How To Choose the Best Hosting for Your WordPress News Website

Choosing a hosting platform is one of the most crucial steps while building your website. I’m positive that you've researched multiple platforms out there, compared pricing and features, and then wondered if it would be the right choice. Finding the right platform for your WordPress website can be daunting given the plethora of options available.

Let’s get this clear, one hosting platform does not do it all. A platform that worked well for a fellow blogger might not work well for you. There are certain hosting platforms that favor e-commerce websites while a few others work well for bloggers and publishers. I’ll guide you through the different aspects you’ll need to consider and help you narrow down your choices.Hopefully to the one that works best for your site visitors.

Not Your Type?

Finding the right type of hosting platform will make it easier to manage your news website. Imagine having to move your website over every few months. You won’t like it and neither will your site visitors. The right choice will help you serve your readers while being frugal. It will also ensure that you have minimum hiccups with your growing traffic. 

The most basic type of hosting you can get for your website is a free hosting platform. You don’t have to pay for hosting but your site visitors will be served ads instead. I wouldn’t recommend a free hosting platform since it has severe limitations with regards to features and storage space among other things. 

Hosting platforms are broadly classified into the following types: Shared Hosting, Virtual Private Server, Dedicated Server and Cloud Hosting.

• Shared Hosting

  Like the name suggests, your news website shares server space with a few others. All resources of the hosting platform are shared among these websites. This is a great type of platform for those just starting off with a website. Along with new websites, shared hosting platforms are an excellent way of keeping hosting costs down. 
  Since the resources are shared between multiple websites, so is the cost. Your news website will be allowed a certain amount of storage and bandwidth on this shared platform. While picking a shared hosting platform do ensure that you have the option to purchase additional storage and bandwidth This will offer you flexibility as your news website grows. 
  
  There are a few downsides of a shared hosting platform. Shared resources on such platforms are limited. If one of the websites hosted on a shared hosting platform sees a massive spike in incoming traffic, others hosted on the same server might get impacted. Also, if the shared server is under cyber attack, all websites hosted on it get affected.

• Virtual Private Server

  A Virtual Private Server offers an isolated space on a server. Unlike a shared hosting platform, your website does not have to share resources with others. In a way a VPS works a lot like a dedicated server (which I’ll also talk about later) but is economical. If your website has grown beyond the scope of a shared hosting platform, a VPS is the next logical step. 
  
  A VPS allows you to fine-tune resources for your website. This gives you better control over the hosting, so for example, if you expect a spike in traffic, you can allot higher bandwidth to provide your site visitors with a seamless experience. It is also useful when you venture into different mediums. So if you have been toying with the idea of adding a native video player, or hosting a podcast on the website, a VPS provides you with the flexibility to do that. Do keep in mind that it is more expensive compared to a shared hosting platform, but it offers websites enough flexibility while being affordable compared to a dedicated server.

• Dedicated Hosting Server 

  It’s obvious, isn’t it? A dedicated hosting server only hosts your website. You have complete control over all the resources of the server. A dedicated hosting server gives you complete control over the server. So can offer a stable experience to your readers. Websites with consistent high traffic volume will benefit hugely from having a dedicated hosting server. Most hosting platforms also offer managed service as an add-on and can be a good alternative for having a dedicated team for the server. If you run multiple websites, you can have a dedicated hosting server and share resources among them giving you better control.
  
  A dedicated hosting server is more expensive than Shared and VPS hosting solutions. But it also offers better control over the server. Preshit Deorukhkar from NuclearBits uses a dedicated server from Linode to host multiple websites. He’s tried multiple platforms before finally settling for a dedicated server. Similarly, Abhishek from Blognife (an Adtech website) uses a dedicated server from Hetzner
  

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• Cloud Hosting 

  Cloud hosting uses multiple servers instead of a single server like the other hosting platforms. The main advantage for multiple servers is scalability, since there are multiple servers, any spike in traffic is handled very well. Imagine a highway that could magically add more lanes during rush hour when the traffic goes up. That is exactly what Cloud Hosting can do. If your news website sees dynamic traffic throughout the month, a cloud hosting platform can help you tackle this challenge efficiently.
  
  India’s popular technology website TechPP uses cloud hosting platform Vultr via Cloudways. The cloud hosting allows it to handle dynamic traffic without any issue. 

Oh No It’s Down

Website downtime is inevitable; it'll hit you sooner or later. When a website is affected by downtime it is unavailable to the readers. This results in a sub-par experience for your reader, while you will see a drop in traffic and revenue. There can be multiple reasons for a website to go down. Any problem with the server hosting your news website can affect you. 

