Boy is there ever a lot to talk about when it comes to WordPress! From installation guides, to theming, to finding the best and developing great plugins, we could go on for months.
To keep things on-point, this article’s intention is to focus specifically on hosting options and how both the type of hosting and the location of hosting helps your website.
Let’s start with types of hosting. WordPress seems to have this one major dividing line separating hosting for the platform: the division between managed/secure/performance hosting (all in one) and standard web hosting. We’re going to discuss both.
Managed / Secure / Performance Hosting
Hosting providers like WP Engine and FlyWheel have built enhanced WordPress hosting platforms that are dedicated to WordPress Hosting. And as you can surely guess, you’ve got to pay quite a premium price to get it. The amazing thing is that even at their base level, which is fairly expensive, you still don’t get any real hands-on support; you simply gain access to their platform.
Sure the platform offers security and performance advantages, but you can easily get that from a self-hosted platform and not pay what amounts to 3-10x the price. This brings us to self-hosted standard hosting.
Standard web hosting services
Sure they might not sound fancy, but sometimes that’s exactly the point! Rather than providing fancy custom WordPress-specific features, a standard hosting provider often gives you many of those functions as options, but without the high price tag. Often clocking in at about $100 / year. (WP Engine starts at over $300 per year and severely limits the number of visits you can receive!)
So how do you pick?
Simple! Just pick a standard web hosting service that knows how WordPress works.
Why does the location matter?
Well, in some ways it doesn’t! But if you’re located in North America, then Canadian WordPress hosting is what you need. Canadian privacy laws ensure your data (at least while it resides on the server) are safe from governments and organizations alike.
By hosting in roughly the same geographical region as you, you benefit from quicker page load times. And, by picking the right Canadian WordPress Hosting provider, you get even faster page load times, as they’ll have some fantastic optimizations in place to ensure your site is always at its fastest, like the nginx + php-fpm web server and processing engine, specialized caching options available, and under-filled servers.
In summation, these are just a few reasons why a Canadian WordPress Hosting provider is perfect for you:
– Great value pricing
– Faster servers due to proximity and better technology
– Better privacy laws governing your server’s storage
– The best support when you pick a provider that knows WordPress well.