Used by nearly 75 million websites, WordPress is by far the most popular content management system (CMS) in the world. So if you’re like most people and have decided to create a WordPress website for yourself or your business, you too may have reached the conclusion that’s it’s no easy game.
Sure WordPress makes getting a website up and running look like a breeze, with their impressive bounty of customizable themes and helpful plugins. You can do just about anything without even needing to be a programmer. However, it still requires a heck of a lot of work, especially if you’re running a business. You have to take care of all the content, site design, marketing, social media, and so on. And before you even get to those details, there is still the issue of ensuring your WordPress site is running smoothly and without technical issues.
Managed WordPress Services
What Does it Mean to Have Managed WordPress Services?
Today, the majority of web hosting providers offer an abundance of affordable solutions, such as $3-5 for a shared hosting account. This is a viable option if you’re just starting out, but for medium or larger sized businesses, WordPress managed hosting is a great alternative.
Due to the huge popularity of WordPress, many hosting providers offer specialized managed WordPress hosting to remove the hassle of managing a website so businesses can focus on what’s important. This concierge-like service by a host takes care of all technical aspects of running a WordPress site. This includes speed, security, updates, uptime, daily backups, and scalability.
Here are just a few of the benefits that come along with a managed WordPress service:
- Security — This is a biggie. One of the top aims of premium managed hosting is to provide WordPress websites with bulletproof security so you don’t have to worry about hackers, malware, or other security breaches.
- Premium Support — While most shared hosting providers do offer customer support in a variety of mediums (live chat, phone, email), with managed WordPress hosting, you have a support team that are experts in WordPress and can assist you with just about any issue you may encounter.
- Daily Backups — If you’re constantly making changes to your website—adding new features or plugins, content updates, adding or removing images—then it’s important to have daily backups of your site. With managed WordPress services, they take a daily backup of your whole website which you can then download right from your dashboard. Most popular backup services such as BlogVault or VaultPress charge, so you could be saving money.
They also create a restore point. So if something terrible goes wrong with your site, you can simply restore it to an earlier version.
- Speed — Speed plays an important role in your website’s rankings on search engines like Google, and while there are several ways to you can improve it—such as caching, using a CDN, or optimized images—most managed hosting companies implement their own techniques to increase speed time so you don’t have to rely on additional plugins.
- Automatic Updates — Your WordPress Core files will automatically be updated to the latest version.
- No Downtime — No matter how much traffic hits your website, it will never go down.
Managed WordPress hosting simply has a ton of useful benefits, especially if you’re a business that cares about focusing on what’s important: your business! But be aware, there is a pretty significant price difference between a typical shared hosting plan and a managed hosting plan. Shared hosting will run you around $3-5, whereas a managed hosting plan can set you back $30. There are also some quality hosting providers out there who are a bit cheaper, such as SiteGround.
What About Learning and Having Control
Opting for managed WordPress hosting services also comes with its setbacks and limitations. Because the architecture of the server is primed for WordPress, you will often find yourself limited to run only WordPress-based sites. Your WordPress hosting provider can also block you from using plugins that can potentially slow down your site.
When it comes to managed WordPress hosting, you are exchanging control for convenience. Someone else is managing all technical aspects of your website so you don’t get as much say in it. But isn’t that the point? Sure, you can take the time to learn the ropes of running a WordPress website, but just keep in mind that this requires a lot of work and is especially not easy for less tech-savvy individuals.
Even web developers make use of this service simply because constantly managing a website’s speed, uptime, and security (to name a few), is time-consuming. Most popular and high-quality security and optimization plugins cost money to use, so you may even be saving money, especially if you’re operating a larger website.
When it comes to important technical issues with your website, having managed WordPress hosting is a no-brainer. Unless you’re a newbie WordPress developer who has time to invest in learning the best practices when it comes to technical issues, such as speed optimization and security, having a managed WordPress hosting account is absolutely worth it.
So, does managed WordPress steal your opportunity to develop your WordPress skills?
I don’t think so. While they help you quite extensively when it comes to perfecting your WordPress website optimization, you are always free to go ahead and create a WordPress website on your own. The only difference is that you always have an option to ask for professional expertise whenever you get stuck on something. On the contrary, it seems that managed WordPress hosting offers you an option to learn even faster!
