Choosing the right managed WordPress hosting provider is a critical decision that has a significant impact on your website’s performance, security, and user experience. As your business grows and evolves, so do your hosting needs. This article aims to help businesses understand when it’s time to seek out a better hosting provider.

Signs It’s Time for an Upgrade

Performance Issues

One of the most telling signs that it’s time to upgrade your hosting provider is persistent performance issues. Symptoms like slow loading times and frequent downtime can severely affect your user experience and business reputation. Imagine a potential customer trying to access your site only to be met with endless loading or, worse, a “Site Unavailable” message. This doesn’t just frustrate users, it’s a sure way to drive them away to your competitors.

The root cause of these issues often lies in the type of hosting plan you’re on. Shared hosting, for instance, means your website is sharing resources with numerous other sites. While cheap and convenient to start out, these plans can lead to resource contention and significant slowdowns, especially during peak traffic times. Transitioning to dedicated hosting, or a more robust managed WordPress hosting plan, can provide the necessary resources and stability, ensuring your site remains fast and reliable.

Limited Scalability

Your hosting needs can quickly outgrow the capabilities of your current provider, especially if your business is experiencing rapid growth. Limited scalability ultimately becomes a bottleneck, hindering your ability to handle increased traffic and expanded operations. For instance, a sudden spike in traffic due to a successful marketing campaign or a viral post can overwhelm a server that isn’t equipped to scale on demand.

Scalable hosting solutions allow you to adjust resources dynamically, ensuring that your site can handle traffic surges without compromising performance. If your current provider can’t offer this flexibility, it’s a clear sign that it’s time to consider an upgrade.

Lack of Specialized Support

Managed WordPress hosting should come with a team of experts who understand the intricacies of WordPress. Unfortunately, not all hosting providers offer specialized support. If you find yourself frequently frustrated with generic or unresponsive support services, it’s a strong indicator that your hosting provider may not be meeting your needs.

Knowledgeable support teams can quickly resolve WordPress-specific issues, provide valuable insights, and help optimize your site for better performance. The lack of such support can lead to prolonged downtimes and unresolved issues, negatively impacting your business.

Reexamining Your Current Hosting Provider

Before making any decisions, it’s essential to evaluate your current managed WordPress hosting provider thoroughly. Here are some guidelines to help you assess key factors:

• Speed: Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to measure your site’s loading times. Slow speeds can indicate that your hosting provider isn’t delivering optimal performance.
• Uptime: Check your site’s uptime using monitoring tools like UptimeRobot or Pingdom. Frequent downtimes can signal that your hosting provider isn’t reliable.
• Support Quality: Evaluate the responsiveness and expertise of your hosting provider’s support team. Are they resolving issues quickly and effectively?

Tools like Core Web Vitals metrics and comprehensive website audits can provide deeper insights into your site’s performance and help you make an informed decision.

Making the Decision to Upgrade

When considering a new managed WordPress hosting provider, revisit the key features that are crucial for your business:

• Scalability: Ensure the provider can scale resources dynamically to handle traffic spikes.
• Security: Look for advanced security features such as SSL certificates, malware scanning, and automatic backups.
• WordPress Expertise: Choose a provider with a team of WordPress experts who can offer specialized support and optimization.

Migrating to a new hosting environment can seem daunting, but many top-tier hosting providers like Pagely offer seamless migration services to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Recognizing the signs that it’s time to upgrade your managed WordPress hosting provider can save you from performance issues, scalability limitations, and inadequate support. By carefully evaluating your current provider and considering essential features when selecting a new one, you can ensure your website continues to deliver an exceptional user experience and supports your business growth effectively.

About Pagely

Pagely has become the WordPress Hosting market leader in innovation, speed, scalability, and security, with thousands of clients trusting our impressive and forward-thinking infrastructure. Our clients range from the largest tech companies, to universities, creative agencies, city and state governments, magazines, ski resorts, and other large and midsize businesses. Pagely is also a WebDevStudios Gold Partner, working together for over 8 years.

