Kitchen Table Web Design

Affordable Website Design Auckland specialising in taking local small business websites to the next level and basic SEO Services.

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WordPress Hosting and Domain Names

Web Hosting for WordPress

Choosing from the plethora of hosting companies that offer WordPress Hosting can be overwhelming. Almost all web hosting will meet the minimum requirements for WordPress. It is important to have a read what exactly they are offering for “WordPress” Hosting.

I do have a group of Hosting Companies I prefer.

The factors I consider

Scalability

You want to ask yourself if the hosting company offers flexible plans that can accommodate changes in your site. For example, if your business grows and the site got more traffic or if you wanted to add additional functionality.  It is also worth ringing or messaging the sales team to see if they are knowledgeable and will take the time to discuss which plan might be suitable and which plan you need to look at next. What resources will be available on each plan including how much traffic can the hosting company handle on a particular plan.

Security

Having robust security is important. What server level protections does the hosting company offer.

Do they offer a firewall protection system?
Do they set up SSL certificates on your site? Does the host offer a free Let’s Encrypt SSL install and an automatic renewal? What are the SSL certificate options?
Do they provide automated backup solutions for your site?

Support

Ideally, the support staff should have a good knowledge of WordPress. Consequently, this can make your life much easier if something goes wrong and you have to diagnose the issue and the technician on the other end of chat is a WordPress Expert. Another factor worth considering is the ease of contact and your preferences. I am happy with 24/7 chat but you may prefer to pick up the phone and talk to someone directly.

Reputation

Spend some time reading reviews online. If you read a complaint about a particular hosting company, how did they respond? Bear in mind, that many of the hosting companies have affiliate plans so the person reviewing the hosting may receive a commission. I also have affiliate links and receive a small commission if you purchase a product or service after clicking that link.

Misc

  • Is email hosting needed?
  • Is CPanel access available or what interface do they provide?
  • Where is the data centre?
  • Are there any caching or Performance Tools available
  • What are the staging site options and how difficult are they to use {This is essential for ecommerce websites with reasonable amounts of traffic}

WP Beginner does a survey of its readers ( over 100,000 WordPress users) and lists the top 3 choices for the best WordPress hosting companies are:

  1. Bluehost – Best overall WordPress hosting
  2. HostGator – Best WordPress hosting for growing businesses.
  3. SiteGround – Best WordPress support in the industry

Code WP did a thorough survey of Hosting Companies. WP Engine scored highest in the quality of WordPress Support.

Please bear in mind is a false economy to save $20 a year on your hosting and then have to spend hours making endless phone calls and emails to get a hosting issue resolved. 

I do recommend that you the website owner, have complete control over your web hosting and your domain name. If you have full access to your hosting and your domain you can easily switch web design companies. We like our clients to be happy and choose to continue to use our services, but we don’t want to trap you!

Different Hosting Plans

Shared hosting plans are the lowest priced option where you share server resources with other customers. Virtual Private Server plans give you “virtual space” on a server. Each VPS has dedicated resources. Unless you are familiar with configuring a server you will want to take a managed VPS plan. They have more processing power than Shared Plans. Cloud Hosting Plans are like having resources spread across a number of virtual servers. They offer great scalability. Dedicated Server Plan is a plan where you do not share resources with other users. You might want this if you have particular server configuration requirements.

My Recommendations

My current hosting recommendations (as of 2018) are Siteground or WP Engine.

If you have a high traffic site or ecommerce website with a large number of products then I strongly recommend WP Engine.

More budget-conscious customers might want to consider Bluehost or GoDaddy.

Do you need help with your WordPress website? We offer a full range of  WordPress Services.

It is important to have control of your domains names. It is better, if you, as the customer registers your own domain. Choose in an independent account rather than adding your hosting account for security reasons.

Sorting out Domain Names

Com or Co.nz or Org.nz etc

If your intended audience is the world or the United States then go ahead and register a .com domain. However, if you want to rank well mainly in New Zealand then choose a local domain ie co.nz or .nz. In general .org.nz is for non-profits or community groups within New Zealand. Or you can go with something completely different.

Pitfalls to Avoid

One shortcut small business owners take is getting your web design company to register your domain names. This may not cause any problems if your relationship with your web designer stays on good terms. Or your web designer set up a separate domain account to which you have full access.

However, this last year I have had several customers who have come to me with significant issues with gaining control of their own domain names.  Either the web design company claims they own the domain name under a licence for a period of time. Or a client wanted to move to a new web designer, only to find that the domain name was registered to someone they had no obvious way of contacting.

It can be a time-consuming process to sort out these issues. Your domain may be listed on dozens of directories, you have valuable backlinks and authority and unless you can gain control,  it is all lost or may take hours and hours to fix.

If your name and email is the legal registrant for a domain name, all is fine. Email the company holding the domain with that email address and you will be issued with your UDAI (you-dye) ie the legal password for your domain name. With this password, you can move to a new account.

The Best Way

Do register your domain names with a separate domain company from your hosting company. Use a personal email account that you plan to keep for years or a Gmail account that you can always access to set up the account.

You can check your domain details  at https://dnc.org.nz/