I started my blogging journey in 2013 with a free Blogger (BlogSpot) blog. In less than 6 months, I realized that I need to move to WordPress now.
Since then, I’ve been wandering from one host to another in the search for that one perfect host which I can settle for life. In my personal opinion, I look for the following factors while choosing a host:
1. Reliable Support: A helpful and reliable support is what I look for. In my journey so far, I’ve been a customer of multiple hosts including DreamHost, Godaddy, Inmotion, A2 Hosting, Linode, Digital Ocean, KnownHost, Bluehost, and finally SiteGround. So far, SiteGround has been most reliable and helpful. Their support team is always available no matter what day or time it is. They understand that every second your site goes down, it can lose a lot of leads and traffic.
2. Performance Optimization: In a shared hosting environment your server is shared by multiple users and sites at once. That requires proper optimization and tuning to balance the server resources while taking care of security loopholes too. SiteGround does such a great job with resource allocation on their web hosting servers. Their shares servers are enough to handle sites with tons of traffic without compromise with speed.
3. Security: The number of new websites coming out every day is directly proportional to the number of sites getting hacked each day. The internet has plenty of sites now, almost every 3rd person in the world owns a website. That makes it easy for hackers to hack the sites with least security to remove some competition. That’s when your host’s security measures come to rescue. SiteGround has a bulletproof security mechanism. They have an inbuilt security engine that’s powered by Sucuri. Plus they keep their servers updated with the freshest software patches. They send you an email immediately if any malware or hacking attempt is detected.
4. Uptime Guarantee: This something that matters the most for your site’s value in the eyes of Google. You need a host that can offer you the uptime that they promised. Usually, like every other host, SiteGround offers 99.99% uptime guarantee. But I never faced any downtime from that remaining 0.01% part in the name of “maintenance”. Even according to my account stats, their servers have been up for 100% times in the last one year.
5. Friendly UI: Not everyone is an expert a first. You are just starting your journey than your host must have a friendly UI on both cPanel and administrative panel. It’s not that big deal but when you are paying for something, you always look for the best. SiteGround has the most friendly and easy to understand UI.
6. Pricing: This is the most important factor. Afterall you won’t like to pay for something that’s way too expensive yet doesn’t work perfectly. It’s not about price always. It’s about “value for money”. SiteGround offers the plans that you won’t find anywhere else. Some of them include Free SSL, Free CDN, Unlimited Migrations, SuperCacher, High PHP Memory etc.
I’ve written a detailed SiteGround Review with all the Cons and Pros. I’ve also mentioned my personal experience with them in my journey so far along with proper pictures and screenshots. You should definitely check it out. Cheers!