Selecting the best UK wordpress hosting
You have to be careful when you are making a decision what is the Best UK WordPress Hosting . There are many uk web hosts which offer cheap packages but they may give you poor speed because their servers speed is not good enough for the requirements of WordPress. You may get low response time like 500ms or more than that and this would impact your website loading speed which makes visitors leave your site prematurely without even exploring it properly. SEO experts have found that the load speed of your site is an important thing and having a slow site can destroy your website traffic. This happens because people are looking for speed when they visit any site and if the site does not give it to them, they simply leave the page without exploring the pages further. A poor loading time also affects search engine rankings very badly.
When it comes to selecting the best WordPress hosting services for your website, there are a lot of options out there. You want to make sure you have the best possible service for a fair price and that your site is always available when people need it. To help you decide how to Choose the Best UK WordPress Host, we’ve put together this guide on how to find the perfect web hosting for your needs. Check our list below before making any decisions about where to go next with your business online! If you want to take my advice, simply can’t be bothered reading and doing the research to decide what you’re looking for or if you just can’t decide which one will be best, why not try Siteground? We’ve been using them for years now and love their speed, support and features and in our opinion they are the best WordPress hosting currently available on shared hosting.
What is WordPress hosting?
WordPress host is the server where you install WordPress.
It can be your local computer or a web hosting server. When WordPress is installed on a web hosting server, you will have the WordPress admin panel and WordPress files as well as WordPress database stored at that server. This is where you will access to manage your website or blog.
WordPress hosting also known as a host provider, or just WordPress servers. Simply put, WordPress hosting is the service of running WordPress at someone else’s hardware but you own it (in term of domain name). You do not need to buy expensive servers or hire experts for managing them. It can cost a few pounds a month, but beware of cheap hosting (I’ll explain more about that below). WordPress hosting is very cheap if compare to web development. You only need to pay for WordPress host and you’re all set. This applies even for multi-site installation, which will be covered later.
Reputable WordPress hosting will also usually include things like a free domain name, free ssl certificate, free site migration, backups and security features, WordPress themes and sometimes, their own specialist WordPress plugins all included in the web hosting package.
Is WordPress own hosting good?
Sometimes WordPress own host is also known as WordPress hosting and WordPress managed hosting (it’s confusing isn’t it). Admins can control every aspect of their WordPress blog directly on the server.
WordPress itself made their own hosting available to all WordPress users through wordpress.com and wordpress.org. This is a good opportunity for everyone to have his/her own blog with little effort, plus free domain name and free ssl certificate are provided by WordPress (provided that you pay the minimal fee of $25/year).
WordPress offers great features which I enjoy when blogging at wordpress.com such as stats, comments, ping-o-matic and better spam protection etc. It does however have it’s limitations, such as wordpress.com admin is very limited compare to a managed WordPress host, it only allows up to 10GB of storage and limited bandwidth per month for free (yes, you read this right). You can upgrade the plan but with those limitations, WordPress.com hosted blog is not suitable for high traffic blogs and websites.
So if you want to go beyond wordpress.com wordpress hosting limits and have more control over your blog at less cost than managing your own server, then managed WordPress hosts are what’s needed. Since I’ll be talking about how to choose best WordPress host later in this article, let’s move on…
Shared or Dedicated WordPress hosting?
The first question you should ask yourself is whether you want to choose shared WordPress hosting or dedicated? There are many options available both in shared hosting and vps/dedicated ones. While shared hosting is economical, dedicated hosts do offer much better performance with more resources allocated to each user, allowing you to build a bigger faster site.However, this comes with a higher price tag. If you’re not sure which option is better for you, ask yourself some questions that will help you decide:
Regardless if you have decided on shared, vps or dedicated hosting I would recommend choosing one with cPanel available for your WordPress site. This is very important because using cPanel to handle your WordPress installation and site transfers makes your life much easier. It offers easy-to-use tools like 1 click install of popular scripts such as WordPress, installing themes or plugins through several clicks and simple backups management. You simply won’t be able to do without it!
The alternative is downloading FileZilla Server and logging into your account via FTP or SFTP. Then you may use the File Manager instead, but it’s more complicated to install or manage plugins. You can find your list of uploaded files by clicking on “Folders” at the top left of the file management screen Here you’ll be able to view files that you’ve either created yourself or uploaded from cPanel: Find the folder where you want to upload your site (example: public_html) Click “Upload”, then browse for the xml file you want to import onto your site (example: wordpress.xml file). Once uploaded, click “Start Upload”.
So before choosing a hosting provider you should consider some of these factors:
1. Evaluate your hosting needs
: web hosting features vs budget
A great managed WordPress hosting feature is not always the one that you need. For example, if your WordPress website doesn’t have a lot of traffic or a lot of images, it won’t matter to you if your host has a built-in CDN. Focus on the services and features you absolutely must have for your website to run effectively.
