How to Choose The Best WordPress Hosting for Beginners?

We know just how daunting it can be to get your first website up and running. Although exciting, it can easily become overwhelming owing to the myriad of things to take care of. And one of the first and most crucial decisions you will have to make is choosing the right hosting provider. This can be a real challenge for beginners because with a ton of options available, how do you choose the right one? In this guide, we help you break down everything that makes a great WordPress hosting service. We explore the key factors and considerations before choosing the best WordPress hosting for your business. Stick with us to know everything.

What to consider when choosing WordPress hosting?

Just Google how to choose WordPress hosting. You will be amazed at the sheer number of advice people are giving. Some work, some don’t. So, how do you learn to choose? Learn from the experts as we have done all the heavy lifting for you. Here is your cheat sheet for finding the best WordPress hosting, even if you are a complete beginner.

Performance and speed

No one likes a sluggish website. The speed with which your website loads and performs weighs in heavily in determining your search engine rankings and user experience. To ensure your website is blazing fast for all users, your hosting provider must offer:

• High speed SSDs for quick data request processing.
• CDNs or Content Delivery Networks to improve load times globally.
• Compatibility with the latest PHP and MySQL versions for efficient processing.
• Server-side caching to reduce page load times.
• A reliable hosting infrastructure with over 99.9 percent uptime guarantee.

Pro tip: Before you choose a host for your website, consider checking their speed using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix.

Robust security features

Security should be at the top of your priority list when choosing the right hosting for WordPress websites. Especially if your site has to work with and process sensitive information, your WordPress hosting service should offer

• SSL certificates to encrypt data,
• Easy malware detection and removal tools.
• WAFs (Web Application Firewalls) to help defend against cyber threats.
• DDoS protection features to safeguard against brute force attacks.
• Implementation of regular automated backups to restore your site in case of data breach or loss.

Ease of use and user-friendly interface

As a beginner, you will need a hosting provider that makes website management super simple. Features that help improve the ease of use for new users include:

• One click WordPress installation and setup.
• An intuitive control panel (cPanel, Plesk, or custom dashboards)
• Automatic WordPress updates for security and performance.
• Live sandboxes and staging environments to test any changes before they are made live.

Scalability

It is quite natural to start with a small website, but as your business thrives over time so will your business too. Choose a WordPress hosting provider that can scale your needs by offering:

• Easy plan switching (for example, moving from a shared hosting plan to a cloud or dedicated hosting plan)
• Easy tier upgrades (for example, moving from a lower subscription plan to a higher one for more features and perks)
• Flexible storage and bandwidth options.
• Support for high traffic events.

If you are able to find the right hosting provider that ticks all the right boxes for scalability, you save yourself from the hassle of moving to a different provider every time you wish for an upgrade.

Customer support and reliability

Starting as a beginner makes you quite prone to mistakes and technical issues, where you are left wondering. To help with such situations, you will need a professional support team to help. Your hosting provider should offer:

• A 24×7 customer support team that can be reached via live chat, phone, or email.
• Knowledgeable WordPress-specific assistance.
• A responsive and helpful support team with a fast ticket response time.

Pro tip: You can test out their support by asking a few pre-sales questions and check how accurately and quickly they can respond to your queries.

Pricing and value for money

Although pricing is a very crucial factor, we suggest straying away from the cheapest options out there as the price to value ratio does not add up at all. So, it is important that you get the best value for your money. Consider

• What are the features included in the base plan (SSLs, backups, email hosting, etc.)
• Renewal cost. This is very important because most providers offer a discounted price for the first term but increase prices later.
• Hidden fees for migrations, add-ons, or exceeding resource limits.

Compare the different plans and read the fine print before committing to a provider.

Compatibility

In case you are planning to use specific WordPress themes or plugins, make sure that your hosting providers support them. Some hosts restrict certain plugins owing to security and performance concerns so your job is to verify that all the essential tools you will be using, like WooCommerce, Elementor, or caching plugins, are fully compatible with your hosting provider.

Uptime and reliability 

Even a single second of downtime can lead to catastrophic losses for your online business. Plus, you also lose out on potential customers who might have converted. To ensure reliability, look for a host that offers:

• 99.9 percent uptime guarantee.
• Redundant server support to prevent outages and downtime.
• Real time monitoring to detect and fix issues quickly.

What are the major types of WordPress hosting to consider?

WordPress hosting comes in multiple flavors. But each one comes with its unique set of pros and cons that are crucial for consideration. For beginners, here are the most common choices depending on your use case.

• Shared hosting: Inexpensive and ideal for beginners with low traffic websites. It’s affordable but shares resources with others which might impact performance, especially during high traffic events.
• Managed WordPress hosting: Ideal for those who want premium performance and security. It is optimized for WordPress with support for automatic updates and expert support. With managed hosting plans, you get access to a dedicated team of experts who will be working behind the scenes to keep your website up and running at all times at full throttle.
• VPS Hosting: This offers much more control over the server resources than shared hosting, making it suitable for growing websites that need a scalable infrastructure for better performance.
• Cloud hosting: This offers excellent scalability and reliability by distributing the resources across multiple cloud servers. This makes it an excellent choice for sites with variable traffic patterns.
• Dedicated hosting: Often touted as the most expensive option, this has the best perks, best for high traffic websites that require maximum performance and control. They are more costly but offer full server access.

Actionable steps to choose the best WordPress hosting

Step #1: Understand your needs

First, understand the purpose of the website. This will help you gauge the expected traffic and required features. A personal blog is going to have drastically different needs than an eCommerce store. When you understand the purpose of your website, it will be much easier to pinpoint the type of WordPress hosting you are going to need. For starters, we suggest choosing a managed hosting solution to get started with as it brings a whole team of experts to help with all your hosting needs. Or you can check out the top best WooCommerce hosting platforms to pick one out more easily.

Step #2: Compare hosting plans

Check with multiple providers and compare their offerings in terms of performance, security, pricing, and support. There are plenty of online comparison websites that can help you compare the prices and features for each of your shortlists. PC Mag and other sources can prove to be highly reliable and help you compare plans side by side. We suggest only looking for providers that have a proven track record of offering excellent hosting solutions.

Step #3: Read reviews and test support

Check the internet to find unbiased customer reviews and compare the pros and cons. To do this, you can make a table and list out the pros and cons of each option. This gives you a bird’s eye view of each of the options. Websites like Cybernews and other aggregator sites can prove to be invaluable resources when looking for genuine reviews on different hosting providers.

Step #4: Check for free trials

Most hosts are going to offer a promotional free trial. Simply sign up and get a month or more free. Make the most of this promotional offer to test ride the hosting services before committing. Make sure you take advantage of these to find out if they are the right fit for your needs. Just be sure to cancel your subscription before the billing date to avoid paying.

Step #5: Commit

Once you have found the right hosting solution, the next and final step would be to commit to the service. Create your user profile, verify your credentials, and connect your website to the host to go live. Follow these five simple steps, and you should have no problem finding the best WordPress hosting for beginners.

Wrapping up

When you have to choose the best WordPress hosting for your website, things do not always go according to plan. But it does not have to be super complicated. Focus on performance, security, customer support, compatibility, and scalability to find the right one. These key points should help you find the right option that ticks all the right boxes for you.

You have all the time in the world. Take your time to research, compare the seas of options available on the market, and read valuable feedback from other users before you decide to go all in. This is a huge commitment. It is not every day you will have the chance to change hosting providers. So, the decision to commit is a big one. With the right hosting, your WordPress site will be fast, secure, and prepared for future growth.