OptimWise - Web Design & Development Simpsonville/Greenville SC

SiteGround is an excellent WordPress-optimized shared host. They're fast, secure, and reliable, yet inexpensive. They're the host I most frequently recommend to small business and nonprofit clients.  From firsthand experience, I've found their plans to be superior to similar hosting plans from GoDaddy, Bluehost, DreamHost, Hostmonster, HostGator, iPage, and small local hosting companies.

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For clients with larger and/or higher-traffic sites, or who need additional benefits, we recommend WP Engine, but for most smaller sites, SiteGround provides great features for relatively low cost.

In my last post I talked about why good hosting is important to small business WordPress sites. SiteGround meets the criteria for being a good WordPress host.

Speed

SiteGround's SuperCacher provides four different caching options:

1. Varnish Static Cache
2. Varnish Dynamic Cache
3. Memcached
4. Google PageSpeed

We've found that the Varnish caches improve site speed. We haven't yet tested Memcached or Google PageSpeed. SiteGround has said that you don't need a WordPress caching plugin (such as W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache) if you use SuperCacher (unless you're using the plugin for minification, or other features besides caching).

SiteGround's SG CachePress plugin provides controls right within WordPress. Other options are available within cPanel.

Security

SiteGround pays a lot of attention to security.

• Their Unique Account Isolation technology keeps one account from affecting others. SiteGround says, "In effect, our isolation technology prevents a single vulnerable account from affecting the whole server. This revolutionary approach makes our shared hosting environment as secure as the much more expensive dedicated solutions."
• They automatically take daily backups.
• WP Auto-Update installs core updates within 24 hours of release. They back up the site, update core, and update any plugins that have pending updates.
• Their HackAlert service scans websites for malware daily, and immediately alerts you if it finds any. It's just $1/yr per domain, and there's nothing to install or configure.

Availability/uptime

SiteGround's monthly uptime is 99.999%, and its annual uptime is 99.996%.

Support

SiteGround has helpful WordPress tutorials and many WordPress articles in its knowledge base. Their support is also the fastest I've ever experienced with a web host; almost all tickets are resolved in minutes.

What's keeping you from signing up for SiteGround? If you already use them, what's been your experience? Let me know in the comments.