Choosing the right hosting provider for your WordPress website will play a significant role in the long-term success of your business. Although most people know how to recognize a poor service provider, not everybody understands what makes one the “best.”
Listed below is everything that you need to know when it comes to choosing the best WordPress hosting provider for you. Let’s take a look.
How I Recognize a Good Provider?
There’s a handful of different ways you can recognize a solid WordPress hosting provider. One of the most prominent is the level of security that they can offer.
To clarify, the provider you work with should always make use of the most contemporary software. This is the only way to guarantee that you can remain as protected as possible from arising threats.
Additionally, they should implement a practice known as active monitoring. This allows the hosting provider to detect and then resolve issues that occur immediately. In fact, there should be many cases where your hosting provider identified and removed a problem before you ever learn about it.
Additionally, a reputable service provider should always have accessible, comprehensive customer support. It’s in your best interest to find one who makes it as easy as possible to get in touch with a representative or some form of support 24/7.
Otherwise, you might find yourself in a situation where you experience prolonged downtime due to being unable to receive assistance from the provider.
Server reliability is also something to consider. In context, this means that the pages of your website should load as quickly as possible, and your provider should be able to maintain at least a 99% guaranteed uptime.
Despite how important these factors are, there is one attribute that holds more weight.
What Is the Most Important Factor to Keep In Mind?
We’ve reached the point in terms of technological development where the top-tier service providers are more or less able to provide the same level of service. This means that they all have access to similar equipment and software to help manage their obligations appropriately.
However, there is still one factor that can help you easily differentiate between potential hosting providers:
Company reviews.
Well-written reviews will allow you to gain insight into the type of experience you can expect to have when you work with a specific managed hosting provider. Reviews can often help you avoid hiring subpar providers and narrow your choices down to those who can accommodate your needs.
Although this attribute is relatively straightforward, there is certain information that you need to keep in mind when researching.
What Should I Look For When Researching Reviews?
To make the best decision for you, you’ll need to do more than simply choose the provider that has the highest rating. There are a handful of different criteria that you should take into consideration.
Listed below are some of the most notable.
Is the Review From a Reputable Source?
As you might guess, the review source will play a significant role in determining whether or not you should trust this information. This is particularly true given the fact that some platforms allow virtually anybody to leave a review about any business online.
For example, there are platforms – TrustPilot and G2 – that are dedicated to serving as a location for reliable, high-quality reviews. This means that the reviews you find within these locations will carry much more weight than reviews you encounter elsewhere.
The main factor to consider here is that these websites are fully dedicated to publishing in-depth reviews about a particular company. The business in question is also able to respond to these reviews freely.
So, keep the above information in mind when making your decision. More importantly, however, you’ll need to understand how to recognize an unreliable source when it comes to reviews.
Does It Seem Overly Promotional?
More often than not, a review that seems overly promotional was likely planted there by the business itself. Or, the organization may have offered an incentive to leave exaggerated or highly positive reviews in exchange for a product or service.
Typically, reviews such as these might include a high number of buzzwords or target keywords. For example, let’s assume that the review you are consulting frequently uses words and phrases like “safe,” “reliable,” “better-than-expected,” etc.
Additionally, this review heavily incorporates keywords like “how to find the best hosting provider.”
As a general rule of thumb, reviews that read more like an advertisement instead of an account of what that customer experienced should be considered when making your decision. These are simply methods that organizations used to boost their reputation artificially.
The main issue here is that if a company is willing to mislead its audience in this manner, it may not be a reliable hosting provider to work with.
Learning how to recognize unreliable information like this could save you a large amount of trouble (and money) in the future.
Does It Seem Unnecessarily Negative?
In contrast, you may occasionally encounter views that seem unnecessarily negative. In fact, they may even seem as if they were written by a livid customer who had the worst possible experience.
Interestingly, many people tend to overlook that reviews of this nature could have possibly been planted there by a competitor. Similar to how companies will pad their reviews by leaving false positive feedback, some hosting providers will attempt to discredit other businesses in their local industry.
Reviews that fall into this category will typically be either outlandish or highly vague. To clarify, they often don’t outline the details of their negative experience.
This means that they generally won’t mention an employee by name or list anything pertaining to that individual hosting provider. It’s more often than not simply a rant that attempts to get as much attention as possible from those reading through the reviews.
On the other hand, the review may be abysmally low without saying much of anything at all. In context, this could be a 1/5 star rating that simply says something like “bad service.”
Unfortunately, blatantly false reviews can still detract from the overall rating of the company. During your search, keep this in mind, as it can be tempting to become deterred by a handful of negative reviews even if the organization’s overall rating is high.
Does It Provide Insight Into What You Can Expect?
Whether a review is positive or negative, it won’t mean much if it doesn’t provide insight into what you can expect as a customer. The review should briefly explain critical points of the user’s interaction with the service provider and the outcome.
It’s not uncommon for those who leave reviews to shed light on the onboarding process, customer service, and the strengths/weaknesses of the company as a whole. The more details the review, the better it will be able to help you make your decision.
How Does the Organization Handle Reviews?
You can learn a lot from how the organization handles the reviews that they receive.
It’s often unrealistic to expect a hosting provider to respond to every single review that they get. This is particularly true if the provider receives a large number of reviews on a regular basis.
However, a key factor to consider here is how the hosting provider interacts with users who leave a negative review. Occasionally, you may find that the company becomes hostile toward those who publish a review with negative details.
When responding to negative reviews, the hosting provider should apologize that the customer had a negative experience and offer a resolution. This generally involves providing a way to get in touch with a representative of the organization to discuss the matter further.
If the provider seems to brush off overly negative reviews or aggressively retaliate against them, you may want to look elsewhere.
Choosing the Best WordPress Hosting Provider May Seem Complicated at First
It’s not quite as difficult as you might think, though. By keeping the above criteria in mind, you’ll have a solid understanding of how to choose the best managed WordPress hosting provider for you.
Want to learn more about what we have to offer? Feel free to get in touch with us today and see how we can help.
Amanda Tsourakis
With over a decade of experience in the tech industry, Amanda's experience demonstrates her sales expertise. Her commitment to building, training, and guiding high-performing teams has been instrumental in driving Pressable's success. Amanda's extensive background in sales and marketing, coupled with her sharp business acumen, has made her an invaluable asset to the tech community. Her ability to identify and foster talent, combined with her passion for developing winning sales strategies, has propelled her to the forefront of the industry. When she's not expertly navigating the tech sales landscape, she loves spending quality time with her family, loves travel and adventure, lounging pool/beach-side, playing tennis, working out, and meeting people/making friends all along the way!
