Get a StudioPress theme & solid hosting from a brand you trust
This StudioPress Web Hosting Review is mostly about WP Engine, they own StudioPress and a big attraction of their more affordable hosting packages is that they include 10 StudioPress themes.
Not surprisingly, many StudioPress fans would like to have WP Engine hosting.
WP Engine provide premium hosting that commands a premium price…
… are products for people who want quality and can afford to pay for it.
The people seeking a StudioPress site are not looking for low price, they’re looking for high quality.
If you’re scraping the pennies together trying to stay afloat WP Engine is not for you.
However, if your business is taking off, if you’re making real money and your website is an asset you need to drive your business forward, WP Engine is a solid rock to build your future on.
And let’s face it, having 10 StudioPress designed themes included with the price of your hosting sweetens the pill.
Building a DIY website?
Genesis User website shows you how to build your own small business website using a StudioPress theme and Genesis Blocks plugin.
Step by Step tutorials with videos.
Which theme will suit your brand?
Having so many top-notch themes to choose from enables you to test and experiment while you’re initially building your website. Because it’s not always easy to decide before you start, which theme suits your brand the best.
WP Engine is built for WordPress and from the finest quality ingredients
The star is this StudioPress Web Hosting Review is WP Engine, they partner with the best services to build your hosting. WP Engine use Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services and CloudFlare to power your site, making it fast, secure, and reliable.
WP Engine is “The WordPress Digital Experience Platform”
Most web hosting can host WordPress websites. But WP Engine describe themselves as “The WordPress Digital Experience Platform”, WP Engine’s #1 job is to host WordPress websites. If WP Engine host your WordPress website you know you’re in safe hands.
You can relax and focus on your real job
Once you know your hosting is in safe hands, you can concentrate on building, excellent client attracting content, for your website. First you’ll want to find search terms that bring customers from Google. Then build funnels that guide those customers through your articles and blog posts to your products and services pages, then on to your buy now button.
You’ll find useful links to resources that come in handy as you build your site on my resources page.
Web hosting that can scale with your business
As your business grows, you want the reassurance that no matter how busy your site gets, your host can cope. And when it’s time to upgrade to a more powerful server, you can.
Staging site included
If you’re worried that you might damage your live site while making updates, you can use a staging site to test your changes before changing your live site. All hosting plans at WP Engine include free staging sites.
Hassle-Free Migration
If you already have a live site and want to upgrade to better hosting, WP Engine has a migration tool that helps you transfer your site with a minimum of fuss.
WP Engine partnered with BlogVault to create an automated WordPress migration plugin that provides a quick way to migrate your WordPress site. You don’t need to worry about importing your website’s database or any of the other complicated stuff you’d normally have to do when migrating your website from one web host to another. The WP Engine hassle-free migration tool will save you a lot of time and stress.
So, should you invest in WP Engine hosting?
- If you’re successful
- your website is important to your business
- you appreciate quality and you’re willing to pay for it…
… then you should get WP Engine hosting, with the Genesis Framework, and 10 StudioPress themes included.
However, if you’re just starting out, with a new website, and you’re having to count the pennies. Get cheap hosting for the first year from a web host such as SiteGround. But do the math first, buying a StudioPress theme will add $130 on top of what you pay for your cheap hosting. Is the amount you save going to be worth it?
Choosing the right WordPress host can make or break your website and your business. But if you’re on a tight budget you have to compromise. Luckily SiteGround hosting is good and cheap.
If you’re in the market for premium hosting why not try WP Engine. WP Engine are the people behind the Genesis Framework and StudioPress.
There are many WordPress web hosting providers
This StudioPress Web Hosting Review is mainly about WP Engine, because they own StudioPress and most StudioPress users would like to use WP Engine if they could. But if you don’t want to use WP Engine for your first small business website I recommend SiteGround. I’ve used SiteGround for several years and been happy with the service. I’ve hosted several WordPress websites using SiteGround and they load quickly, I’ve had no problems.
If you’re too big for shared WordPress hosting
If you’ve got an established website with 20,000 + visitors a month consider a specialist WordPress hosting provider like WP Engine.
Dedicated server? Get some professional advice!
If your WordPress website is getting 100,000 visitors a month you need some specialist help and advice. But if you’re doing so well you probably already know that 🙂
WordPress web hosting is a complicated subject and using one of the hosts linked to above is a safe bet. But if you want a guide that will help you to do your own research, read on…
Let’s have a more detailed look at WordPress web hosting
If you have a small business and this is your first website, shared hosting is almost always the best option but it’s not the only option.
These are the most common types of WordPress web hosting.
- Shared hosting.
- A Specialist WordPress hosting service. Such as WP Engine.
- VPS (virtual private server).
- Dedicated server.
Shared hosting means you share a web server with many other websites.