If you sometimes find yourself needing to upload images on the fly without having time to send them over FTP (File Transfer Protocol), image hosting sites are very useful . They allow easy drag-and-drop uploading as well as resizing and cropping tools right there in an editor window.There are many features that WordPress server vendors offer. You can find more info about WordPress hosting features in WordPress hosting overview table . Below I list some of the most important hosting features:
In short, don’t pay for features which you won’t use. You will notice that WordPress web hosts offer huge WordPress hosting plans. But most of their features are either not useful or can be used for WordPress related sites only. In this case you have two choices: get a smaller WordPress hosting service but pay more per month, or choose one with all the services and support provided at an affordable price. Evaluating your needs is very important in order to make the right decision concerning WordPress hosting service provider.
Your hosting requirements should steer you to which host offers the best match. There are many different types of hosting available, from shared to VPS and dedicated.
2. Compare the features of each service provider
To narrow down the list of top WordPress hosting providers, start with a list of requirements.
Focus on features such as email accounts included in the package, backup options and support types.
When researching each host you will most likely come across reviews written by other users which are very helpful – don’t forget about them! A low price should also be an important factor when choosing your preferred option, but keep in mind that it shouldn’t be your ultimate priority; focus more on quality rather than cost.
Additionally, make sure to note any legal restrictions that might apply to certain functionalities like auto-hosted domains or AdSense code integration by referring to the Terms of Service (TOS).The TOS agreement is an important document that you should be aware of before signing up for a hosting service.
Pick at least 3 web hosting providers offering your required UK WordPress hosting services and features. Then pick whoever seems the best. If you’re using a web design agency, they should be able to guide you.
3. Check out reviews and testimonials from previous customers
The testimonials and reviews are a great way of filtering the best from the not-so-good hosts. Check out at least 2 or more sites, skim through their comments and see whether they have similar complaints. Then make sure to check for positive comments as well, since you want to find a host with both good points AND bad ones – this way you can get an idea of what that particular host is still lacking in. A great way of finding new review sites is by doing your own search query on google with different keywords such as “best WordPress hosting reviews” or “reliable shared web hosting”. Make sure to read those carefully and don’t take them all too seriously (since some might be written by competitors).
Some reviews might contain a warning that the service provider is not recommended to use for certain purposes, such as running large blogs, online stores or high traffic WordPress websites.
4. Check your desired WordPress host’s track record
Some WordPress hosting providers have been in the business for years, whereas others might have opened their doors yesterday – it is very important to check if this provider you use has a good reputation. You can do so by asking for references from friends or colleagues who either already had contact with that particular WordPress web hosting company or at least know someone who did. Don’t forget to ask about both positive as well as negative experiences – get more info here: What should you consider when choosing best WordPress web space ? http://webokay.net/articles/choosing-webhosting
Also, keep in mind that few hosts can offer guarantees for years down the road. Your host might be great when it comes to customer service and WordPress hosting uptime right now, but what will happen if you want to expand your site and there’s nobody around who knows how to help you?
Make sure their technical support is top-notch (or at least decent) What good would a quality web hosting company do, if they can’t even provide up-to-date tutorials, let alone solve issues remotely without calling them? If such is the case with your selected host then don’t hesitate to move on!
5. Look for web hosting that has a generous money back guarantee and is reputable in the industry
– A 30 day money back guarantee will give you peace of mind that you are making the right decision when choosing a host. If a host feels confident in their product, they should offer you a money back guarantee so you don’t feel like you’re taking risk if something goes wrong with your site. Always make sure to read the terms of the guarantee carefully before signing up.
– Look for reputable hosts (with good reviews) that have been around since WordPress was created and continue to deliver high-quality hosting services every day.
6. Get a fast loading site by choosing a company with powerful servers and cutting edge technology
Boasting your website’s speed is one of the most important ways to rank higher in search engines. SEO experts have shown that a site’s overall speed is improved by about 12% when it is hosted on a SSD hard drive . An excellent hosting service should provide this kind of technology and guarantee fast site loading times.
The best company will also help you reduce page load time through the optimization of your images (reduce file size, remove unnecessary color profiles) and designing your pages so that they are mobile-friendly.
When searching for a web hosting solution, pay attention to the company’s reliability and their technical support team. If you need assistance with customizing the server or installing software updates, then select something that will offer quick responses to your questions at any time of day or night.
7. Choose WordPress web hosting with one-click automatic installation of WordPress, cPanel hosting, and free SSL certificate to protect your website’s data security .
There are some well-known web hosts for WordPress that are really good at providing a quick and easy WordPress installation, but they’ can be expensive. That being said most hosts offer a free SSL these days along with automatic backups and a free domain name, so be sure you choose a web hosting account which includes all these.
