How to Allocate Resources to Host a WordPress Site

WordPress is one of the most popular Content Management Systems (CMS) used on the internet today, with a market share of nearly 30% according to Statista.

The success of WordPress and the growing demand for hosting services driven by WordPress has resulted in a boom of web hosting providers specifically designed for WordPress users. Since most of these hosts offer shared hosting, it’s a great choice for people looking to build a simple blog or website.

Whether you’re just starting out or you’re looking for an upgrade, here are just some of the things you should know about allocating resources to host a WordPress site.

Consider What You Need

When planning your web space, you have to consider what you need. Just because you have a blog or a website doesn’t mean you need to allocate the whole web server to it. If you’re getting 200 uniques per day, you may not need a dedicated server to host your blog. On the other hand, if you’re getting a few hundred uniques per week and expect that to grow, then you may want to consider a dedicated server.

Be Careful With The Softwares You Choose

One of the most important things to consider when allocating resources to host a WordPress site is the software you’ll need to run it. There are three options here: WordPress itself, a content management system (CMS), and a web server. It’s important to be careful which one you choose, as each one has its quirks and benefits.

WordPress is the most popular Content Management System (CMS) used on the internet today, with a market share of nearly 30% according to Statista. Its success is due mainly to its simplicity – it’s incredibly easy to figure out and use, and it doesn’t require any technical expertise to set up and maintain. This is why a lot of hosting providers offer WordPress as a service (in addition to the usual shared hosting packages).

A CMS is basically a piece of software that allows you to create and manage web content – posts, pages, and so on – with minimal to no programming experience. The beauty of this is that it allows you to focus on your content rather than on complicated web server configurations. When choosing a CMS, make sure to consider the features available, as well as the pricing plans.

Dedicated vs Shared

Another important consideration when allocating resources to host a WordPress site is whether you want to go for shared or dedicated hosting. While dedicated hosting has the advantage of offering better performance and extra security, it can also be a little more expensive. If you’re just starting out or have a modest amount of resources, go for shared hosting.

Shared hosting is what most people will recommend to newbies who are just getting started, as it is the cheapest option. What this means is that your website will be part of a large pool of other sites hosted on the same server. Since this server is shared, any traffic that comes your way will be shared with the other sites on the server. This can lead to heavy traffic at times, which can stress the server and slow it down. If this is a concern for you, then dedicated hosting is your best option.

Pay Attention To Monitoring

Since you’ll be hosting other people’s content on your server (whether it’s your own or someone else’s), it’s important to monitor it closely for illegal or improper content. This is especially important if you have a family website, as you don’t want to be hosting images of children for example. When it comes to monitoring your server, there are two critical things you need to look out for: attacks and downtimes. Attacks include things like malware, spyware, and hack attacks. Downtimes are basically the times when your server is unreachable or inaccessible for some reason. It’s also important to note that the majority of downtime comes from human error, so if you’re new at this then be extra careful and read the manuals thoroughly.

Use A CDN

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is also an important part of the equation if you want your content to load faster for your visitors. What a CDN does is serve your content from another location (usually close to the user) and avoid congestion on your own server. The most popular CDNs include:

• CloudFlare
• Amazon
• Level3
• Akamai
• BigIP
• Dedicated

As you can see from the list, a CDN can drastically improve the speed at which your content loads. Plus, it gives you the added flexibility of changing the location where your content is being hosted from without having to change anything in your content itself.

Don’t Forget About Scalability

The last important thing to consider when allocating resources to host a WordPress site is scalability. You don’t want to choose a host that can’t scale with the demands of your growing website. This article from Smashing Magazine highlights some of the common things you should look out for in regards to scalability.

• How much space do they offer?
• How much CPU power do they offer?
• How much memory do they offer?
• How much bandwidth do they offer?

The most important thing to consider here is how much space do they offer? The amount of space you need will depend on how much content you have on your site. If you’re just starting out, then it’s best to go with the minimum required. As your website grows, you can always upgrade later on.

Choose A Hosting Provider You Can Trust

As we mentioned above, the last thing you want to do is choose a hosting provider you can’t trust. You should look for one that has a good reputation, offers a money-back guarantee, and offers a free lifetime service plan. Since this is such a crucial decision, make sure to read reviews before signing up.