There can be multiple reasons that can cause a server to go down. Server overload is a common occurrence on shared hosting platforms. When one of the websites on a shared hosting platform sees a surge in traffic, it can overload the server causing your website to function poorly or even suffer from downtime. In case of a shared hosting platform,all websites hosted on the same server will get affected.

Read More: 4 Ways to Monetize Your News Website

Security attacks are another reason for downtime. A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) can target your website and choke up the server bandwidth, causing it to crash. Similarly malware attacks on servers using outdated or poorly coded software can cause your website to go down.

Most hosting platforms promise a 99.9% uptime guarantee which translates to around 10 minutes of downtime in a week. Here is a detailed list of hosting platforms that promise the best uptime.

The Cloud Hosting platform uses multiple servers and is capable of delivering the same performance even when one of the servers goes down. Similarly, you can also use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) in addition to help keep downtime low. However, it will be expensive compared to a shared or a dedicated server. You can be economical by having a backup server with a different host in order to mitigate downtime better. While using this approach, ensure that the backup server has a low Time To Live (TTL) which will ensure that your website isn’t down for too long.

Onwards and Upwards

While you are putting in all your efforts to grow your website, ensure that your hosting platform is capable of growing with it. When choosing a hosting platform, pick one that gives you the option to buy additional storage and bandwidth. Additionally, it will be great if you can switch from one hosting plan to another seamlessly. This ensures that your website doesn’t suffer down time during the upgrade.

If you have seasonal traffic or expect random spikes in traffic, (for example, an exclusive news break) you’ll need to ensure that your hosting platform is capable of handling that spike in traffic without overloading the server and going down. The last thing you want after breaking an exclusive news is having your site go down. Smaller websites can handle this by purchasing additional bandwidth to act as a buffer on shared and virtual hosting. If your website is on a dedicated server, you can add storage or have an additional server in place to handle a bump in traffic. For larger websites with sizable traffic can opt for cloud hosting since it can dynamically adjust the number of servers to handle a traffic spike. 

Read More: 30 Must Have Website Engagement Tools in 2022

Add-on Features

Competition helps everyone, especially the customer. Hosting platforms compete in terms of features with one another and the beneficiary are website owners. Most hosting platforms such as Hostgator, Bluehost, InMotion, and DreamHost among others offer WordPress enhancement tools. A few hosting platforms also offer servers specifically for WordPress which helps manage your WordPress news website better.

Some hosting platforms also offer managed hosting services, so you will have access to their engineers to manage servers. You also get features such as dedicated IP addresses, custom email IDs, real-time threat detection and a lot more. WP Engine, for example, offers custom plans that you can tailor to your WordPress website needs.

Hosting platforms also offer site monitoring and additional layers of security as an add-on feature. If your budget permits, these are good additions to your hosting plan which helps protect your website from attacks. A good practice is to check if the hosting platform offers backup options to backup your website at fixed time intervals. 

Mayday, Mayday! 

It is great to get support, but it is crucial to get the right support at the right time. Hosting platforms do offer support and are usually available via chat or phone. Most hosting platforms also offer a ticket based complaint system which can be used to raise issues. Higher plans with the hosting platform also offer you a dedicated account team to attend to any complaints you might have with the hosting partner. 

While researching I found that a managed service is offered by most hosting platforms. These platforms have engineers that help you optimize your news website, migrate it from one server to another, and also look after the security of the website from cyber attacks. If you don’t want the hassle of managing the server yourself and you don;t have a dedicated team for it, opting for a managed hosting would be a wise choice.

Most bloggers I spoke to shifted their hosting platform due to poor support from their existing hosting provider. Finding the right one that works well for your website will help you avoid this hassle. 

Now coming to what I promised you right at the start of the post. Few of my picks for the best hosting platform. 

1. BlueHost: It offers affordable hosting options for your WordPress powered website. The starter plan has 50GB of SSD storage and unmetered bandwidth. They also bundle a domain for the first year at the same price and offer a free staging environment. They do offer mobile-responsive themes for your website and also offer automatic site optimization. You also get an SSL certificate for one year as a part of the plan. This can be a good place to start building your WordPress website. 
2. Hostgator: It does offer plans specifically for those with WordPress websites. It offers over a 100 free themes, unlimited email accounts, and different choice of storages to suit your needs. Some of the higher plans for WordPress are powered by BlueHost, you get additional features such as free speed boosting CDN for your content, free SSL certification, and even a free domain for a year.
3. WP Engine: WP Engine is one of the most popular managed WordPress hosting providers. It is great for starters since the WP Engine team handles WordPress installation during the setup process. If you are on a higher plan, there is dedicated support on offer as well which helps with troubleshooting.

By now, you would have a better understanding of all the different types of hosting platforms and the various factors to lookout for while finalizing a hosting platform. If you found this post useful, do share this with a friend in need.