user experience, second. It’s all about technology and good management. So, every server has a maximum resource, and it can’t exceed that if it can support 500 simultaneous connections for every website.
An extra 100 visitors will make the system go down, and that’s what causes big problems, and it can affect the data center if the traffic is general. Luckily, managed hosting is something different, and the balancing happens automatically; in a few seconds, the traffic will be huddled completely.
Stronger security and daily backups
If you have a WordPress website, you might notice a large number of plugins for security, protection, and scanning. That’s because of the WordPress nature. It’s a PHP application, basically. So, that means more chances that someone from the exterior of the server can execute scripts, and change things if he/she is really an expert.
Luckily, lots of good WordPress plugins offer strong protection, but with limits. You have to update your settings and make changes if something happens. In other words, no security if you don’t check your site every day, and see what happens. That can be a daily basis for bloggers.
When it comes to business owners and busy people, that’s a big issue to solve. And the managed hosting offers what is missing here. A person will protect and monitor the entire site with a custom security system and enterprise protection.
The managed server is more secure, they are enterprise antivirus and firewall. That means the maximum security that can be offered in the industry.
All this never means that the site can’t be hacked. Even the most powerful site can be a victim, and I’m sure you’ve heard some stories.
So, make sure to protect your site first, and ask the others to protect it second. The more you are organized, the better the security levels will be. For example, never share your login details via email and keep changing them, at least, every month.
The managed web server offers a daily backup system that works automatically and stores a copy of your site for security. If something wrong happens on your part or from the server, they will repair and solve the problems for free, and that’s normal. If the site is hacked, they also scan and repair it for free.
Managed WordPress maintenance
The Managed hosting companies, especially for WordPress, control the theme performance and compare it to the plugin’s work. If something slows down the site, they simply disable the plugin permanently and make a simple test for better results.
The good thing is that some of them, and I’m talking about WP Engine, have created their own caching system, and it’s better because of its nature. It’s a custom and optimized caching system created especially for their servers.
That’s why they disabled other plugins such as W Total cache and WP super cache. They have a better system installed, and any of these plugins will interfere and slow down the loading time.
The WordPress themes and plugins are managed for better performance. That never means changing the theme but finding the ideal optimization way to compress the HTML and minify the CSS resources. In addition, you don’t need to waste your time searching for the best WordPress plugins and browsing thousands of web pages.
Because it’s a managed hosting, they have a list of recommended plugins that work well with their system and configurations. After all that, they’ve done lots of tests, and they have the results.
WordPress expert customer support
The standard web hosting companies employ normal people, and they find themselves the need to end the conversation, as soon as possible, on the phone, simply because they don’t have the answer. That’s a big problem, especially with advanced technical problems such as MySQL configuration and server optimization and the other.
It’s not the problem of the person who wants to help, but it’s a problem of education and resources. If they educate their customer support team, the shared hosting prices will rise up, and that’s not in their customer’s interest in general.
Unlike shared hosting, fully managed hosting companies invest in their customer support team, and they are, by nature, experts. That’s why a phone conversation with them is a pleasure more than a conversation.
They are experienced people with years of work in the WordPress domain. If the customer wants to ask for help, he will talk to engineers in the majority of cases, and the problem will be fixed quickly.
Full system updates and control
Unlike the normal and the dedicated server hosting, the WordPress managed hosting makes automatic updates to the WordPress code, as soon as a new version is launched. The same thing applies to plugins and themes.
In many cases, plugins get an update after 3 to 24 hours on regular hosting. But, things happen in real-time here, because of the connections between the server, the WordPress core, and the theme developer database if it’s a popular company. If, for any reason, any of the site tools is not updated, it will be configured manually by an expert, and that’s the real help.
Staging area
The staging area is a feature that characterizes the WordPress-managed hosting only. It lets you modify and edit your theme in real-time, and test it, but without affecting the real website. The changes will be isolated from the real working theme, and you can apply them when you’re happy with your theme and CSS settings. So, no more risks when you want to edit the theme files or the CSS.
Who should use premium hosting?
If you’re a business owner, then, you probably don’t have the time to waste with plugins, themes, and settings. The WordPress-managed hosting is for you. If you’re a blogger with few website visitors, then, you don’t need it, it costs more than the regular shared hosting, and it’s only recommended for sites and blogs with more than 1000 visitors per day. Or for people who look for quality, even with low-traffic sites.
If you have another website and you don’t have the time to manage all the WordPress things, then, you can count on these premium hosting companies. The majority of them offer affordable WordPress hosting with server management. So, there is no need to worry about your website, it will be in good hands.
This premium and managed hosting is also recommended for developers. They use applications, and in general, no shared hosting or even a normal VPS server will handle the PHP execution and work properly.
Best fully managed WordPress hosting
This premium hosting is recommended for high-traffic sites and business owners. Also, it’s good for developers, and people who need the maximum speed and performance for their WordPress sites. That’s the main idea, social communities, for example, can solve lots of problems with this hosting.
As an example of popular sites, SoundCloud, HTC, and Buffer are hosted With WP Engine, and it’s the only company that dedicates their team and infrastructure 100% to WordPress.
They host WordPress sites only, and you can imagine the quality of this managed and premium WordPress hosting. Also, it has features that make popular companies and brands invest their money and trust in them.
A fully managed hosting environment is also recommended for eCommerce websites. They have secure pages and payments, and they will take the security and the speed to the next level.
