When it comes to building your web presence, WordPress is the most popular choice. At the moment of writing this article, WordPress powers more than 38% of all websites, whether aided by managed WordPress hosting or not.
There are several reasons why WordPress is a popular choice for websites:
- It’s free and open source, which means you can download it, modify it, use it and even redistribute it for no extra charge (you will need to pay for web hosting however).
- It has tons of free and paid themes and plugins that make it easy to create any type of website you can think of.
- It has a large and vibrant community as well as numerous blogs, forums and online resources that allow you to quickly find answers for anything related to building a website with WordPress.
Related: Hosting for your WordPress website — what you need to know
For those who aren't technical, there is a learning curve
However, despite its many benefits, WordPress can be somewhat challenging for complete beginners.
While WordPress is easy to use, you’ll still have to go through somewhat of a learning curve in order to confidently use this content management system (CMS).
Another challenge associated with WordPress is that it requires regular updates and maintenance if you want your website to continue operating at peak performance.
These tasks require time commitment and some technical knowledge, which makes many business owners feel a little intimidated.
Let’s face it. When you’re running a business, you have plenty of tasks to focus on instead of learning how to manage all the technical aspects of your website. Not to mention you might not have the budget to hire a web professional.
The good news is that you don’t have to give up on WordPress.
In fact, you can have a highly effective WordPress site even if you don’t have much technical expertise, the time or desire to learn the skills necessary to install and manage your WordPress website, or the budget to hire a WordPress developer.
The answer is managed WordPress hosting.
Managed WordPress hosting allows you to focus on producing content that will put you in front of your target audience and promote your business while your hosting provider takes care of the core technical aspects of managing your site.
Related: Free WordPress themes for real estate websites
Guide to managed WordPress hosting
In this post, we’ll explain what managed WordPress hosting is and show you the benefits of using it. Here’s what we'll cover:
Let’s dive in.
What is managed WordPress hosting?
Managed WordPress hosting is a special hosting plan for WordPress that offers a server optimized for WordPress to make WordPress websites run faster and remain secure.
Related: What is managed hosting and How to choose a website hosting service
Along with the optimized server, the hosting company provides a set of services that take care of the administrative tasks associated with managing a WordPress website.
These tasks include:
- WordPress installation
- Automated daily backups
- Core WordPress software updates
- Server caching
- File access restriction for better security.
In other words, managed WordPress hosting removes a lot of the unnecessary headaches from your plate when it comes to the administrative and technical aspects of running your site.
This, in turn, allows you to focus on growing your business in the myriad other ways that entrepreneurs build their ventures.
It’s worth mentioning that while managed WordPress hosting does take care of the more technical aspects of running and managing a website, you’re still responsible for keeping your themes and plugins up to date as they are not considered a part of the core updates.
Related: What is web hosting? Complete guide for beginners
What's the difference between managed WordPress and self-hosted WordPress?
At this point, you might be wondering what the difference is between managed WordPress and self-hosted WordPress. Let’s go over the differences.
Self-hosted WordPress
With a self-hosted WordPress website, you are in charge of every aspect of running your website. This means you have to download and install WordPress onto your hosting server. This can be tricky for website owners without a lot of technical experience.
Plus, if your hosting company doesn’t offer one-click WordPress installation, knowing how to create a database can seem quite daunting.
With a self-hosted WordPress site, you also have to find a theme for your site. And you’ll need to find and install basic plugins that enable you to collect visitor contact information, optimize your WordPress site for search engines, share website content easily on social media sites and more.
Knowing which plugins are the best and safest in their class as well as finding a perfect WordPress theme for your new website is a challenge in and of itself.
There are thousands of themes and plugins available online and this can quickly turn into a time-consuming task that overwhelms new website owners.
On top of that, you have to make sure your WordPress site is kept up-to-date and backed up on a regular basis.
All of these tasks are not only time-consuming but also require some technical knowledge to complete correctly.
Related: WordPress themes for health and wellness websites
Managed WordPress hosting
With managed WordPress hosting, on the other hand, the heavy lifting is handled for you.
There are:
- No manual backups to perform
- No databases to create
- No caching plugins to configure to make your site load faster
In the end, even if you’re not tech-savvy, managed WordPress hosting makes having a WordPress website a lot easier.
Let’s take a closer look at why a managed WordPress hosting solution might be the best path to starting and maintaining a WordPress site.
Why is managed WordPress hosting a solid solution for easier WordPress websites?
As mentioned earlier, WordPress is the world’s most popular site-building tool to get a highly customized, professional looking website with just about any feature and site functionality you can imagine.
Managed WordPress hosting makes the power of WordPress more accessible for more entrepreneurs.
Let’s take a look at how managed WordPress hosting is a solid solution if you want a WordPress website that’s easier to launch and maintain.
