Running a WordPress business?

Of course you are! If you’re not, you can use these services for any form of online business.

In part 1, we’ll briefly cover WordPress hosting, a few plugins, and a couple or my choice productivity tools. There’s some cross compatibility from the blogging tips post, but I’ve wrapped some new context around the areas that apply. This post was inspired by Carrie Dils and her review of SaaS software for her own WordPress business.

I hope this helps you make some new decisions and enables you to run a better WordPress business.

Tools of the WordPress trade

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Some of the following links are affiliate links. They help pay for the show and put food on the table for my family. Thank you!

WordPress hosting

As I stated in the podcast and in the video, this is not an in-depth review of WordPress hosts. This is a quick fly-by of hosts I’ve use and how you can use them too.  I do plan on discussing WordPress hosts more in depth in another post.

Linode

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Linode is a great VPS service if you’re looking to get your hands dirty. Their offerings are powerful and affordable. If you’re looking to host many WordPress websites and you know your way around Linux security give these guys a shot. In terms of uptime and performance I’ve had great results. Their support is also fast and friendly which is very important.

Pros:

* Affordable

* Powerful features

* Great support

Cons:

* Support is not WordPress specific

* You have to know how to configure your own linux instance

* Your on the line for major performance or security issues

Digital Ocean

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A $5 a month stomping ground. There’s a handful of localhost development environments, but there’s nothing quite like the real thing. Digital Ocean provides little droplets for running various flavors of Linux. Like Linode, you will need to be up to speed on setting up a Linux environment and locking down anything you don’t want the bad guys to get. I think this is a great solution for testing plugins or running dev environments.

Pros:

* $5 a month

* Fast

* Easy

Cons:

* Not sure how their product will scale compared to a Linode

* You still have to configure/support yourself

SiteGround

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Support. Support. Super fast support. This is the most important factor for me. Period. This site has run on SG for the last 3 – 4 months and I’ve been blown away by their level of support. I’m not just talking talking level 1 “we got your message and we’ll work on this” SOP responses – I’m talking full blown, in-depth responses. Backups, staging servers, and WordPress specific optimization plans are also available.

Pros: 

* Awesome support

* Affordable

* Feature rich

Cons:

* Still a shared environment

* Not your typical “managed WordPress” host

Namecheap

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Not much to say here other than it’s my go to source for registering domains. Easy to use control panel with zero fluff or complexity. They also have an awesome API to tap into if youR...