The post Decoding the Signals: When to Upgrade Your Managed WordPress Hosting Provider appeared first on WebDevStudios.

Today, we’re diving into the fascinating world of WordPress multisite networks and how managed hosting can be the perfect companion to support this powerful platform. Whether you’re an industry professional or a curious reader, we’ve got you covered with insights, tips, and tricks to take your WordPress multisite network to the next level.

First off… What even is a WordPress Multisite Network?

Simply put, a WordPress multisite network is a feature that allows you to manage multiple WordPress websites from a single installation. Think of it like having your own virtual empire of websites, all conveniently managed from a centralized dashboard. This feature is particularly useful for organizations, agencies, or anyone managing multiple websites with shared resources and users.

Key Characteristics and Benefits

Simplified Administration

With a multisite network, you can effortlessly manage multiple websites from a single dashboard. From updating plugins and themes to managing user roles and permissions, having a centralized control panel allows you to streamline administrative tasks and save valuable time.

Shared Resources and Centralized User Management

One of the standout benefits of multisite networks is the ability to share resources among all the sites. This means you can have a common theme or plugin repository, minimizing redundancy and making updates much more efficient. It also allows for centralized user management, enabling seamless user access within the network. You can assign users to specific websites or give them access to the entire network, ensuring consistent user experiences and streamlined administration.

Scalability and Flexibility

As your online empire expands, a multisite network provides the scalability and flexibility you need. You can easily add new websites to the network, offering a consistent user experience while maintaining a consistent branding strategy across all websites within the network. You can easily apply global settings, such as logos, colors, and fonts, to ensure a cohesive brand identity. Plus, updates and maintenance become a breeze, as changes are applied across the entire network with just a few clicks.

Best Tips and Tricks for WordPress Multisite Networks

Carefully Plan Your Network Structure

Before diving headfirst into your multisite adventure, take time to plan your network structure. Consider factors such as website categories, user roles, and resource allocation. A well-thought-out structure will make managing and scaling your network much smoother.

Choose the Right Plugins

Selecting the right plugins is crucial for the success of your multisite network. Look for plugins specifically designed to enhance multisite functionality, such as those that enable network-wide analytics, user management, or website cloning, and always ensure the plugins you choose are compatible with the latest version of WordPress.

Regularly Update and Maintain Your Network

Just like any other WordPress installation, regular updates and maintenance are key to ensuring top-notch performance for your multisite network. Stay on top of plugin and theme updates, perform regular backups, and monitor for any security vulnerabilities. This will help you avoid any technical hiccups and keep your network running smoothly.

Choose the Right Managed Host for Your Multisite Network

When it comes to hosting your multisite network, not all hosts are created equal. Here are a few key things to look out for when selecting your host:

Scalability and Performance

Ensure your hosting provider offers the scalability and performance needed to handle multiple websites within a single network. Look for hosts that provide ample resources, such as storage and bandwidth, to accommodate the creation and growth of your network.
Finding a host with a strong uptime guarantee ensures that your websites are accessible to visitors at all times.

Backup and Security

Running a WordPress multisite network in a secure environment is essential, and you should choose a host that prioritizes the security and integrity of your network. Seek hosts that offer regular backups, robust security measures, and proactive monitoring to protect your network from potential threats.

Expert Support and WordPress Knowledge

Having a reliable support team that understands the intricacies of WordPress Multisite Networks is invaluable. Look for managed hosts that provide 24/7 support, with knowledgeable WordPress experts who can assist you with any network-related queries or technical issues.

Final Thoughts

You’re now equipped with some extra knowledge about multisite networks and the immense flexibility they offer. Make sure to plan your network structure, choose the right plugins, and select a managed host that can support your multisite network’s unique needs. Remember, choosing a managed WordPress hosting provider can be a game-changer for your network’s success. Now off to your WordPress multisite adventure!

