I currently manage over 70 websites for clients ranging from small single person businesses to large corporations with products sold in your local Target. WP Engine is the partner I trust to keep the sites running smoothly on the server side.
I am not a server administrator. There are way too many things to stay on top of in the website realm to be an expert at every level. Websites require design, marketing, copywriting, SEO, programming, and well secured/updated/configured web servers in order to be successful. If you hire a freelancer who says they can do everything, including hosting your site on a server they’ve set up on Amazon Web Services or DigitalOcean, you should probably look for someone else. Nobody is an expert in all the things you need to know to do these things well.
Since I don’t spend my free time setting up and securing web servers, I hand off that part of the project to WP Engine. By hosting at WP Engine, my clients don’t get cryptic emails with strange CPU overages, or instructions on how to back up the server and update Plesk or PHP. WP Engine takes care of everything server side so I don’t have to worry about it.
WP Engine includes the following in their services. This list might seem like mumbo jumbo, but trust me, these are the things you should look for in a web host.
- Automatic Daily Backups – free
- 1-Click On Demand Backups with 1-Click Restore – free
- Security Monitoring – free
- Malware Removal – free
- WordPress Core Updates – free
- PHP Updates – free
- Optional Daily Plugin Updates – $100/yr or $10/mo add on.
- CDN (Content Delivery Network) – free
- Bandwidth Included (Visitor limits per plan type and charged at $2/1000 Visitors for overages.)
- SSL Certificates – free (turn on with one click and a couple quick settings)
Additional information about WP Engine:
- WP Engine Overview
- Google Cloud (C2) Virtual Optimized Machines – Optimized for WordPress and 40% Faster than anything on the market, 99.99% SLA.
- Smart Plugin Manager – Automatically update plugins using visual regression testing.
- WP Engine Security Overview – How WP Engine keeps their clients safe.
- Award Winning 24/7 365 Support with Priority Tagging – 300+ trained WordPress-focused experts on staff.
WP Engine is a little more expensive than other web hosts, but in hosting you get what you pay for.
On top of the benefits listed above, if you need me to look into something wonky at your web host, I charge my hourly rate, which can dwarf your monthly hosting fee. If you host at WP Engine, the chances of something hosting-wise going wonky is greatly reduced. It can take me hours to figure out what is going on when a site is hosted at a crappy web host because their support staff is usually pretty bad too. With WP Engine, I usually only have to chat with support for a few minutes to get it figured out. Their support is top notch and I can’t say enough good things about them.