Some services offer shared hosting. Now you’re thinking: ‘Sharing is good, right?’ The answer, when it comes to hosting, is sometimes.

Remember that piece of land analogy? Well, if you’re on a shared plot and one of the other tiny houses catches fire, yours could go down with it.

On a dedicated server, you’re the only tiny house on the whole property, so your neighbours can get up to whatever they want, and you’ll remain unaffected.

One of the biggest draws to a WordPress site is that they are free to build. The reason this is possible is because the code for WordPress is open-source, and that means that it was brought to you by a bunch of good-hearted developers that wanted to create a better way of doing things.

The not so great part is that WordPress core, and each of the plugins we use to build sites, were written by different people, and because of that there are sometimes conflicts between the code snippets which can make your site look broken.

Keeping your site up to date is crucial for security reasons. A good host will include updates. A fantastic host will include self-healing software, which will automatically rollback the update if it causes any conflicts.

Website security is paramount. A hacked site can lead to embarrassing incidents, complete data loss, or even lawsuits, depending on the nature of the compromised information.

A good host will regularly scan your site, stay updated on relevant threats, and take proactive measures to ensure your site’s security. A great host will detect hacks early and resolve them for you.

In case of emergencies, your host should provide regular backups that can be restored quickly with just a click, safeguarding you against unsavoury incidents.

While it seems redundant, it’s important to note that once your site is live, we want it to remain that way.

Servers need maintenance to remain secure and fast and all the goods. While this maintenance is being done, there could be brief periods of downtime that affect your website’s availability.

While it’s impossible to guarantee 100% uptime, a great host will guarantee something like 98-99%. If your host is committed to optimal uptime look for the 99% range. Anything less than that could mean it’s not a major commitment of theirs, and there are many variables like timing of maintenance that may affect your site.

Our recommended and in-house hosting is committed to 99% uptime, and are committed to performing updates etc., during low traffic periods, like overnight.

Even as someone working in tech, I can admit it can be a daunting (ahem, snobby) place have to turn to to for help.

A good host will make you feel comfortable and have reasonable response times to help you with any questions you have about your site’s security, performance and management. A great host will do that and make you feel like the valuable customer/human being you are.