Why is hosting such an important topic when it comes to the success of your website?

Because bad hosting slows down your website.

It’s simple as that.

If you are new to the topic of why website speed is such an important factor when it comes to having a successful website/business, you should give the following article a read: 5 Bulletproof Ways to Improve Page Speed Score [2022 Guide]

Bad Hosting Slows Down Your Website
(3 Easy Tips for 2022)


1. Bad Hosting = EIG – HostGator, BlueHost, etc.

If you want to build your first website, logically the first thing you do is to google it and find some information about the best practices and what you should look for.

Typically, when you want to find information on hosting, which is the 2nd step after finding the right domain, you will come across EIG which offers a lot of different “cheap” hosting providers.

But…

Note

Beware of hosting providers offered
by EIG (Endurance International Group).

They own all “popular” hosting providers like BlueHost, HostGator, DomainHost, iPage, etc. (which are usually promoted by other people because of their lucrative commissions), and are known to cut their costs by putting too many domains on the same server.

This causes delays, slow response times, or even downtimes of websites.

Take a look at these Reddit threads for some more information:

That will give you a clearer understanding of why they have such a bad reputation and why you should avoid them.

Note

If your goal is to set up a blog just to learn & use it for private purposes, then one of the hosting solutions offered by EIG might be the right fit for you, since they are generally pretty cheap.

If your goal is to build a website, blog, monetize it and start a business around it, there are better options out there that will give you the results you’re after.


Image from article Bad Hosting Slows Down Your Website (3 Simple Tips for 2022)

What you learned?

Bad Hosting Slows Down Your Website.

Let’s take a look at the hosting providers that are improving your website.

2. Cloudways – Cloud Hosting Provider

Cloudways offers fully managed cloud hosting that allows you to scale your hosting resources as you grow.

They have a great infrastructure optimized for speed, performance, and security.

Like many before us, we went ahead and switched our hosting from HostGator to Cloudways after doing some extensive research on all hosting providers.

The Digital Ocean Servers for $10/per month was the initial choice for us.

At first, we were not sure if the resources provided (see below) were sufficient for our needs.

After a short live chat with Cloudways customer service, we were ensured that the $10/month plan is sufficient for websites with 30-70k monthly views.

On top of that, you can host as many websites as you wish within these parameters on one server.

screenshot - Cloudways Digital Ocean Servers pricing

After setting up the server on Cloudways which just takes about 5min, I did some minor adjustments to ensure that we get the best performance of our server on Cloudways:

Step 1)

  • Go to Server Management
  • Click on Settings & Packages
  • Adjust the Memory Limit to 256MB.

Step 2)

Go to Packages in the menu and update the following:

  • PHP to PHP 8.0 (Update 2021)
  • MySQL to MariaDB 10.4 (Update 2021)
  • Install Redis
Image of Cloudways servers settings & packages

After we successfully migrated our website to Cloudways, the results blew us away.

Look for yourself.

GTmetrix score with HostGator

GTmetrix Score for Workoutfrolic.com at HostGator

GTmetrix score at Cloudways

GTMetrix score for workoutfrolic.com

Google Page Speed Insights for Mobile at Cloudways

Google Page Speed score for workoutfrolic.com Mobile Version

Google Page Speed for Desktop at Cloudways

Google Page Speed score for workoutfrolic.com Desktop Version

Pingdom at Cloudways

Pingdom Test Score for workoutfrolic.com

Having scores like that for the first time got us really excited!

It’s a great feeling knowing that your page performance is on point and users are having a great experience.

On top of that, Google will reward your page if you have good scores in the Core Web Vitals.(put effort to fix them, otherwise Google will not like you too much)

We migrated our page using their WordPress plugin (tutorial) and had zero hick-ups.

It seems like the only negative feedback that Cloudways gets is for their customer support.

To us, it seemed like they’ve worked hard to improve on that front, and personally, we had no problems at all.

We were able to fix any minor issues within a few minutes and their customer service agents were very polite and helpful.

Cloudways – Reviews

Cloudways Reviews from Trustpilot

What people are saying…

Cloudways review screenshot of Twitter user
Cloudways review screenshot of Twitter user
Cloudways review screenshot of Twitter user
Cloudways review screenshot of Twitter user
Cloudways review screenshot of Twitter user
Cloudways review screenshot of Twitter user

Why we like Cloudways:

  • Our GTmetrix, Pingdom, and Google Page Speed Scores shown above improved immensely and speak for themselves;
  • Even though we use a lot of images & videos, our page loads instantly;
  • Supports PHP 8.0 (unlike HostGator which offers only 7.1 for shared web hosting), MariaDB 10.4 for MySQL, Cloudflare;
  • Comes with its own caching plugin called “Breeze” which covers all your basic needs;
  • Offer a free migration that you can request, as well as a migration plugin that is easy to use (we did our migration using the plugin);
  • Based on our experience – great customer service;
  • Free Let’s Encrypt SSL is included;
  • Have great reviews 1, 2, 3 and 4

Affiliate Disclaimer:

If you want to switch to Cloudways, we would appreciate it, if you would sign up over our provided links which will enable us to create more beginner-friendly tutorials like these ones.


3. Siteground

Another great provider that we recommend is Siteground.

Next to Cloudways, it’s one of the most praised hosting solutions out there.

Siteground is also recommended by WordPress.

Image of Sitegrounds pricing package

Choose a plan based on what your needs are.

The “StartUp” plan is the obvious option if you only need hosting for one site.

If you plan on adding more websites and looking to grow a business, you should definitely take a look at their other plans and if you have any questions – consult with their customer service.

How to lay a Foundation for a Profitable Blog [Guide 2022]

Despite Siteground’s impressive reviews and reputation, we felt like it wasn’t quite the right solution for us.

We felt tempted by the flexibility that Cloudways provides and knew that we would probably outgrow our plan quickly.

For that reason, we wanted to stay with a plan where we could pay monthly, rather than commit to a 2-3-year-plan.

See, the way how most hosting providers work is that you need to pay at least a year ahead. Since the initial prices are so much cheaper than the renewal prices, it makes sense to take advantage and get the longest plan possible.

In the end – you have to choose for yourself which hosting provider you feel more comfortable with and how much money you are willing to spend.

We are not trying to take anything away from Siteground.

According to many reviews & Facebook polls – it is one of the most popular solutions and offers you reliable & fast servers.

Siteground Reviews

image of Trustpilot reviews of Siteground

What people are saying…

screenshot of Twitter review for Siteground
screenshot of Twitter review for Siteground
screenshot of Twitter review for Siteground
screenshot of Twitter review for Siteground
screenshot of Twitter review for Siteground

Why do we recommend Siteground: (full review)

  • Great site performance (speed & uptime) due to superior technology.
  • They are a support/customer-orientated company.
  • Five server locations
  • Free site migration
  • Amazing support
  • Optimized for WordPress
  • Five-star reviews
  • They are endorsed by the most popular SEO WordPress Plugin – YOAST

Affiliate Disclaimer:

If you want to switch to Siteground, we would appreciate it, if you would sign up over our provided link which will enable us to create more beginner-friendly tutorials like these ones.

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