Because you share the web server, you pay less.
But if someone uses more than their fair share of bandwidth etc, your site could run slowly. Good web hosting companies do all they can to avoid this.
Bandwidth is not unlimited
Many web hosts offer unlimited bandwidth, but say “we have a fair usage policy”. So if you use more than your fair share, you’ll be asked to upgrade to a more expensive plan. This is good for all those people who play by the rules.
If shared hosting isn’t enough…
For me, the next step up would be a specialist WordPress hosting company. These have web servers that are specially configured to provide the best performance and security for WordPress websites.
Most web hosts have to provide servers that can run countless different applications like Moodle and Drupal. A WordPress specialist host can concentrate on optimizing their servers to do one thing well. Running WordPress quickly and securely.
If you’ve outgrown shared hosting and don’t want to use a WordPress specialist host, you could choose a VPS or Dedicated Server.
Virtual private servers (VPS) and Dedicated servers are powerful. But a small business website is unlikely to need this extra power.
So, like I said, if you have a small business and this is your first website, shared hosting is almost always a good option.
Can all web hosting packages run WordPress?
No, but most can.
When you sign up for your web hosting check to make sure the company specifically says that you can run a WordPress website with the package you choose. They usually make this pretty obvious.
Which are the good WordPress hosts?
There are thousands of web hosting companies. Most of them resell web hosting provided by the web hosting giants. These resellers are in effect, salesmen for the bigger firms. There are also countless small businesses that run their own servers and sell web hosting.
The problem with limitless options is that you can be overwhelmed with choice.
SiteGround is a good cheaper alternative to WP Engine. If you have a starter site, SiteGround might well be all you need.
Specialist WordPress web hosting providers
Please note, specialist WordPress web hosts usually only allow one website per account. If you want to run several websites, check to see how much it costs. (On shared hosting accounts, you can often run as many websites as you like.)
If your website becomes very popular, getting 1500+ page views a day, you’ll probably want a more powerful plan than basic shared hosting. If your WordPress site has out grown shared hosting, WP Engine is a solid solution.
Web hosting companies like WP Engine are specialist WordPress hosting companies. They cost more but offer a service tailor made for WordPress websites. And they can scale to cope with any amount of traffic as your site and your business grow.
Beware! Read the small print.
Many hosting companies make special offers. If you sign up for one of these, make sure you know what you’re getting.
Typically the reduction applies to the first invoice only. So if you sign up for a monthly contract, you get a reduction for the first month. But if you sign up for a year’s worth of hosting, you get a reduction for the first year.
Read the small print carefully and look at the price before you click the buy button.
You can get some great bargains, if you’re careful.
What about your domain name?
Most web hosts sell domain names too.
If you buy a domain name from the same company as you buy web hosting, your domain name and hosting should work together without any extra configuration.
Changing your domain name server info.
If you buy your domain name from one company and your web hosting from another, you’ll have to change the name servers for your domain name. This only takes a few minutes and most hosting companies provide detailed instructions explaining how to do it.
However, after changing your name servers it takes time for all the domain name servers to realize your domain has moved to a new server. This is called DNS Propagation.
What is CDN and Cloud Hosting?
CDN’s and cloud hosting is a bit out of topic for this StudioPress Web Hosting Review, but you might find this information useful, so I’ll include it 🙂 With traditional hosting you only have one server in one location. In theory this means that, the further away from the web server the site visitor is, the longer it will take for the page to load. In my experience, this difference is tiny compared to how fast the server is. If I and my customers are both in the UK, I’d prefer a fast US server to a slow UK server.
With a Content Delivery Network your site is located on multiple servers. The server closest to your customer is used and so the page loads faster.
With Cloud Hosting you can cope with sudden spikes in traffic because you have multiple servers that are switched on and off as needed.
There are some free content delivery networks (CDN) that you might be able to add on to your hosting account. Different web hosts allow different things.
I don’t know of any free cloud hosting services that are worth having.
What is cPanel?
Many of the things you need to do when you set up a website are complicated. So hosting companies build easy to use control panels that make it much easier to set up WordPress websites, blogs and email accounts etc.
One of the most popular web hosting control panels is called cPanel. Not all hosting companies use cPanel, many have their own control panels. The good point about using cPanel is that if you move your site from one hosting company to another, and they both use cPanel, you don’t have to learn many new skills.
Installing WordPress the easy way
The screen shot shows one version of cPanel. By clicking the button that says Quick install, you’re guided through the process of installing applications such as WordPress.
Yikes! That was a StudioPress Web Hosting Review, let’s have a quick recap
You can get good cheap shared web hosting for a starter site from companies such as SiteGround.
If you want better quality hosting, consider a specialist WordPress host such as WP Engine.
If you think you need a dedicated server, get some advice from an expert before you part with your money.