Hosting Insights: Brad Williams on Value, Support and WordPress

Hosting is the unseen foundation of a website. We don’t always think about it, but it’s incredibly important. Since launching iThemes Hosting, our new WordPress hosting solution, we wanted to talk to some WordPress experts about the ins and outs of hosting. Brad Williams is the co-founder and CEO of the WordPress development company WebDevStudios. He co-writes the Professional WordPress series of books, and you can follow Brad on Twitter.

“If you truly value your business, invest in solid professional WordPress hosting. It will pay for itself in no time.” — Brad Williams

We talked with Brad about the value of hosting, the importance of support, and customizing a hosting setup for WordPress.

Do you have a hosting horror story?

“All of my hosting horror stories usually start with cheap shared hosting. As with anything in life, you get what you pay for, and cheap shared hosting is no different.”

What’s the most important factor in choosing a hosting company?

“Support. When choosing a hosting company I always like to understand how their support is structured. Do they offer 24/7 phone and/or live chat support? Is it email, ticket based, or some other system? How responsive are they? How knowledgeable are they? There is nothing worse than a hosting company with terrible support. We all hope there aren’t major issues with a server or hosting infrastructure, but the reality is it will happen, so how prepared are they for that situation?”

How does the hosting conversation change when you’re talking specifically about WordPress?

“At WebDevStudios, we always recommend a WordPress managed hosting company. It’s important to us that the hosting company we choose and recommend to clients is not only knowledgeable on proper server infrastructure, but also has a laser focus on supporting WordPress. Having a server stack completely customized for hosting WordPress websites is a huge benefit to anyone running WordPress.”

How do you convince people of the importance of investing in hosting?

“Imagine having a beautiful red sports car, but when you open the hood you find a hamster wheel powering the car. Outside it looks absolutely amazing, which is your website, but under the hood it is an absolute mess, which is your hosting server. If you truly value your business, invest in solid professional WordPress hosting. It will pay for itself in no time.”