In the next few weeks, I’m re-launching my website. Along with a new look and feel, I also switched website hosts in the process. This was because my current website host just wasn’t getting the job done for my business.
Since it is important for businesses to choose the best web hosting, I wanted to give you a comparison between two website hosts, Bluehost vs WP Engine and which one I ultimately settled on for my business and why I chose them.
The situation
I made the decision to switch website hosts because the company I was using was not meeting the requirements that my business needed.
For example, here are some of the issues my website encountered over the past year.
- Unexpected downtime
- Throttling
- Lost data
- Slow site load times
- Poor customer service
If you are a casual blogger, the debate between Bluehost vs WP Engine probably doesn’t matter as much to you, but I spend a lot of time blogging and making tweaks to my site because it is a main source for running my business.
As a result, I need my website to be up, I need it to be fast, and I need it to be reliable.
Does website hosting matter?
It does and it doesn’t. It depends on the type of website you are running.
If you are a casual blogger who doesn’t blog very often or isn’t running a business, you can go with any hosting company, provided you are prepared to deal with slowness and potential down time.
On the otherhand, if you run a business and you blog a lot and want to get more people reading your content and eventually buying products and services, you want to be sure to choose the best web hosting possible.
When you have to constantly worry about whether your website is running and answer questions from customers about why your site isn’t available, this can put a lot of unnecessary strain on your business and your relationships with customers.
Too much of this and you will find yourself spending more time fixing things instead of creating things. This can put you further from achieving your business goals.
I wanted to share with you the process I took on choosing the right host for my website and how you can do the same.
Here is a comparison I put together on Bluehost vs WP Engine along with details on why I made the switch (which helped my business out tremendously).
Bluehost vs WP Engine, which is better?
Having spent time working with both companies, I put together a list of items my business needs and compared Bluehost vs WP Engine. Here is what I found.
1. Speed
One area I always struggled with was the speed of my site. If you run a WordPress site and install a lot of plugins, while convenient for getting a site up and running quickly, over time, they can slow your site down to a crawl.
A slow site means slow load times for customers.
If your site takes too long to load, your customers may go elsewhere – even if you have a good product.
When comparing Bluehost vs WP Engine, Bluehost would take 30 seconds to a minute to load or save a draft of a blog post. WP Engine would take 5 seconds.
2. Convenience
As I mentioned, as a business owner, you can’t spend all of your time focusing on fixing things. For example, I have run into times where all of the content on my blog disappeared for no reason.
While this wasn’t something I did wrong to cause this issue, this was something my website host did and they didn’t want to help fix it.
When choosing a website host, it is important to know that when something like this happens, they have your back.
If you are a one-man (or woman) show, you need peace of mind that you can contact your web host, they will offer help to fix the issue that they happened as a result of something they did.
3. Staging environment
Did that plugin you just installed cause a conflict on your site?
When launching new features on your website, it is important to test them out beforehand. This way you don’t cause issues for customers on your site.
While I normally build my sites offline and upload them once I have tested them, one feature WP Engine offered which I found very helpful was a staging environment.
This allowed me to test out new features and push them to my live site once I had worked out any issues. In comparing Bluehost vs WP Engine, I had never seen this offered before.
4. Reliability
While Bluehost and WP Engine both offer 24-hours support, I have only had the chance to spend the most time with Bluehost.
This is because their servers have gone down three times in the past year.
I would allow this to happen once, but three times is inexcusable for any business.
5. SEO benefits
Choosing a good website hosting company isn’t just about having fast servers or a staging environment to work with.
One of the major benefits to choosing a good website are the SEO benefits that come with it.
While fast load times make it convenient for your customers to access your content and products quickly, site speed also affects SEO rankings.
A slow site limits Google and other search engines from indexing your content. In some cases, it can cause the site to timeout, which makes Google think there isn’t anything there to crawl.
Bluehost vs WP Engine, which company did I choose?
Having spent time using both Bluehost and WP Engine, I finally made the switch to WP Engine and couldn’t be more happy. When comparing the cost of Bluehost vs WP Engine, while it was more expensive to use WP Engine ($21 per month vs $8), the benefits outweigh the costs.
Here’s how:
- My site loads significantly faster which benefits my SEO ranking
- No more worrying about the site going down
- Allows me to focus on growing my business, not just on maintaing it
I’m looking forward to launching my new site. Here is a sneak peek.
Your turn
When comparing Bluehost vs WP Engine, I went with WP Engine.
When choosing a website host, what are some of the features you look for in a host and who do you currently use to host your website?
Let me know in the comments below.