No complicated installation process
The most obvious benefit of signing up for a managed WordPress hosting plan through a trusted provider like GoDaddy is you don’t have to go through a manual installation process for WordPress.
Installing WordPress manually is not as simple as installing a new program onto your computer.
Not only do you have to upload WordPress to the correct folder on your server, you also have to go through the process of creating a database and a database user as well as making sure the user has the correct privileges.
Managed WordPress hosting plans usually come with WordPress pre-installed so there are no complicated steps to follow.
You don’t have to worry about page speed or configuring caching plugins
Your page speed matters. If your website loads slowly, chances are your customers will go to your competitor. Unfortunately, many shared hosting plans aren’t using servers that were optimized for WordPress — which means you’re in charge of making sure your website loads fast.
Speeding up WordPress can get quite technical, especially if you want to use a caching plugin.
Managed hosting plans employ server-side caching and load-balanced servers, which means you don’t have to do any technical tinkering to make your website load faster.
WordPress core software updates are handled for you
WordPress is a content management system that’s constantly evolving. As such, new updates are regularly introduced to bring about new features.
However, updates also include various bug and security fixes that ensure your website remains safe from online threats.
That’s why you need to update your WordPress installation as new updates are released. However, applying updates can often fall through the cracks, given the number of tasks you have on your plate as a small business owner.
A great managed WordPress hosting solution ensures you’re always using the latest version of WordPress with all security updates applied.
Improved security
With a 60% market share of all open-sourced content management systems, WordPress's popularity makes it a target for security threats.
In fact, 90% of the infected websites that the Sucuri team cleaned in 2018 were built on the WordPress platform, according to Sucuri’s Website Hack Trend Report 2018 .
“The most notorious threats to CMS’ stem from vulnerabilities introduced by add-on modules, plugins, themes, and extensions,” the report's authors note.
While it’s the responsibility of site owners to keep WordPress plugins, themes and other add-ons updated and patched, a strong managed WordPress hosting solution will include security features such as malware scanning.
Related: How WordPress templates can help grow your legal practice
You can rely on expert support
Customer service plays a major role in deciding which hosting provider you should choose. The problem with hosting plans that don’t offer managed WordPress hosting is that their support staff are not experts in WordPress.
Most of them have a general idea of what could be causing the problem but they will not be able to tell you exactly what caused the issue and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Companies that offer managed WordPress hosting have WordPress experts as part of their support team. This means they can offer solutions and advice that will help you prevent the problem from happening again.
Features to look for in a Managed WordPress hosting plan
By now, you probably understand that a managed WordPress hosting plan can save you a lot of trouble and headaches down the road. However, not all managed WordPress hosting plans are created equal.
As such, knowing what features to look for in a managed WordPress hosting plan is crucial before you decide on the plan.
Let’s take a look at the key features you’ll want your managed WordPress hosting provider to have.
Easy installation and migration
If you already have an existing website, you’ll want to make sure that your newly chosen host offers easy migration and installation of your website to their managed hosting plan. After all, the last thing you want is to have to start your site from scratch.
If you’re getting ready to launch your website, look for a managed hosting provider with a simple installation process. This will make it not only easy but also fast to get your site up and running without any headaches.
Uptime guarantee
Another important feature to seek out in a WordPress hosting provider is an uptime guarantee.
In a nutshell, an uptime guarantee ensures your website will be accessible online.
The industry standard for uptime guarantee is 99.9%. If the hosting company you’re considering doesn’t offer the same, think twice about signing up for their plan.
A website that goes down frequently or remains down for long periods of time results in loss of revenue and lost customers, and reflects poorly on your brand image.
Optimized for speed
Nowadays, consumers expect your website to load in three seconds or less. As such, having an optimized website that loads fast is crucial.
Make sure your chosen managed WordPress host uses server caching to ensure your website loads as quickly as possible.
This will ensure that your site continues loading fast even when you’re experiencing traffic spikes.
Reliable support
Having a support team that can answer any questions you might have regarding your website is priceless. Without reliable support, you’ll be left to your own devices and googling skills to find a solution to your problem and hope that it works without making things even worse.
A support team that’s available 24/7/365 can answer all your technical questions as well as help you solve problems and get things back the way they are supposed to be.
Regular website backups
Having a website backup gives you peace of mind that in the event something goes wrong, you can easily restore your site with a single click of the mouse. With a regular backup solution in place, you don’t have to worry about being offline while you rebuild your site or losing months’ or even years’ worth of content.
Look for a managed host that offers daily backups as well as the ability to easily restore your site from the backup.
Access to themes and plugins
Finding the right theme and a trusted set of plugins is time-consuming. On top of that, some managed WordPress hosting providers restrict the themes and plugins that you can install on their servers.
