The Hidden Costs of Poor WordPress Hosting

When it comes to the running and management of your company’s website, quality and reliability are absolutely key.

Whatever the size of your business or the nature of its operations, you cannot afford to drop the ball when it comes to web hosting. There are all kinds of risks that come with engaging a service provider that underperforms or offers hosting solutions that are less than comprehensive.

In this article, the team at Sixon – industry leaders in the field of WordPress hosting – explores all aspects of the hidden costs of poor WordPress hosting.

1. Increased renewal pricing

It can be tempting to pick out the web host with the cheapest available services. However, not only does this often result in a case of “you get what you pay for”, but many subscribers to these “budget” services fail to realise that the price of renewing is likely to climb year on year, or even on a six monthly or quarterly basis.

In the end, not only will you be left with the same patchy service, but you may well be paying multiple times the initial fee.

2. No managed hosting service

When you pay for WordPress hosting, one of the main things you should expect in return is careful ongoing management.

Your service provider should be monitoring your site on a regular – if not constant – basis, with load speeds carefully tested, bugs ironed out and security maintained.

If you’re paying for hosting and do not receive support of this kind, it’s hard to justify paying at all.

3. Downtime

As a result of poor or insufficient management, you are likely to see performance issues and periods of unexpected downtime due to storage restrictions, bugs, or even more serious issues like DDoS attacks.

Every time your site goes down, you lose opportunities to convert visitors and to make money. Even if you don’t run a site with eCommerce features, where users can buy directly from you online, downtime – and even slight reductions in loading speed caused by bandwidth limitations – can have a significant impact on brand credibility.

4. Hidden fees for additional services

If a hosting service appears surprisingly cheap, you should be more than a little suspicious. It is likely that the initial price is only for the most basic resource they offer.

All other elements, most of which would come as standard within a more reputable provider’s package, will be charged as additional features. As a result, you won’t be saving anything at all. In fact, you’ll likely end up paying far more than you would by using a company whose upfront fees appear higher at first glance.

These extra hidden charges can be extremely off-putting and can persuade business owners to risk doing without certain hosting tools in order to keep their costs down. This makes it far more likely that their site will experience operational and security issues.

5. Lack of customer support

The costs of poor WordPress hosting make themselves very apparent when your site is experiencing a time-sensitive issue but your service provider remains unresponsive to your attempts at contact. If you are not highly selective about your WordPress hosting service provider, you may well find it difficult to get through to an advisor when you need one most.

Sixon offers 24/7 client support and ongoing monitoring so that we can make sure everything goes smoothly at all times.

6. Effect on Search Engine Optimisation

Many people are unaware that good hosting can also boost their SEO performance.

The algorithms of search engines are not only attuned to the presence of keywords, the quality and relevance of the information on each page and the regularity with which a site’s content is updated, but factors such as security features, accessibility and load speed are also taken into account.

If your hosting service provider does not carefully maintain and manage all of these elements, your site is likely to drop down the ranks in the search results and see competitors come out on top. This again will reduce brand credibility and cause a drop off in conversions.

Learn more about quality WordPress hosting services

When seeking out the ideal hosting service provider, it’s important to take your time and consider exactly what your company needs.

Don’t let yourself be manipulated by “special offers” and low introductory costs: any savings you make are likely to be swallowed up in the long run by sizable hikes in your billing.

Prioritise stability, security and scalability when selecting your web hosting specialist. To learn more about the benefits of using Sixon for your managed WordPress hosting – including improved data security, increased load speeds, 24 hour monitoring and support and much more besides, feel free to contact us today.

We’ll be happy to provide you with all the information you need and to help you explore the options we have available to ensure that your company’s digital performance is as efficient, effective and future-proof as possible.