When it comes to hosting a WordPress website, there are a lot of options out there. To help you in your research, we have put together a review on the WordPress hosting platform we prefer, SiteGround.
SiteGround is our platform of choice and has been for many years now. We use it to host our own businesses’ WordPress websites, as well as our customers’ sites. We hope this in-depth review is helpful as you decide which platform will work best for you.
What we love most about SiteGround is it is easy to use. Not everyone is a WordPress expert, nor do they have the time to learn it. If you are just getting started with building a WordPress website, you might feel overwhelmed with all of the things you need to get started: picking a theme, hosting, site security, and optimization for the speed of your site…just to name a few.
The great news is, SiteGround is your one-stop-shop for everything you need when it comes to hosting a WordPress website.
Installing or Migrating Your WordPress Site
Once you select your SiteGround hosting plan (we’ll go over that a little later), SiteGround will walk you through installing WordPress and pointing your domain to their servers step-by-step. If you already have a WordPress website, SiteGround makes transferring your site a breeze.
For migration of your current website, SiteGround offers two options: automatic migration and manual transfer by their team. We have always used automatic migration as it is simple and easy to use. Simply download the plugin they provide, upload it to WordPress, enter the migration token, and hit transfer!
If you would prefer a manual transfer conducted by their team, it will cost you an additional $30. We have never used the manual option, as the automatic migration has always worked seamlessly for us.
Site Tools
When finding hosting for your WordPress website, you should consider the tool or system that the hosting service provides for managing your email accounts, SSL, domain name records, and web files.
A lot of hosting services use the cPanel interface. cPanel is a great system; however, it can be a little confusing if you’re new to WordPress or not very tech-savvy. SiteGround has solved this problem by creating their own proprietary system, Site Tools.
On the Site Tools dashboard, you’ll find everything you need in simple, easy to understand terms. With Site Tools, one of SiteGround’s goals is to get you where you need to be within three clicks.
From the Site Tools dashboard, you can manage your website security (this is where you would add SSL to your site, which is included in all WordPress hosting plans), your domain name, and much more. They even include free email with all WordPress hosting plans, which can be managed from the Site Tools dashboard.
Technical Support
Support is one of our top questions when picking a new vendor to work with. SiteGround’s support is top-notch when it comes to WordPress hosting. In 2016, SiteGround was added to the “WordPress Hosting – Get web hosting from some of the best providers” recommendations list and remains there to this day.
To be on this list is an outstanding accomplishment as it shows SiteGround’s dedication to speed, security, and support. WordPress regularly sends secret shoppers to all of the recommended providers on this list to ensure their customers are receiving top-tier support.
Over the years, we’ve had many things come up that required a bit more knowledge than we had about WordPress and hosting. SiteGround has always been able to solve our problems or point us to the correct place.
SiteGround Optimizer
SiteGround Optimizer is a plugin provided by SiteGround to help speed up your website. If you start your new WordPress site using SiteGround, they will automatically install this plugin. Great news – no tech knowledge is required to use the speed-boosting features of this plugin.
From your WordPress dashboard, you’ll find SiteGround Optimizer in the left hand menu. SiteGround has made it easy to toggle the options needed for the best performance by putting “recommended” next to the features that will help your site the most.
SiteGround Optimizer can be used with any hosting platform but works best with SiteGround. Some of the features in the plugin specifically apply to your SiteGround hosting.
Learn more about SG Optimizer here: https://www.siteground.com/go/optimize-bizygrit
SiteGround Security
A great plugin that comes with SiteGround is SiteGround Security. With WordPress being one of the most widely used CMS platforms on the internet, security is extremely important.
SiteGround Security walks you through all of their recommendations and explains why you should turn on certain items or keep them turned off. A couple of other things we like about SiteGround Security are:
- URL Configuration: SiteGround Security makes it easy to configure your login URL. Why is this important? The default login URL is usually something generic: “yoursite.com/wp-admin.” This is an easy place for hackers to target, so configuring your login URL should help reduce the likelihood of attacks.
- Login Security: SiteGround Security also allows you to set the number of login attempts before locking the account, as well as customized two-factor authentication for additional protection.
Learn more about SG Security here: https://www.siteground.com/go/sg-security
Free Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A content delivery network takes a copy of your website from the original hosting server and places that copy on servers worldwide. This is important because it provides quick and efficient access to your website from anywhere around the globe.
SiteGround provides its very own CDN, which makes one less vendor you have to do research on and find. They offer a free version, which is provided with all WordPress hosting plans, and a premium version.
Hosting Plans – Which Plan is Right for You?
SiteGround offers a few WordPress plans:
- StartUp
- GrowBig
- GoGeek
The biggest differences between the three are the storage space, the number of websites you are allowed to have, and the monthly visitors.
View SiteGround’s hosting plans here: https://www.siteground.com/go/bizy
When we first started, we went with the GoGeek plan as SiteGround offers a great pricing deal on your first year. We also like this plan as it allows you to grow your website without the hassle of having to upgrade if (and when!) your site gets a ton of traffic.
We hope this review was informative and beneficial as you research which platform to choose for hosting a WordPress website. Once we went with Siteground, we never looked back.
Checkout SiteGround by visiting: https://bizygrit.com/siteground
