The Benefits of Managed and Proactive Web Hosting
Did you know that every successful website today has a secret weapon in its arsenal? It’s called fast and secure web hosting.
If you’re ready for lightning-fast load times, fortress-like security, and reliable uptime, it’s time to give your website the red-carpet treatment it deserves with web hosting from Sage.
Our highest priority is staying proactive to keep your site on target. 🎯
Focus On Your Business, Let Us Handle Your Web Hosting
The best part of managed WordPress web hosting is that it takes a load off your shoulders, allowing you to focus on your business. As a business owner, you have better things to do than wrestle with server issues and other technical hiccups, so you likely need professional support.
At Sage, we get to know your specific WordPress needs and optimize your isolated server environment for your unique themes and plugins. Additionally, we offer a suite of performance enhancements. These include a Content Delivery Network (CDN) and secure server locations aimed at boosting your website’s speed and safety.
Your Website Deserves More Than a Digital Cardboard Box
Before we go any further, let’s address one of the biggest mistakes website owners make. They’ll spend a lot of time and money on their website, sprucing up the user experience and visuals, but then turn around and downplay the importance of high-quality web hosting.
Not good. 🚫
This is like having a high-end car and going out of your way to put the cheapest oil and gas in it. The problem here is that web hosting is too important to screw up.
In fact, it’s your website’s bedrock.
Why Work With Sage?
The Benefits of Sage’s Managed Web Hosting include:
- Top performance in speed and deliverability
- One-minute uptime monitoring with high-priority support in the event of website downtime
- A 24/7 support team with fast response times
- Top hardware technology and top software for the best performance
- Protecting your website from fraud, DDoS attacks, malware, and being implicated in spam
- Actively monitoring your website for security threats and other issues
- Having professionals regularly update your website
- Having a reliable team to call (No playing phone tag or waiting hours to speak with a customer service rep)
- Encryption and firewall protection
- Robust backup system, which includes 30 daily, 4 weekly, and 12 monthly backups (Should your website encounter any issues, these backups allow for fast and easy restoration)
- Safe location of hosting servers (We have servers across the United States, including Las Vegas)
- Staging site and a local environment for you to test changes to your website
- 99.99% uptime
What Happens If You Choose Cheap Web Hosting Instead?
The disadvantages of cheap web hosting include:
- Limited bandwidth
- Limited space
- Unreliable uptime
- Slow page loading
- Security vulnerabilities
- Poor customer support
- Cheap technology
- Low-quality freeware
Moreover, with cheap web hosting, your website might plunge into digital chaos during a technical hiccup or if your hosting provider throws in the towel.
Who Is Managed Web Hosting For?
This isn’t an all-inclusive list, but here are the individuals and businesses that benefit the most from teaming up with us:
- Website owners who want to focus on running their business
- Enterprise brands that need top-notch support
- eCommerce business owners who want a safe platform
Basically, anyone eager for a smooth, worry-free website management experience!
How Do You Move Your Website To A Managed WordPress Host?
We handle it for you free of charge!
Let’s talk about Wilbur, the web hosting wreck for a moment…
If you haven’t heard about Wilbur, he is the proud owner of an online e-commerce store who thought an “SSL Certificate” was a community college degree and “Uptime” was a brand of alarm clocks.
Wilbur has spent countless hours creating the perfect website for his business, one that crushes the competition. But here’s the issue: He has invested more into his logo than his web hosting plan.
His website, despite how good it looks, is still living in a digital shack with shoddy cPanel access, inconsistent FTP support, and questionable CMS compatibility.
Furthermore, his high-performance aspirations are being thwarted by restrictive MySQL databases, not to mention web hosting that is about as reliable as a weather forecast from a magic 8-ball.
So, what’s the problem?
Answer: Wilbur is in desperate need of professional web hosting that contains three main ingredients.
The Four Ingredients of Phenomenal Web Hosting
At its core, good web hosting guarantees security, reliability, infrastructure, and great customer service — the four factors Wilbur desperately needs.
1. Security
Without website security, your site might become a target for hackers and data thieves. This is not quite the clientele you or Wilbur had in mind, is it?
While managed WordPress hosting isn’t an impregnable fortress, it does fortify your site with cyber security, routine surveillance, and malware sanitation. This brings us to an important and related subject, one integral to your website’s security.
Shared servers.
Going the shared server route is a bit like renting a room in a sketchy hotel. Sure, it’s more affordable, but the noises in the night can be disconcerting, and you never know who might try climbing through the window.
It’s an unfortunate reality that many hosting services pack websites together like sardines in a can due to resource constraints. This sort of cramped, shared environment can leave you susceptible to the misadventures of your server-mates.
One security breach can turn into a cascading disaster, with your site swept up in the chaos — not exactly the control over data security you envisioned.
Opting for a private server, albeit pricier, is well worth the peace of mind.
If you do find a company that offers private web hosting, though, it’s prudent to grill your potential host on their server security strategies before jumping on board.
What Kind of Security Should I Be Looking For?
Good website security offers protection against malicious infiltration, as well as excellent customer service. Review your chosen host’s security tools and see how fast they respond whenever you call or email them.
With that said, here are some specific security offerings that you should expect from your web host.
- Backup/Restore – It’s easier for your web host to regularly back up your site than to perform manual backups yourself.
- SSL Certificate – If your web hosting company offers you a free SSL certificate, it’ll save you around $60 per year.