About Pagely

Pagely helps big brands scale WordPress. As the world’s number-one managed WordPress hosting platform, Pagely was the first managed platform for hosting WordPress sites. With over a decade of experience scaling WordPress for the world’s biggest brands, Pagely’s tierless support (every support agent is a bonafide engineer), managed DevOps, and flexible tech stacks are unparalleled.

The post How Managed Hosting Can Support a WordPress Multisite Network appeared first on WebDevStudios.

mySongbird recently came to WebDevStudios (WDS) for a brand new website to kick off the launch of their startup company. Once our business development team had a clear understanding of the site’s requirements, that’s when WDS turned to Pagely for hosting.

“With this particular project, we knew that the live streaming aspect would necessitate a host that could meet and support the requirements for heavy traffic without disrupting quality of service. That’s when we approached Pagely,” explains WDS CEO and Co-Founder, Brad Williams.

Phase 1: Bracket Style Competition

Overall, the website project was planned in two phases. First, there was a bracket-style voting competition that mySongbird utilized as a part of their marketing strategy. This initiative helped to build the new brand’s presence, garner an audience by tapping into the fanbase of the musical acts participating in the competition, as well as assist those musicians with earning an income, which was well-appreciated during a pandemic when live music venues were being shut down. This revenue came in when fans backed their bands by paying $1 per vote for their favorite performers. WDS relied on WooCommerce as the eCommerce solution.

“While we built the backend functionality of the bracket system ourselves, we leveraged the power of WooCommerce to make it easy for fans to vote and mySongbird to manage the competition,” reports Christine Dixon, the WDS project manager in charge of overseeing the mySongbird launch.

“The brackets worked great,” says mySongbird EP Creative Director, Robert Angone. “I like the way the head-to-head modeling was displayed.”

Phase 2: Live Streaming

The next phase of the project was especially exciting—a live streaming concert featuring Grammy-nominated multi-platinum artist, Billy Gilman, an event that took place on October 9, 2020. Aside from the live streaming performance itself, WebDevStudios also had to build the functionality for signing up for a mySongbird subscription service and video on demand, which serves as an opportunity for music fans to watch live stream entertainment after initially being aired live.

WordPress acts as the framework for mySongbird’s website, and while WooCommerce is used to provide all eCommerce aspects of the site, Bulldog Digital Media provides the streaming service itself. All WDS had to do was embed a code, and voila! Audience members could easily log into mySongbird and watch Billy Gilman perform his country music hits.

“The show looked fantastic!” exclaims Robert. “For the future, there are some tweaks we want to make, but overall the way Billy performed and the presentation of the solution was absolutely perfect for the first time.”

mySongbird VP and & GM, Meghan Thornton, agrees, adding that she appreciated the client service WDS offered on the day of the live streaming show. “We had a Slack channel and had key people on that, so there wasn’t a ton of back and forth. It was nice to have that in place to make communication between teams easier. For example, we had a problem with window width and Jeffrey [de Wit, Lead Engineer] fixed it on the spot.”

“One of our biggest challenges with mySongbird was ensuring we provided our entertainment artists and their fans a solid, dependable platform that not only offered secured payment gateways but that could also handle an onslaught of website traffic without disruption,” says Angie Commorato, A&G Marketing Founder, who brought mySongbird to WebDevStudios initially. “I trusted Brad and the team at WebDevStudios to make the right recommendations for the solution, which ended up being Pagely for hosting. The team at Pagely knocked it out of the ballpark. Not only did they give us the reliability and performance we needed for the project, but their service was impressive, too, by being accessible, answering all of our questions, and assuring us that everything would go smoothly. It did!”

Now, mySongbird is set up for success. With all the right solutions set in place and the experience of their first live streaming event behind them, there’s no limit to the musical milestones mySongbird is destined to achieve. There is no expectation of any hitches in their future bracket competitions or live stream events.

The post Live Streaming Success: A Client Success Story appeared first on WebDevStudios.