What to look for in a Managed WordPress Host
Choose a partner, not a price.
When you’re looking for a New Mexico Managed WordPress partner, then the price is only one element of that relationship.
If you decide to buy a new appliance, price is important, but you realize you’re going to have your appliance for a long time. You don’t buy it for a month or a year, you buy one for the long haul.
When looking for a Web Host, you will quickly find that every sales pitch for web hosting is based on the same metrics, in this case, disk space, RAM, page views support per plan, and pricing. The question here is: can you evaluate a partner based solely on these criteria?
At the core of this decision, you’re not just buying another product. You’re buying the ability to make sure your business runs effectively, now and in the future. You need more than a specific amount of disk space or RAM or even pricing; you need a partner who understands how to meet your needs.
Evaluating a Managed WordPress HostWho am I and why does it matter?
I’m a business owner.
I have to think about all aspects of what is best for my site, whether I directly interact with it or not. I need to make sure that the site is fast and always available. I can’t afford to lose traffic or miss orders because of unreliability. When we thought about the needs of those running their businesses on WordPress sites, the first thing we considered at Liquid Web was making sure that your sites were backed by infrastructure that guarantees uptime. We focused on redundancy and availability, because we know you need us to have your back during a big campaign or on Black Friday when your orders double. Our features are backed by innovative infrastructure, so count on us to keep the lights on for you.
If you’re an experienced WordPress user
You may feel maintenance and support services don’t offer anything groundbreaking, as
they don’t provide help with anything you can’t do yourself. That, however, is missing the point. Support services greatly reduce your workload and allow you to focus your time on more important tasks.
I’m a designer.
I need to be able to work quickly in staging environments, so I don’t have to make changes on the fly in production. I want to be able to use crisp images and not worry about compression values— my host should do this for me. When I complete a site, I want to password protect it until my client signs off and gives me the go ahead to set it live. Providing accurate reports to my clients is also important, and I want to be able to show them the value of my work, as well as the stability of my Managed WordPress hosting provider. Liquid Web provides one-click staging environments because we knew it was critical for designers to see how updates and changes could impact sites. We also partnered with iThemes to give every account Sync Pro, so that reporting to your clients is easy and provides detailed, meaningful information.
I’m a developer.
I need Git integration and staging sites. SSL is a requirement, and I don’t want pay a lot to secure my sites. I find managing sites or developing for them is hindered if I have to do everything through a graphical interface, so I need SSH access, and WP-CLI is non-negotiable. Most Managed WordPress offerings deliberately restrict access, so you can’t unintentionally modify things on the backend. For example, if you want direct database access, Managed WordPress hosts will either make it difficult, or not let you have access at all. Similarly, when you need to SSH or SFTP a visual interface may be provided with limitations. The intent is to protect you from site downtime through restriction. The ideal Managed WordPress offering will allow access at levels that suit those who are or are not developers. At Liquid Web, our approach was to make the user interface comfortable for non-developers, and at the same time give developers the deeper access they need. Database management is available using phpMyAdmin. WP-CLI and Git integration are standard, allowing developers to navigate freely through site files without having to utilize a visual interface.
Do I need Managed WordPress Hosting?
Managing a website requires technical expertise. It’s one of the main reasons why so many websites fall by the wayside.
Managed WordPress hosting, in general, is a do-it-for-you service, much like having a virtual assistant to configure, set up, harden, enhance, and maintain your WordPress site.
Managed WordPress hosting offers a number of advantages, but first and foremost it gives you peace of mind. We will take care of the never-ending chore of website maintenance. We will ensure your website performs optimally by, in part:
• Hardening and configuring your server environment
• Structure WordPress for safety and speed
• Monitor that your plugins and theme are updated
You shouldn’t have to worry about maintaining updates, protecting your site against vulnerabilities, or paying someone else to do it in a pinch; because the right Managed WordPress host will handle those needs.
It’s important to consider these values. You don’t have to spend time learning to manage WordPress updates, configuring backups, or putting site uptime monitoring in place to make sure all is well.
Want to Dive Deeper? Keep Reading
The Complete Solution For Your WordPress Website
We're all about performance, security & scalability.
We preinstall plugins & configure all features and never just “launch and forget” our customer’s websites.
All of our plans include premium plugins and features to minimize cost and increase productivity.
• Cloudflarer CDN – an extra layer of security and management
• Monitor and maintain your WordPress website
• Staging Sites
• Astra Pro- your choice from dozens of professional lightweight themes
And More!
And some Geek Stuff
• PHP8*= faster infrastructure means every site will work faster by default
• PHP Workers- we lead the industry in the number of workers per plan.
The more workers, the more your site can get done speeding up every interaction
• Image Optimization – save storage space with every single image
• Autoptimize – aggregate, minify, and cache styles & scripts
• Async Javascript- make your Javascript code load after the page loads
Auto Scaling
When traffic to your WordPress site spikes (increases dramatically), either due to a sale or some other cause that makes your site go viral, Never worry.
Our Auto Scaling feature will automatically add resources to your site to keep it humming along.
Go from worrying about a viral moment to enjoying it
Worry Free WordPress Hosting
Now that you’ve arrived, through careful consideration, that your time is better spent running your business than managing a web server because:
• You want someone else managing the right environment for your site
• Speed is critical to your site performance
• WordPress core and plugin updates require more time than
you have to spend
• Your time and effort are worth more than the dollar cost,
Managed WordPress hosting is a need.
Unlimited Tech Support
We’re intent on providing the best support in the industry to all our users. You will find that after a few “settling in” questions, almost all sites run with little intervention from us.
We are the silent partners of your online business.
Your success is our success.
You work hard and we work hard to make going online a natural extension of your business.
We offer the technical expertise and customer support necessary to help you achieve success on the Web.
We are dedicated to helping individuals and businesses create an effective online presence quickly and easily by providing a choice of scalable web hosting and e-commerce solutions.
Having earned the trust and confidence of our customers by becoming a responsive and responsible resource for their technology requirements. This is also the critical area in which we distinguish ourselves from other Web Hosting Providers.
At the end of the day
The time you spend on this decision is a byproduct of the kind of site you’re running. A mission critical site may require hours, days, or weeks to evaluate the available options. A hobbyist may make this decision in seconds or minutes.
We don’t mind if you take your time, in fact we encourage taking the time you need. We recognize that whether you choose High Desert Digital or another New Mexico Web Host, if you’re running a mission-critical site, if that site is the core of your business, then you should take time to do your due diligence.
When it comes to that due diligence, we recommend looking at more than just the price in relation to RAM and storage, or as it relates to the total number of page views that your website supports. We think there’s a lot to consider. Do you need Managed WordPress hosting? What kind of customer are you? What does the company offer in terms of innovation, infrastructure, support, and partnership? Are they reputable and reliable?
You’re picking a partner, and you want to choose the right one, and we believe this guide can help you with that decision.
Web Site Development
We work closely with you to deliver a dynamic Internet solution that is adapted to your business goals.
- Web Site Design Hosting and Management
- Graphic Design, Logos, animation, etc.
- Streaming Audio and Video
- Online Shopping Cart Systems with Secure Transactions
- Restructuring and updating existing Web Sites