What is Website Hosting?
Understanding how the internet works is important to understanding the nature of website hosting. Up until the advent of cloud hosting, the internet worked by sending data from stored files to a person’s computer when they call it up with a URL. So, hosting is the term used to refer to the storage space required for a website or anything else that can be accessed online.
When you decide which hosting service to use, you will pay a small, variable monthly fee that is modified according to the exact services you want to be included in your hosting package.
Who is WP Engine?
WP Engine is a website hosting provider focused solely on WordPress sites, and they are the preferred host of Performance Driven Marketing. A few years back, after some rocky experiences with other cheaper hosts, we switched our company and all of the sites we manage to WP Engine. PDM has become a huge fan of its security, stability, developer features, and blazing-fast speed, and has never looked back. We now host all of our sites on WP Engine and refer people to them all of the time. Yes, they are a bit more, but you really do get what you pay for. We have become so confident in the service that WP Engine provides us and our clients, that we cringe when people choose to go elsewhere. Here are a few reasons that Performance Driven Marketing chooses WP Engine:
- Security: One reason for choosing WP Engine was that we needed a platform that was secure. With all of the hacks going around, we battle these daily on other platforms, it’s nice to have a hosting company that proactively does patches, and updates and is constantly monitored. We feel confident that all external exploits are considered and accounted for without our team having to spend too much time worrying about them. Peace of mind alone is worth the investment for us.
- Stability: If one of our sites goes down we could experience a negative impact on both industry reputation and potential loss of our SEO foothold as Google is always looking to serve sites that give a good user experience. This doesn’t even take into account the potential revenue loss for our clients. Since we moved all of our sites to WP Engine, we haven’t had any significant outages and the system has proven to be very stable.
- Performance: At PDM, we’ve learned a thing or two about how to make sites that look amazing, function for the clients, and have the speed needed for the end users. Our team is constantly looking for more efficient ways to increase performance with less effort. With WP Engine’s EverCache, One Click CDN, One Click SSL, Domain Mapping, and other resources; we can make our sites blazing fast. And now that page load is now a major ranking factor used by Google, we can’t afford to use anyone else.
- 24/7 Support: One of our favorite features about WP Engine is its customer service and support. We have worked with many companies over the years and can say without a doubt, that WP Engine sets the industry standard when it comes to expertise and customer support. From live chats to phone calls, they are always willing to jump in and help.
- Staging Environments: With WP Engine, we are able to make changes and upgrades to websites safely within the Staging area, ensure that the site and all of its plugins are working correctly, and then push the site live with zero interruption. This saves us time, money, and many headaches.
- Available Features: With a vast array of hosting and development features, WP Engine is the perfect fit for us. From domain and CDN management to error logs and GIT push management, WP Engine has everything we need in one place.
- Pricing: Although there are many other cheaper hosts out there, for us they end up costing much more in the long run. See their plans and a discount offer below, or if you need more even more hands-off management, see our Managed Service Plans. We will ONLY use WP Engine for our sites, and you should too.
