Choosing the proper host for your site is a chore. There are countless expert reviews to read before making a decision, and it could take days to read only some of them. WordPress.org leadership knows that it takes time and stress to choose a host, so its experts have reviewed all the major hosting providers. As a result, WordPress.org recommends three hosts for your site: Bluehost, DreamHost, and SiteGround.
In the next paragraphs, we will dissect the third option, SiteGround. It works for any type of WordPress site, but check out all the pros and cons before opting for its services.
SiteGround offers a large array of hosting services, but we will focus mostly on shared hosting.
Short Intro
Back in 2004, a few young people from Bulgaria (a small Eastern European country) founded a company aimed at serving people who need hosting for their sites. Over time, the company has grown considerably. Currently, 500+ people work for SiteGround, and it has four offices and five data centers worldwide: in Bulgaria, the UK, Spain, Netherlands, the USA, and Singapore.
WordPress.org endorses SiteGround for its hosting, and the company provides many types of hosting. For instance, SiteGround has entered the market of cloud hosting, and its services are appreciated. Dedicated and enterprise hosting are two types of hosting that SiteGround offers.
SiteGround’s company culture is at the base of its stellar success. SiteGround managers emphasize that the company is a place for open-minded and friendly people. The Glassdoor reviews from former employees confirm the nice environment.
As a webmaster, you probably aren’t interested in SiteGround’s working environment, but it’s clear that its relaxed but hard-working team has the potential to provide stellar services.
Ideal for Sites Running on WordPress
Being recommended by WordPress.org as a reliable web host is no small feat. The companies WordPress recommends should be on top of your list for hosting services if you plan to launch a WordPress-powered site. By choosing any of these three options, you will have no doubt that your site will run smoothly.
Almost Perfect Uptime
I consistently monitor one of my websites hosted on SiteGround with Pingdom. The uptime has been around 99.99% for almost two years. Many other bloggers have checked the uptime of the sites hosted by SiteGround, and the results were also impressive. I’ve read tons of reviews and comments, and I couldn’t find one person who complained about SiteGround’s server availability. Your site will be up and running and stay that way by choosing one of SiteGround’s hosting plans.
Top Loading Speed
Your site’s loading speed depends on a multitude of factors, and the host is one of the major factors in the ultra-complicated equation of loading speed. SiteGround ensures the conditions required for a fast-loading site.
First, the worldwide distribution of the data centers helps deliver the site files as quickly as possible to the users. The closer the server is to the user, the faster the site loads. For instance, SiteGround’s competitors have data centers in North America only. North Americans will benefit from a fast loading site, but people in Asia will have to wait considerably longer.
Second, SiteGround invests massively in the latest technologies, both software and hardware. Files stored on the latest SSD disks, standard NGINX direct delivery, and regular updates are just a few things that contribute to making SiteGround a well-functioning host.
Professional Customer Support
In addition to the uptime, professional customer support is another feature that makes SiteGround such a famous brand in the web hosting community. The customer support agents know a thing or two about WordPress and are very helpful. The response time for chats and phone calls is almost instant, while the response time for an email ticket is around ten minutes. The Knowledge Base offers a huge collection of short, concise, and actionable articles that help people who want to fix issues by themselves.
Modern Client Area
Hosting companies are well-known for boring and complicated interfaces. Lots of webmasters don’t feel confident when using the client area. SiteGround, however, revamped its management panel, and the interface is significantly better than before. Managing a site is simpler and clearer than ever, even for less-trained users.
The SiteGround experts claim that the new design isn’t only a simple redesign, but it’s also a paradigm shift. While the old interface focused on hosting services, the new look is centered on site activity and user needs. The new client area also comes with new site tools that facilitate multi-site management and collaboration.
Free Site Migration
Migrating a site isn’t rocket science, but it’s not something for beginners. Any small mistake could lead to a serious disaster. Hence, an automated tool for migrating a site is a dream come true.
SiteGround’s Migrator plugin does the file transfer in no time. It’s just a matter of a few clicks, and the site transfer is done.
Free SSL
Nowadays, a site without an SSL certificate raises a big question mark for most users. You probably wouldn’t buy from sites that don’t provide SSL encryption. SiteGround offers free SSL, even for the lowest tier plan. I highly appreciate how fast the SSL certificate was to implement on my site; I did it in two minutes and with just a few clicks.
Free CDN
A content delivery network (CDN) aims at serving users with cached copies of a site. In plain English, a CDN delivers the site to the users faster. Cloudflare is one of the most appreciated CDNs, and SiteGround users, no matter the type of account, can benefit from its services for free.
Automated Daily Backups
Backing up your site is vital. You probably won’t understand the importance of a backup until you need one, but I don’t want you to be in the position of desperately needing a backup. SiteGround users can rest assured because the host automatically performs backups for each site hosted, regardless of the pricing plan selected.
Indeed, SiteGround is a trustworthy host, but I recommend using a backup plugin for your WordPress site as well. Two backup sources may seem redundant, but it’s actually a positive thing.
Caching Tools
SG Optimizer is a free WordPress plugin that does the work of a few other caching and optimizing plugins. SiteGround’s experts developed the plugin by taking into account the particularities of the servers’ host. It’s optimized for SiteGround, so you should give it a chance.
Unlike W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache, the interface is modern and intuitive. Hence, even less-trained users will be able to cache their sites properly. The plugin is for not only caching the site but also optimizing images, enabling Gzip compression, and minifying code.
The mid-level and highest tiers (GrowBig and GoGeek) get access to WordPress Special Cache, a powerful system of three layers of caching: dynamic, static, and memcached.
SiteGround Cons
Undoubtedly, SiteGround is one of the best hosting providers, but it’s not perfect. Like everything manmade, SiteGround comes with a few less-pleasing consequences. We’ve identified two annoying cons.
High Renewal Prices
First-time users are more than delighted with SiteGround’s pricing plans. You get solid hosting for only $3.95 a month by choosing StartUp, the lowest pricing plan. The mid-level option is GrowBig, which costs $6.45 a month, and the priciest plan is GoGeek, which costs $11.95 a month. These plans are acceptable for what you get, but the renewal prices aren’t.
Everything changes when you renew the account. The cheapest plan jumps from $3.95 to $11.95, which isn’t quite affordable for tight budgets. GrowBig grows from $6.45 to $19.95, and GoGeek hikes to $34.95 a month. Under these circumstances, you may think twice before paying the renewal fees.
However, it should be noted that SiteGround isn’t the only hosting company that has high renewal prices. Luckily there is a Siteground coupon code.
Free Domain Name
SiteGround gives users so many freebies but doesn’t offer a free domain name. It’s a feature you can live without, but it would be nice to have.
SiteGround Verdict
We won’t say that SiteGround is the best option on the market, but it certainly deserves your attention. You’ll get a bunch of important advantages by selecting this host. The almost-perfect uptime, kind support agents, free SSL and CDN, quality caching, reasonable speed, and automated daily backups are factors in favor of SiteGround. But while the discount for new customers is attractive, paying the full price for renewal isn’t great for tight budgets.
Clearly, we can’t say go for SiteGround or select other options, but we strongly encourage those who decide on SiteGround to subscribe for 36 months. This way, you’ll benefit from the introductory prices for as long as possible.
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