Julianna
With so many of our customers using WordPress, we’re excited to introduce our new line of managed hosting plans designed specifically for WordPress users and their websites. Whether you use WordPress for a simple personal blog or are in the business of designing high-end websites for clients, our WordPress hosting offers improved performance, reduced maintenance, proactive security, and a host of powerful tools to help you create a beautiful website.
Let’s take a deeper dive into how WordPress hosting differs from common shared hosting, what “managed” means, and the awesome advantages these plans offer users, shall we?
Managed WordPress Hosting vs. Standard Shared Hosting – What’s the Difference?
Shared hosting is a category of webhosting in which a single physical server hosts multiple websites. Websites can be built in any programming language, for example, PHP, Python, Java, Ruby, or WordPress (which actually uses multiple languages) – all are able to utilize shared hosting. Webnames has offered fast, secure, reliable shared hosting plans for more than 10-years, hosting thousands of websites on our 100%-Canadian infrastructure, including a large number built on WordPress.
Webnames’ new WordPress Hosting also leverages shared servers, but the service is different in a few important ways. Where standard shared hosting plans don’t cater to websites built using a particular platform or programming language, our managed WordPress hosting plans do. Not only do our WordPress plans include specialized features, the entire hosting environment is designed, maintained and monitored to provide optimal WordPress performance and security. This makes life easier for WordPress developers and owners who maintain their own websites.
Performance and Security Benefits for WordPress Websites
If you own a WordPress website, you know that WordPress isn’t necessarily a “set it and forget it” kind of platform. With its user-friendly CMS and nearly infinite customizability via plugins, WordPress currently powers approximately 30% of all websites on the Internet. And with this power and popularity also comes risk and responsibility.
For WordPress websites to remain safe from malware and hacking, and to stay in good running order, they need ongoing maintenance such as core updates and consistent security patching. Unless you have a dedicated developer in charge website upkeep – it can be a slog keep atop of these things if you’re also trying to run a business. With that in mind, here are some of the things our Managed WordPress plans take care of to lighten your workload.
Core updates – It’s important to update your WordPress software to the latest version – and we know that you’re only human, so sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Unfortunately, when you fall behind on updates, you open the door to security vulnerabilities, miss out on new features, and can compromise website performance. But not any more! With our new plans automating the process, you can scratch off updating your WordPress software from your to-do list.
Security scanning and patching – WordPress’ immense popularity also makes it a huge target for hackers. They’re constantly trolling for new vulnerabilities that can be leveraged as entry points to your website in order to exploit data, install malware, or change information on your site. With automated security scans and patching, we prevent exploits by proactively fixing vulnerabilities and removing malware before it can gain a foothold on your website.
Backups and website restoration – Say goodbye to the days of manually backing up your WordPress website. Or of not backing it up at all for that matter (not recommended!). With our new Backup Scheduler and Restore Manager you can automate the process of saving your WordPress website to ensure that it doesn’t disappear into some parallel universe never to be seen again. In the event that files do get deleted, the Restore Manager allows you to restore your site to its previous state.
Now if all of this is sounding good to you so far, get ready to high-five yourself because we haven’t even covered the design and build features yet.
Productivity Enhancing Features for WordPress Designers, Developers, and DIY-ers
If you still need convincing that managed WordPress hosting is worth it and offers good value, our WordPress Website Builder and WordPress Toolkit should seal the deal for you – especially if want to build your own WordPress site, or are in the business of designing and managing them for clients.
WordPress Website Builder – This, folks, is a big deal … and a huge time saver! All of our WordPress plans come with a powerful drag-and-drop website builder called BoldGrid that makes designing and managing a beautiful WordPress site easier than you can imagine. With 200+ professionally designed, mobile-responsive themes already pre-populated with industry-relevant content plus built-in SEO tools, you can hit the ground running and launch a search engine friendly website fast. BoldGrid is perfect for those who want to build their own WordPress website but could use a little help, as well as for designers and agencies looking to scale business and deploy faster. We guarantee you’re going to love BoldGrid and (humble brag) we’re the only Canadian WordPress host that has it.
WordPress Toolkit – If you’re a WordPress power user, this set of features will enable you to work smarter, faster and more securely. Created for developers, designers, agencies and IT managers, the WordPress Toolkit provides one dashboard from which you can manage and automate updates to all of your WordPress instances, or deal with them singularly if that’s your jam. Stage, clone, sync, update, migrate and execute other complex tasks with one click. Safely test new plugins, themes, and code in a sandbox environment before pushing them out to production.
And Extra Icing on the [WordPress Hosting] Cake
In addition to all of the great stuff baked into the WordPress hosting plans, simply hosting with Webnames offers benefits that you might not have known about, including:
+Free hosting migration service – If you’re hosted elsewhere and want to move to one of our WordPress hosting plans, our expert technicians will move your data over securely and with no downtime. Once you’re up and running on our servers, our customer support will help you get acquainted with your new control panel, features and more.
+Forever low domain pricing – When you become a hosting customer at Webnames, you automatically receive fixed, lower pricing on all new registrations and renewals for the life of your plan.
+WordPress savvy, bilingual customer support – Our customer support team knows its way around WordPress. This enables us to provide support around issues that relate to WordPress, not just your hosting management.
+WordPress support and maintenance plans – WordPress is awesome, but if you’re a non-expert managing your own website, occasionally there can be bumps in the road. We offer affordable WordPress support plans, providing light development and extra help with things like CSS and plugin management.
+100% Canadian ? – Canada’s stringent privacy requirements offer greater protections to you and your customers. With all of our servers, data centres, systems, offices and staff located in Canada, the residency of your website data and personal information is never in doubt.
Did we mention our WordPress plans are available now?
As you can see, if your website is built on WordPress or you plan to use WordPress in the future, there are some solid advantages to choosing a managed WordPress hosting plan over a standard shared hosting offering. Yes, it costs marginally more per month, but for that additional $3.00-$5.00 Canadian, most users will find the added security, lower maintenance, and features such as BoldGrid and the WordPress Toolkit well worth it. And if you need a little more reassurance before taking the plunge, we also offer a free trial (just ask a support rep to hook you up!) and 30-day money back guarantee.
Head on over to our WordPress hosting page to learn more, see the full specs, and get started. Plans start at just $7.95 CDN per depending on your term and include a free domain name.