Do you want to run a professional looking blog or website without any hassle? And with the ability to change themes, plugins and add new features whenever you like? If yes, then it’s high time you switched from your current personal host to one of the best WordPress hosting services.
Each of the best WordPress hosting providers we’ll present in this post comes with cPanel, which is a free web hosting control panel software. cPanel allows you to create an unlimited number of websites without having to register each domain name separately.
Cpanel also offers one-click installation for popular packages like WordPress and Joomla. cPanel hosting will save you plenty of time on setup and maintenance tasks – hundreds of hours really! And that’s why cPanel is very popular among webmasters and bloggers who want to have full control over their website but don’t want to spend too much money or effort.
8. Make sure you are paying competitive rates for what you need without any hidden fees or charges tacked on at checkout time (such as transaction fees)
– To do this, compare prices for web hosting solutions based on what you need and how much bandwidth your site is likely to use. Pricing is usually quoted by the amount of disk space you will have available to store your website files (and any future updates or additional traffic which may incur extra costs) but also consider how much bandwidth per month you’ll actually need in order to run the site smoothly without showing viewer errors or loading issues.
– Bandwidth allowance can be a factor for some small businesses who serve mostly local customers but if your business serves a more global market, then there won’t be any problems with having an overage of access compared to visitors. However, check into it beforehand just so you are aware!
A good web host will always show you how much bandwidth is left on your account, so if you have a dedicated plan and it gets close to running out of data allowance for the month, just choose to upgrade. You can do this right from your account dashboard in WordPress.com or any other web hosting platform where it’s possible to add more space or bandwidth if needed without having to pay extra fees!
9. Make sure the host has good customer support before making the final decision
– Don’t be afraid to ask about their customer service team, because this will be one of the major deciding factors when it comes time for troubleshooting problems with your site (like getting hacked). If you’re not sure whether they are reliable check their reviews online or ask them for references from past clients. Sending a free test email to yourself from your web host’s control panel (let’s say it’s called “mail.example.com”) is also a good way to determine how fast the servers are responding and if there will be any issues with hosting an active mail account on their platform in the future.
– Don’t skip this step, you’d be surprised at how many people do just that but they end up regretting it later! You don’t want to have all of your content deleted, or worse yet – your whole site hacked because you cut some corners when comparing features for WordPress web hosts. It can cost you more than £100 per hour for someone to come fix the damage done by these attacks.
10. is your WordPress server in the UK
Last, but by no means least! I’m going to assume you are based in the UK if you’re reading this, if so, yes, WordPress hosting in the UK is important.
In fact WordPress recommend you always host with a uk company so this isn’t something I’m making up, but actually what WordPress themselves suggest and have done for years now.
So why would WordPress want their customers hosted in the uk? well they must know something right? Well, it all comes down to site speed and how far data has to travel before it’s displayed on the users screen.
The further away from your WordPress server data has to travel, the slower it gets. Is this a big problem? For some users yes, for some no. The only way you’ll know if your site is affected by latency or not is to do a comparison between UK WordPress hosting and non UK WordPress hosting, or you could just take my word for it!
It will be affected if your WordPress site is generating quite a lot of traffic. Also, WordPress websites have more than one plugin installed on average and those can add to the number of http requests made by every page load and therefore impacts on your web hosting account.
So WordPress recommend you get uk WordPress hosting for speed reasons then? that’s correct, they do. You can read the recommended hosts list on their website – WordPress hosting partners . The WordPress support numbers are listed in their millions so it should be enough to convince you that choosing a uk host could give you the edge over your competition.
Confused? You should be. There are hundreds to choose from
If you’re looking for a new WordPress hosting provider, consider comparing the features of each service provider to find out which one is right for your needs and budget. Whether you are just starting or expanding your online business, it will be important that you get a reliable web hosting service with competitive rates and good customer support. Siteground is one company we recommend because they have been around since 2004 and their servers are in the UK – meaning your site won’t slow down when local customers visit your WordPress site. For more information about Siteground visit their website. Other top UK based hosting companies include Bluehost and Flywheel who also have their servers located in the UK.
Alternatively if you want dedicated WordPress hosting you could take a look at Fasthosts. They are the UK’s largest dedicated WordPress host and they offer fast server speeds (which is why I recommend them) plus unlimited bandwidth and unlimited domains with each hosting package.
So, if you’re still confused about whether or not to choose uk WordPress hosting, consider this: in some cases a small increase in site speed might double the number of visitors your website gets which could potentially translate into more sales for you! And don’t forget that WordPress itself recommends you get uk web hosts for an optimal experience so it makes sense to follow their advice.
And that really does conclude our guide on choosing the best uk WordPress hosting – hopefully you found it helpful! You can find out more tips from us here.
about eco seo
eco seo are a wiltshire seo agency who've been providing technical wordpress seo services since 2006.
we also offer seo focused web design, ecommerce web design and we provide affordable web design for startups and smaller businesses.