- Protection Against Malware – Some web hosts will scan your website for malware, but not all hosts do. It’s a good idea to ask about this.
- Server location – US-based servers are safer from physical attacks than servers located in regions with substantial political instability. In extremely rare cases, physical breakdowns to your web host’s company building, environmental impacts, Acts of God, and even war can compromise your web host.
What’s The Most Secure Form Of Web Hosting?
Every type of web hosting has vulnerabilities, but managed hosting is the most secure hosting you’ll find at a reasonable price since you have a team of people whose job it is to manage and monitor the server you are renting.
If you are concerned about adding extra layers of protection to your website, consider asking your web host about routine backups, firewalls, and DDoS protection.
The least secure version of hosting is shared hosting.
2. Reliability
Reliability is very important. You should expect it from your web host.
Think about how you’d feel if you put in a bunch of work to gain traffic to your website only to lose prospects due to latency caused by bad web hosting or some other issue.
Since your site’s performance partly relies on your web host, this is something you as a business owner have to get right.
On this note, beware of those hosting providers that promise all-inclusive packages at extremely low costs.
Performance issues make “Cheap the most expensive.”
3. Infrastructure
Another element of phenomenal web hosting is your infrastructure.
To perform at a high level, you need the best data centers with top technology and stable and fast upstream links. These are the silent yet powerful allies that will help ensure the success of your website.
Additionally, you need top-level software for hosting management, as well as a high-performance web server.
Collectively, these components work to provide a hosting service that offers the gold standard in reliability, speed, and overall performance.
4. Customer Service
Now that we have established the importance of security, reliability, and infrastructure, let’s talk about customer service.
You’re not likely to receive good customer service and fast response times with a cheap web hosting solution.
Moreover, if you choose a low-cost, shared hosting environment, it can be hard to find an expert who truly knows web hosting. You could quite literally end up spending hours on the phone with an inexperienced tech support person and still not get your issue resolved.
In a case like this, it’s possible you could end up spending hundreds of dollars on a developer to solve your issue instead.
Managed Web Services Give You A Dedicated Team
To avoid having to pay someone else to fix your website, you need a skilled and dedicated team on your side.
There are several components that need to be woven together to make a website successful (core updates/theme files/plugin updates, backups, security, etc.).
But all of these elements hinge on a very important key joint. The quality of the people supporting you.
The real advantage of managed web services is that you get a team of dedicated experts who actively manage your website.
Clients Call Us Because We Have Fast Response Times
We receive a lot of calls from clients who are dissatisfied with someone else’s hosting service. Once they talk to us and see how quickly we respond, they often entrust us with the migration of their sites to a private server, with management services for core, theme, and plugin updates.
If they run into an issue, they can call us, and we’ll get it fixed ASAP. They never have to worry about overly long fixes or long wait times on the phone.
The Speed of Customer Support
When the chips are down, it is all about how fast your hosting service responds to your issue and puts your website back up.
If a hosting plan doesn’t offer to get your website back up without charging you extra, we suggest running for the hills. Good hosts have enough knowledgeable representatives to listen to their clients and provide them with prompt and long-term fixes.
How Much Does Managed Web Hosting Cost Monthly?
So, you have successfully launched your website! It’s been a journey, but now you are at the finish line, and you’re ready to open a bottle of champagne.
But wait. Don’t celebrate just yet. You still have the cost of running your monthly website to consider, which can cost anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars monthly.
Regardless of what you end up paying within this range, it’s important to fully understand what you’re paying for and why.
So, what exactly are the specific costs? Let’s take a look.
Web Hosting
The first cost is web hosting, which can be $15 to $50 a month for bottom-of-the-barrel solutions and $100 and higher for dedicated hosting.
Domain Name
Your domain name will likely cost you $10 to $30 per year if you’re just starting out. Some domains, however, can cost a lot more than this.
How much you pay depends on what domain name extension you are using. Dot com is the most expensive, and lesser-used domain extensions such as dot net and dot IO are cheaper.
SSL Certificate
Every website should have an SSL certificate. Some inexpensive hosting platforms charge you for your SSL separately, while professionally managed web services like ours include this in the service.
Plugins
The cost for premium plugins ranges from free to potentially hundreds of dollars.
eCommerce
For eCommerce, we use Woocommerce with WordPress. Prices range for this service, but WooCommerce is free out of the box, and premium plugins can then be added.
Web Maintenance Plans
Ongoing support typically costs as little as $250 a month to potentially thousands of dollars monthly, very dependent on the web design agency you hire and your needs.
Does Sage Digital Agency Have Hidden Fees?
Absolutely not!
At Sage, we are very clear about our pricing from the get-go. When you work with us, you never have to worry about getting blindsided by unexpected charges.
Speaking of hidden charges, one thing you’ll want to watch out for when searching for your preferred web host is setup fees, which can get added on top of your monthly payment.
Another thing you’ll want to watch out for is your use limit. While many web hosts offer “unlimited” web hosting, in reality, every web host has limits, and if you go over yours, you’ll probably end up having to pay a fee.
Ready to Rock the Web? Host with Sage Digital Agency!
Your website is the face of your business online, and there are certain mistakes that your visitors might not forgive, such as slow loading speeds and frequent unavailability.
To protect yourself from these problems, call us today about your web hosting. We’d love to have a conversation and see if we’re the perfect hosting solution for your website.