Make sure your chosen provider makes it easy for you to find a great looking theme that’s easy to customize and work with. The same applies to plugins.
With access to themes and plugins, you will be able to truly make your website a reflection of your brand and have all the necessary features needed to run a successful business.
Malware scan and removal
Lastly, make sure your chosen managed WordPress host includes regular malware scans and malware removal as part of their service. This feature will ensure your site remains safe from hackers and, more importantly, that the malware will be removed in the event your site gets hacked due to a plugin or theme vulnerability.
What makes GoDaddy Managed WordPress Hosting stand apart from the competition?
If you’re looking for a managed hosting provider for WordPress that has all of the above features, look no further than GoDaddy Managed WordPress Hosting.
GoDaddy Managed WordPress was created after hearing how small business customers were struggling to build a WordPress site.
GoDaddy’s WordPress websites solution makes it easy for entrepreneurs to quickly create a beautiful site that represents their brand.
Pro Tip: If you choose any annual WordPress Hosting plan from GoDaddy, you can also get a free domain.
Quick Start Wizard
GoDaddy Managed WordPress uses an exclusive Quick Start Wizard to collect information about your business. It helps you fill in general details and create a basic layout that makes the WordPress web design and development process easier.
You won’t be starting at a blank page the first time you see your WordPress website.
Easy migration
If you already have a WordPress site that you want to move to a GoDaddy Managed WordPress Hosting plan, a one-click auto-migration feature makes moving your site a breeze.
Fast page load times
Leading the industry with a 0.215 second page load time, load-balanced servers and a clustered server environment, GoDaddy’s WordPress hosting can scale for big traffic spikes while maintaining high performance.
Automatic core software and security updates
You’ll also always be on the newest version of WordPress, with all security updates applied.
Daily website backups
GoDaddy Managed WordPress sites are automatically backed up each night. That means you can rest assured that you can restore your site’s files and databases with one click in the event of an emergency.
Access to thousands of free themes and plugins
Just choose your industry and GoDaddy Managed WordPress will serve up pre-built themes that are easy to customize with a drag-and-drop editor. The theme selection includes the features and layouts you’d expect from a top-notch premium WordPress theme, including being responsive, so they look and work great on mobile devices.
Some of the most popular plugins — including plugins for contact forms, social media, SEO and analytics — are built into GoDaddy’s premium WordPress themes.
You also can choose from myriad third-party WordPress themes and plugins.
Search engine optimization
The SEO tool baked into GoDaddy’s WordPress hosting handles your website’s basic SEO needs to help Google and other search engines find you.
Malware scanning and removal
All GoDaddy Managed WordPress Hosting plans include automatic daily malware scans. Malware removal is included with the Ultimate plan — finding and removing malware before it does damage.
High-quality images
You get free access to thousands of high-quality, royalty-free images for virtually any industry.
Award-winning customer support
GoDaddy’s customer support team includes WordPress experts that regularly contribute to the WordPress core. They know WordPress — and support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
How does GoDaddy Managed WordPress Hosting work?
As mentioned above, GoDaddy Managed WordPress Hosting was designed with beginners in mind.
This WordPress hosting solution makes it easy for anyone to build a WordPress site from scratch.
You will go through the Quick Start Wizard the first time you log into your WordPress admin dashboard.
- Begin by entering information about your website, including the type of website you want to create (e.g. website + blog or online store), your industry, the name of your site, your tagline, contact information and social profiles.
- Choose from a selection of themes that populate based on the information you’ve entered. You can change later if you want to.
- Voila! Your new WordPress site is set up with the details you entered, plus demo pages of content that you can begin to customize.
Here’s how to set up WordPress for the first time using GoDaddy Managed WordPress hosting.
Conclusion and next steps
WordPress allows anyone to create a website and it powers more than 38% of all websites online. Despite being one of the most popular solutions for creating a website, there is no denying that WordPress can be overwhelming for complete beginners.
Luckily, there are solutions out there that make managing your WordPress website a lot easier. One such solution is managed WordPress hosting.
Managed WordPress hosting has several key benefits over self-hosted WordPress. For starters, it removes the initial overwhelm involved with WordPress installation and setup.
Secondly, it makes running your website easier as all the administrative tasks such as updates, backups and caching are taken care of by your hosting company.
In addition, managed WordPress hosting such as that offered by GoDaddy will even install the most popular and necessary plugins for you as well as make it easy to choose a beautiful theme from a reputable source.
You will also benefit by not having to worry about your site disappearing overnight, as daily backups make it easy to restore your site in the event something goes wrong.
All things considered, GoDaddy Managed WordPress allows you to focus on running your business and growing it, instead of wasting time on tasks associated with managing your WordPress website.
Happy WordPress-ing!
This article includes content originally published on the GoDaddy blog by Andy McIlwain and Stephanie Dorame.
