I bought my first website hosting account in 2008. Yes, that’s 10 years ago!

Over that time I’ve set up, managed and transferred hundreds of websites. Literally hundreds, from the time I worked part-time as a web assistant in a small company to running my own business and managing my own set of clients.

In that time I’ve used hosting companies from New Zealand and the United States. Some of these include:

Freeparking
WebDrive
Hostgator
BlueHost
OpenHost
Spark (formerly Telecom)
Discount Domains

And, over these years I’ve been asked the question:

Which hosting company do you recommend?

Now that is a difficult question to answer because things have changed regarding SEO, it depends on the size of your business, your budget and how important it is for you to speak to someone on the phone vs email/chat if there is an issue.

In this post I’ll break it all down.

Without too much hesitation I’m going to tell you who is hands down my favourite host for WordPress; and who I’ve recently moved to.

WPEngine vs Hostgator

Now for about 6 years I have been using Hostgator to run my website taniarichardson.com and obviously, it had been doing a staggering job allowing me to rank#1 for key terms in Google and running a successful blog and business as a freelancer.

However.

I Installed Jetpack

It was not until I installed the Jetpack plugin that I realised the extent of the issues with my website.

Now I put off installing ‘Jetpack’ for quite some time as I didn’t install it as I wasn’t aware of what it actually does. NOW it’s something I recommend all my clients install because just the FREE version is enough to help you track when and how often your website goes down.

This info is crucial in deciding IF you should move because it’s proof that your website servers are working when they say it’s going to work.

And the best part of it all is that they email you when this happens.

Over a period of 3-4 months I was able to see that my website was going down, a lot. So I began searching for a more robust server and company that was able to do a good job of keeping my website up. Especially since my website is my biggest source of work!

So after many years of working with various hosting suppliers, it’s now been roughly 6 months since I moved to WPengine and I can tell you now that the amount of drop-offs has reduced – I haven’t had one email yet about the website being down – AND it keeps my website secure with regular updates.

WPengine also notifies me when my Plugin aren’t safe to use and has improved the speed of my site – yus!

So as of today, I’ll be recommending WPengine to all of my clients if they’re serious about using servers that won’t let their business down.

These people specialise in WordPress websites so they know exactly what it needs to perform at it’s best.

Their pricing is in USD so it doesn’t matter if you purchase it from their wpengine.com.au or wpengine.com website. They also offer the option of using their Australian servers which I recommend as it means that your website will be delivered faster to your users in NZ and Australia – even if it’s a fraction of a second. Google will love you for it and so will your users.

To outline a few more benefits of WPengine:

FREE SSL
Getting your website secure is KEY to being on the first page of Google as well as gaining the trust of your customers
.
Fast and Friendly customer support
These people are so friendly. I was in an extremely bad mood at the time, and after having dealt with useless customer service reps in the past at other hosting companies – not only did this person sound like they gave a sh*t, but they were fast! They are also contactable 24/7 !
.
Simple upgrades
If you want to improve your site hosting, add a content delivery network or get more space – it’s REALLY easy.
.
They specialise in WordPress
These people ONLY do WordPress websites, so you know that their servers are set up to cater for WordPress issues, security and performance. They tell you which plugins to avoid on your site and upgrade your site for free. ALL plugin updates require you to create a backup which is exactly what you need to be reminded of on a regular basis.
An online business that WORKS!
Seriously if you’re going to give your hosting money to ANYONE, give it to people who are the best at what they do and actually deliver! Since transferring to WPengine I’ve never had any performance issues, no reminders from JetPack that my site is down and I can focus on improving the site rather than dealing with issues that hold my online business back.

Being a Web developer for over 10 years now, I’ve seen SO MANY hosting platforms, and I can honestly say that each platform has always had issues. Whether it’s customer support, security issues and SSL certificates. Which is why I’ve found it difficult to recommend a host to clients – there was always a level of shittiness to them.

Now I can tell you that hand on heart, if you value your online business as I do, you need to go with the best.

No regrets here!

So hopefully that helps with your decision. To get 20% off use the coupon code: wpe20ff which essentially means 4 months FREE on an annual plan – BONUS!!