Welcome to post #5 in my Website Foundations series — a practical guide for business owners who want to make smarter decisions about their website. In this post, I’ll help you understand what to look for in a website hosting provider, especially if you’re running WordPress.
What Is Website Hosting?
Your website needs a place to live, and that’s what hosting is. If your domain name is like your website’s street address, then hosting is the land your site is built on. It stores all your pages, images, and files, and serves them to visitors when they type in your web address.
But not all hosting is created equal.
Some providers give you a secure, fast, reliable foundation. Others will try and squeeze more and more money out of you and give you less and less. The wrong hosting choice can lead to frustrating problems such as slow website speeds, site crashes, or even security issues. As an example, I once had a client on a small local hosting service that was getting hacked every 24 hours. As soon as I moved the site to better hosting the hacks stopped. This meant that there was something about that hosting set up that was vulnerable and open to compromise.
What to Look for in a Good Hosting Provider
When choosing a host for a WordPress website, here are the key things to consider:
Speed & Performance
Fast-loading websites improve user experience and SEO. Look for hosts that use modern infrastructure (like SSD storage or cloud servers) and offer tools like caching or a CDN (Content Delivery Network).
Security
Your host should include protections like malware scanning, firewalls, and brute force attack prevention. Bonus points for automatic updates and security patches.
Backups
A good host will provide you with daily backups and give you an easy way to restore your site from a backup.
Support
When something goes wrong, can you get help quickly? Look for responsive, knowledgeable support that is preferably 24/7 and with multiple ways to contact them. When you need urgent help there’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to find how to get it or having to jump through hoops to talk to an AI and then if you’re lucky a human.
Uptime Guarantee
This refers to how reliably your website will stay online. Look for hosts that offer at least 99.9% uptime and monitor for outages.
Easy Management
Whether you’re managing your site yourself or handing it off to someone else, the hosting dashboard should be intuitive and straightforward. Bonus: one-click WordPress installs and staging environments.
Red Flags to Watch Out For
Be cautious of hosts that:
- Promise “unlimited everything” without clearly explaining what that means
- Don’t offer any kind of backup or restore system
- Use outdated software or interfaces
- Constantly try to upsell you on basic features
- Make it hard to cancel or transfer your website
Final Thoughts
Hosting is one of those invisible things that most people don’t think about until something goes wrong. But getting it right from the start saves you time, frustration, and money in the long run.
If you’re not sure what kind of hosting you have or if it’s right for your website, it’s worth taking a closer look. And if you’re ready to upgrade, migrate, or simply want advice on what to do next, I’m here to help.
Contact to chat about your hosting setup, or to learn more about my managed hosting and care plan services.
Let me know if you’d like a featured image or PDF version to go with this one.
