Whilst it is true that WordPress can be installed on pretty much any web host that offers a PHP and MySQL platform, there is a lot to be said for opting for a WordPress optimised web hosting plan.

In truth, a typical WordPress hosting plan will be like for like with a regular shared plan in terms of resources but the beauty is in the detail as it will come highly optimised, pre-installed with WordPress and most importantly regularly updated and protected from the many security flaws WordPress faces. This is the reason lots of people will choose to use a dedicated WordPress host as opposed to a regular, run of the mill hosting firm.

Below we’ll explain some of the reasons why a WordPress host, 9 times out of 10 trumps a regular web host. You can also see our own WordPress hosting plans to compare.

Experience

Most of us need support with our web hosting accounts from time to time. In fact, all of us do – and if you’re dealing with WordPress, experience counts for a lot. The fact is, WordPress as popular as it is does have known flaws. These are usually caused by poorly designed themes or badly coded plugins. But there are also issues that can arise due to problems with WordPress itself. Particularly if you’re running it on a host that isn’t optimised properly. This is why experience is important as far as your web host goes. You want to host with a company who are experienced in WordPress and can fix issues in a timely manner.

Optimisation

The key to having WordPress perform at its best is optimisation. Optimisation of your web server, your database and your browser-served files such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript. A typical WordPress host will handle all of this for you with the exception of the front end stuff – although even in this case they’ll certainly advise you on what you need to do.

Whilst optimisation in itself might not be massively important if you’ve got a new, relatively low traffic blog. But as soon as you start to grow it’ll become immediately apparent just how important it is.

Easy Setup

Even though WordPress prides itself on being an easy to setup application, it can still be confusing for some. Especially when you have to setup your own database and edit your own configuration files and so on. Sure, the second or third time you do it things will get easier, but why go through the hassle? Pretty much all WordPress hosts come with WordPress either pre-installed or available via a one click install script. As the name suggests, this will setup and config WordPress for you at the click of a button.

Security

Security is a major issue with WordPress. Given it’s popularity, day in day out there are thousands of people around the world trying to discover holes and exploits that they can take advantage of. The same goes for its hoards of compatible plugins and themes. Quite frankly, it’s the most “hacked” application on the planet. But you also need to keep that in perspective as it’s also the most widely used.

By using an experience WordPress host, you can negate these potential issues as all WordPress hosting plans will undoubtedly come with frequent updates to patch any issues as they’re identified and they’ll also feature security tools which can identify flaws in your chosen themes or plugins.

Maintenance

As mentioned above, WordPress is prone to issues so that it’s important that it is maintained properly. All regular updates to the core code base should be installed and often are automatically with WordPress web hosting plans. You also need to keep your plugins updated too as this is where a lot of issues arise from.

A typical WordPress host, those who actually specialise in hosting WordPress setups often have server side programs that monitor plugins and themes in use on the server and can quickly and easily identify any potential issues before someone takes advantage of them.

Conclusion

You will find with WordPress that the bigger your site gets in terms of content (and hopefully traffic) the more issues you’ll run into. Especially when you couple that with the hoards of unwanted and unused plugins you’ve collected over the years. It’s a recipe for disaster and as good as WordPress is out of the box it can quickly become an uncontrollable animal should you not keep it updated and perform regular maintenance.

WordPress hosting plans tend to negate the majority of these issues as per the above 5 reasons and given most WP hosting plans are priced the same as regular shared hosting plans, if you are planning to solely run WordPress, save yourself from future headaches and get an optimised plan from the get go.