If you are a regular reader of our blog, you know that occasionally I share some behind-the-scenes stuff connected with the running of the blog. I already wrote a detailed analysis about our experience with Ezoic and how they helped us get our Pinterest account back after it was suspended.
Today I’ll talk about hosting and WP Engine, one the world’s most trusted WordPress technology company, or more specifically, about their new eCommerce solution for small and medium businesses (SMB).
The article will be relevant to individuals looking to make the leap into online sales or make more money faster with their existing eCommerce business.
Does Hosting Matter for SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a critical role for online businesses. Paid traffic can get you out in the world, but it’s free traffic that keeps you there on the long run and makes the whole venture much better prepared to answer challenges on the market.
So, does hosting affect SEO? Yes, it does.
Web hosting is a critical SEO factor. It will influence your rankings as it determines essential attributes such as site speed (the speed at which your site loads), the up and downtimes and location.
Downtime is the amount of time that your website is inaccessible due to problems with hosting. Search engines will probably try to visit your site several times a day. If your website is inaccessible then they record that it’s down. If this happens repeatedly then your site gets flagged as unreliable and your rankings may be downgraded.
Search engines don’t normally reveal factors that are part of their algorithms, however, in 2010 Google explicitly said that the speed at which a page loads is one of those factors, and it will only become more important in 2021. By moving your site to a less busy server, or even a private/dedicated server, page load speeds will be instantly improved.
Search engines also assess the location of a website when deciding where to place it in their rankings. One of the indicators where your website is located is the IP address of your site, which is assigned to your site based on the location of the server that it’s hosted on.
All this makes hosting one of the most important decisions when starting an online business.
WP Engine’s eCommerce Hosting
WP Engine did a restructure of their eCommerce hosting solutions for SMBs in March, 2021. Their new solutions allow SMBs to create a visually impressive, mobile-friendly WooCommerce-oriented website quickly and easily.
The highlight of the new solutions is a quick setup wizard that allows you to build a functional website with a WooCommerce based online store in a few clicks and the supporting services included with their hosting plans. Their eCommerce hosting plans allow you to:
- either optimize an existing online store or build one from scratch in a few clicks;
- take advantage of ready-to-use eCommerce themes;
- drag and drop tools to add content and products in seconds;
- enable fast product searches that increase revenue; and
- use WP Engine’s automated plugin updates.
In a COVID-19 world that gradually moves to the “clouds” and where more and more new businesses start exclusively online, the ability to create visually impressive web stores with a few clicks and without any prior knowledge stands out.
The Plans
What I like about WP Engine’s hosting plans is that it covers two crucial factors for potential new online store owners – it combines SEO advantages with ease to set up a store from scratch.
WP Engine has some of the best WordPress hosting around, hence the price. You can find solid hosting options for as low as a few dollars per month, but they lack the speed, features, support and SEO advantage that WP Engine provides.
Don’t believe me? While we use Ezoic’s free hosting for THSJ’s blog, we tried WP engine’s hosting for the ecommerce side of things. Our already speed optimized online store had a 16 percent increase in organic traffic and 12 percent better conversion by simply changing from a cheaper to WP Engine’s Professional eCommerce hosting plan. Yes, hosting is important for SEO and search rankings.
If I had to open a new e-store tomorrow I know where my money will go. When you are starting an online business, you want to make sure it has every advantage it can get. It’s a competitive industry and I see no reason to try to save some petty cash on cheaper hosting if it will hurt your business in the long run.
By going for a top-of-the-line mainstream hosting solution like the ones from WP Engine, you are making sure your business gets every chance to succeed.
What do WP Engine’s Plans Offer?
In my personal opinion, it is the easiest way to launch or grow your eCommerce business on one of the fastest and most secure WordPress platforms in the industry.
WooCommerce powers some 30% of all eCommerce sites on the Internet, making it the most popular way to build an eCommerce site. The combination of WooCommerce and WordPress, the most popular way to build any type of site, is a powerful combination for SMB owners.
The STARTUP, PROFESSIONAL, GROWTH and SCALE plans offer:
- effortless launch of a new WooCommerce store with a DIY-friendly, no-code-knowledge-required store creator and easy-to-use design tools, or easy migration of an existing WordPress store from another host;
- one-click activation of advanced search features of Elasticsearch (by ElasticPress) that provide on average revenue increases of up to 18% for stores that enable it;
- the knowledge that your store is hosted on industry-leading infrastructure optimized for site speed, security, and scalability;
- the latest features and security benefits with automatic site and plugin updates from WP Engine’s Smart Plugin Manager;
- a very polite 24x7x365 customer support.
WP Engine’s Special Offer and Coupons
Make no mistake, if you can afford it, I highly recommend WP Engine’s eCommerce hosting. This is NOT a sponsored article, it’s an opinion piece. And I am not alone, as they are currently the most popular hosting solution for online businesses.
As their client, we also get special offers and promotions. If you use the link below, you’ll get three months free hosting on any annual plan, with the code automatically activated (see the screenshot).
WP Engine – Get 3 months free on WP Engine’s new eCommerce plans with coupon code ecommwpe10
The code gives you a 10 percent discount and two free months after the first year (overall equal to three free months). We also get a small fee back from WP Engine for any referrals that helps keep our page alive. We appreciate your support.
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