One of the biggest changes in the hosting space over the past decade has been the introduction of fully managed WordPress hosting.
10 years ago if you wanted to host your WordPress site, your only option was to pay $2-$5 per month to host your website on a server with 20,000 other sites.
And if one of those websites was compromised or DDOSed, there wasn’t a damn you could do about it.
But as technology has rapidly improved, hosting your WordPress sites doesn’t just have to be where your WordPress website lives. Hosting partners can now manage your updates, take care of your backups, help you troubleshoot hosting issues, and much more. Oh yeah!
And the good ones like Pressable have strategic partner programs so if they don’t offer a certain service or product, they can recommend people who can (and are the best at what they do)!
And I know what you might be thinking…
Great! So I can sign up for fully managed WordPress hosting and they can take care of all the maintenance I need. Why do I need a partner like WP Buffs to manage my website?
Let’s talk about the true value of managed WordPress hosting, what you actually get out of it, and why investing in a 24/7 support partner to supplement what your managed hosting company doesn’t do could mean the difference between fast growth mediocre results. At the end of the day, serious WordPressers need both!
The case for managed hosting alongside a 24/7 WordPress hosting support partner
Plenty of hosting companies claim to have a managed WordPress option. It’s also almost always more expensive than classic shared hosting.
So what exactly is managed hosting and why is it pricier?
Not to over-simplify things here, but managed hosting just means hosting your site where the hosting team themselves manage everything hosting-related for you.
Let’s use Pressable’s managed WordPress hosting as an example here. Our teams strategized about how we can make WordPress even easier for everyone at WordCamp US!
Their managed WordPress option includes:
- A fully managed server (proactive optimization with uptime monitoring instead of the classic fix only when something is wrong)
- RegularWordPress updates for WordPress core and PHP
- Hosting-related proactive support (award-winning help since they’re always on the lookout for errors in plugin code, site updates etc.)
- Managed site caching (no need for a caching plugin, Pressable fully handles this)
- CDN (a Content Delivery Network built-in to their hosting so you don’t need the additional investment in something like Cloudflare)
If you’re paying $5/mo to host your website, you may save a few bucks on where your website lives. But you’ll pay 100x that over the long run when you have to spend dozens of hours fixing hosting issues yourself and not making proactive updates.
Furthermore, you’ll miss out on a ton of revenue when your site isn’t fast enough to compete. In fact, studies show that a website may lose up to 26% of users for a one-second delay in mobile load time! But it would have been with the high-quality caching and CDN options of a managed WordPress host.
Our team has robust experience with the Pressable platform so we know how effective their managed hosting is for the people who use it.
That’s where a 24/7 support partner like WP Buffs comes into play
We work closely with Pressable (and full transparency, we manage a ton of sites that are hosted their platform). We know first-hand that their support is some of the best out there when it comes to hosting companies. And we would know as a company that’s all about above and beyond support!
Wow, incredibly thoughtful holiday gift basket from our friends at @Pressable. No wonder they’re some of our favorite #WordPress people. Our Head of Marketing is also a big fan. Cheers! #PressWithTheBest 😂👏🏽 pic.twitter.com/MWUWpQfRX0
— Joe Howard 💪🏽 (@JosephHHoward) December 13, 2018
But that being said, all the support they provide is to fully optimize your server and hosting environment.
But what about the WordPress side of things?
Pressable provides a free hook up into their CDN and premium caching as part of their managed WordPress hosting to help speed up your site. Of course, this is a huge part of helping your site run faster at a foundational level.
But who’s going to help you optimize the over-blown images and video files on your website? Minify JavaScript and CSS? Enable GZIP compression? Move render-blocking resources? Put the manual hours into minimizing loading times for your websites?
Under Pressable’s hosting infrastructure, your site lives in its own area on a server, so if another site happens to be compromised, your site remains safe. From a hosting perspective, Pressable handles security.
But who’s going to fully optimize the security when it comes to your WordPress site? Force high-difficulty passwords for all users? Perform daily malware scans? Provide brute force protection? Implement intelligent network blocking? Update authentication keys and salts?
Pressable has fantastic and proactive support if there’s a hosting issue. Usually, they’ll know what the problem is and fix it before it can affect your website. And of course if you have a hosting issue, they’ll get you fast, helping to fix any issue you’re experiencing.
But will they help make your actual WordPress website 100% mobile responsive? Make requested edits to your content, images, website design, etc? Help to implement any changes to your site you need when it comes to marketing, sales, or SEO?
When it comes down to it, Pressable is one of the highest performers in their area of expertise. Hosting.
But when it comes to building our your website, adding advanced functionality, and taking big steps forward to drive traffic, optimize the site for conversion and put your site in a position to make money, you need more than just hosting support…
You need a 24/7 support partner to fully manage both your WordPress website.
If we’re just talking about your own site, and you’re serious about giving it every opportunity to perform at the highest levels, investing in both WordPress managed hosting and a 24/7 support partner is going to be your best bet.
You’ll never encounter another hosting issue or technical WordPress challenge again and if you do, you’ll have all the 24/7 support you need to fix it with a single support request.
If you’re an agency, freelancer or WordPress professional and you’re serious about putting your clients in the best possible position for their businesses to thrive, investing in managed hosting specially optimized for agencies is where you need to place your bet.
And when it comes to 24/7 support, joining a white-label support program can allow you to instantly start providing 24/7 support for your clients while also bringing in monthly recurring revenue into your business. It’s a win-win!
At WP Buffs, we specialize in helping agencies and freelancers by managing their clients’ websites in the background for them. You sell our care plans, we provide all the support with white-label reports, white-label email support, white-label speed and security eBooks, white-label drip email campaigns and a whole lot more.
By next week, you could be providing 24/7 support for all your clients and increase your company’s profit margin like Rich of Rigorous Digital did by 23%. Boom!
Wrapping up
At the end of the day, managed WordPress hosting is going to be the bedrock upon which serious website owners and WP professionals alike build their businesses. Hosting companies like Pressable will fully manage your hosting infrastructure so you can focus on sales, marketing and building your business.
And if you want to take your WordPress site to another level in addition to your hosting, a 24/7 support partner is going to help you get there. Why spend dozens of hours hiring and managing different freelancers when you could invest in a single monthly subscription and get it all? And if you need this support for your clients, you can give it to them while increasing your own business’ monthly revenue at the same time.
The choice is yours. But choose wisely!
Joe Howard
Hi! Joe here. I’m the Head Buff at WP Buffs, a 24/7 WordPress website maintenance service for serious website owners and white-label partners. I also run WPMRR, a robust video course that teaches WordPress professionals how to implement, sell and execute ongoing care plans for their clients and increase their revenue every single month. If you want some freebies: grab some free speed and security eBooks, watch some free webinars for WordPress professionals or tune into the WPMRR WordPress podcast. Booyah!
