Your website hosting can make or break your business online. Just think about running e-commerce and having a great team managing your site. Now, imagine you’re a customer trying to buy the products and an e-commerce site is unresponsive or takes forever to load. What would you do?

WordPress is one of the most popular web design platforms. Today, over 30% of websites use WordPress, according to a study. Considering that the number of active websites is about 172 million and over 75 million websites use WordPress, and half of them hosted on WordPress’ shared hosting installation.

So, what makes WordPress so popular? And what should you consider when choosing a host?

Loading Speeds

Most people prefer managed WordPress because of the promise of fast loading speeds. When your website is hosted on a dedicated server, it means that your website will not be sharing resources with other websites. This makes loading speeds really fast.

Most of the hosts offer advanced features such as customized plugins and installation and security tools that optimize your website. However, some webmasters may wonder whether they need all the speed.

According to a study by Google, over 50% of mobile device users abandon a site that takes more than three seconds to load. So if you want to receive and retain huge traffic, speed is king. And if you want your visitors to stick and become customers, you need to do more than increasing your loading speed.

A shared WordPress hosted site can load in between 700 milliseconds and 1.5 seconds while a managed WordPress hosted site can load in between 300 milliseconds and 1.3 seconds. There are factors that may affect your website’s loading speed apart from hosting of course. So, look for the fastest WordPress hosting and enjoy fast speeds for your site.

Website Security

Websites are susceptible to threats such as DDoS attacks, malware, and viruses. Managed WordPress hosting plans promise advanced security features. Some of the common security features on these hosting plans include regular malware and virus scan on the dedicated server and dedicated support.

Over 30,000 websites get hacked per day. Sadly, most website owners don’t even know they’re helping cybercriminals to distribute malicious code to their visitors, customers, family, and friends. Previously, criminals majorly relied on sending phishing emails, today they even use websites.

With a managed hosting plan, you do not have control over different features on your site. This is a good thing as a qualified team takes care of all the aspects of your hosting making it easier for you and ensuring your site is not exposed to threats.

Most shared hosting plans offer minimal malware and virus scans and removal with no advanced security features. If you are concerned about the security of your website, managed WordPress hosting will give you just that.

Full-Time Support

If you are not tech savvy, you might feel lost at some point when navigating the web management. But great hosting companies offer full-time customer support.

Managed hosting allows offers full-time comprehensive support from installation, to transfer of files. You will also get access to unique themes to match your website. The support team will also select the best plugins to enhance the performance of your site and keep it running smoothly.

Besides 24-hour support, managed to host promises frequent backups and updates. Whenever you are having trouble, you can always access help through live chat, call or email. You always have a team of WordPress developers.

Extra Features and Software

With a dedicated server for your website, you have access to hundreds, if not thousands of software and additional features. Some of the features include CDN subscriptions, SSL certificates, special plugins, themes, and much more.

With these features, you get great results and your site performs better than using shared hosting. Today, there is a horde of hosts who offer managed WordPress hosting. It is up to you to choose one that offers the best speeds, extra features, high uptime and offers affordable plans.

Time Spent On Site Management

If your site is hosted on shared hosting and wants to transfer to a managed hosting, you can get help transferring your files from your current host to a managed host. You will be less involved in the performance of your site leaving your site in the hands of experienced web designers.

That way, you can get more time to focus on taking your business to the next level. If you are a hands-on person, you can tackle the small aspects of design to make your site even better. This will involve design aspects that make your site more customer-friendly.

What more factors do you consider?