WPEngine Review: The Best Web Hosting for Your Business

When I first started Eventual Millionaire, I lost thousands of dollars of potential revenue because I went with a cheap, barebones, shared hosting plan. Not investing in a high-quality hosting account like I highlight in this WP Engine review set my business back months.

I’ll share the embarrassing details of that mess at the end of this post, but I want to share the solution I found with you first, so you can avoid the same messy, demoralizing mess with your business by starting with or upgrading to the best website hosting option I’ve found: WP Engine.

I didn’t come to that opinion lightly, either. I tried and evaluated a bunch of web-hosting options before I found WP Engine. WP Engine was by far the best option and I highly recommend WP Engine to anyone looking to build an online presence for their business.

Here are five reasons why I recommend WP Engine so highly and use it to host Eventual Millionaire.

1. Simplicity

WP Engine simplifies for your business because it takes so many of the details off your plate so you can worry about building your brand and serving your customers or clients. They take all the WordPress stuff off your hands. That means they’ll take care of updating WordPress for you, backing up your site, and more.

(I was paying WP Curve monthly to do all of this beforehand and now I don’t have to!)

2. Security

WP Engine secures your website better than a shared hosting plan. On shared hosting plans, an attack on one site can result in your site getting compromised, too. That can’t happen with WP Engine because WP Engine segregates your site from other sites to protect you.

WP Engine has several additional security measures at the platform level to protect you from malicious attacks. They also keep your backups separate from other data, so you have a clean backup at all times. Finally, keeping your WordPress installation up-to-date like WP Engine does, also helps your site avoid security holes caused by out-of-date software.

They’re so confident in their security that if you get hacked they’ll fix it for free. People charge hundreds or thousands of dollars for emergency unhacking services. WP Engine will fix it for you.

(They proactively email me often about updating for security, and all I have to do is email the reply, “Yes, go ahead” and they do everything!)

3. Speed

A slow website is the quickest way to lose traffic. WP Engine utilizes proprietary caching technology to speed up your website. This helps ensure people who come to your site stick around long enough to get to know you.

4. Service and Support

WP Engine customer service and support is second to none. Based right here in my favorite city, Austin, Texas, they have great, U.S.-based service and support 24/7. I’ve interviewed the founder, Jason Cohen, and trust him. (Listen to that interview on how he created WP Engine here.) In addition to that great, local service and support, they have tons of helpful tutorials and easy-to-follow instructions for improving your site.

5. Scale

WP Engine scales as you scale your business. Get featured on CNN? Not a problem. Kiplinger pick you up? Don’t worry about it. WP Engine grows with you and can handle any traffic spike you have. (My site has never gone down from too much traffic since switching!)

Also, because it can grow with you, you’ll never have to worry about switching servers when you grow out of a shared plan. In case you’ve never done that, I’ll tell you it’s a big pain and often doesn’t go smoothly. It can cost hundreds of dollars or more to transfer. Also, things can go wrong and take a lot of time.

You don’t have to worry about that with WP Engine.

So, what’s the catch?

This wouldn’t be a complete WP Engine review if I only presented a few benefits of WP Engine, right? I could go on and on about the great features, but you can see those for yourself.

On the other side of the equation, WP Engine is a full-service hosting company. That means it’s not going to be the cheapest way to get a website online. Cheap shared hosting programs promote hosting options with superlow prices if you pay for a year or two in advance. Although you don’t get the simplicity, security, speed, service, support, and scalability you get from WP Engine, you can certainly start a site for less money than WP Engine.

The out-of-pocket cost for WP Engine is higher, starting at $29 per month. That is worth every penny for the peace of mind you get, but it’s technically more money than a barebones shared hosting plan.

Also, WP Engine doesn’t do email for your site, so you’ll have to use a separate email provider. They focus on being the best with your WordPress issues. Having separate email is a small issue for me given the peace of mind I get for the rest of my site, but some shared hosting plans include basic email management. (You can use a Google Business account that’s inexpensive to get custom email addresses.)

Is WP Engine for you?

If you’re looking to start a small online journal or personal blog that you don’t want to grow, you might not need all the great features WP Engine offers. In that case, you might be fine going with a cheaper hosting plan.

But if you’re in business and looking to grow, this WP Engine review highlights only a few reasons you should consider investing in WP Engine for your business.

By hosting through WP Engine, you’ll be outsourcing several critical, time-consuming, and technical functions for your site for only a few extra dollars a month.

Also, if you end up having to clean up a hack, switch to a high-priced plan at the cheap hosting company, or transfer out of a shared hosting plan in the next few years, you’ll end up paying the same amount in transfer costs and time than you “saved” by going with a cheap plan. You might as well get all the benefits of WP Engine hosting while you grow, too.

Imagine not having to worry about updating your site, security issues, traffic spikes, or having someone else’s traffic spike take your site down. For a couple hundred dollars a year, you can rest easy and concentrate on building your business and serving your customers or clients.

Plus, I’ve teamed up with WPEngine and Anthony Tran if you purchase WP Engine through my affiliate link, my amazing friend Anthony is offering Free Website Migration to WPEngine.

Just sign up here: http://eventualmillionaire.com/wpe

Forward the receipt to?wpengine@eventualmillionaire.com?so we can get Anthony working on your setup ASAP!

Still curious about how a cheap shared hosting plan set me back so much? Here’s what happened.

When I first started EM, I used a barebones shared hosting plan for hosting.

I’m a bit of a tech geek, have a degree in I.T. Network Engineering, and even used to run my own servers at my house (like real rack mount servers). I even created my own blog themes, and played around with lots of hosting companies and options. (Okay, maybe I’m a little more than a bit of a tech geek?)

With all that tech experience, why did I start EM on a barebones, shared hosting plan? I’ve asked myself that question many times. The truth is, before I started Eventual Millionaire, I didn’t really care much about the site.

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it now, but it’s true. I didn’t think Eventual Millionaire would be anything more than a hobby. It was a learning project. I figured I’d write a few posts, play around with WordPress a bit, and eventually (see what I did there?) use the information I’d gained to create something REAL.

Because of that, I decided to go with a run-of-the-mill shared hosting plan. It only took me six months to regret that decision.

Six months after starting the site, I had built a small email list of maybe 500 subscribers. Everything was going smoothly and then out of the blue my site was featured on CNN.com. On top of that, they asked me to go on one of their shows called CNN Newsroom. If that wasn’t enough, I was also featured on Yahoo!’s homepage, all within the same week.

Amazing, right?

It was, until my hosting company decided I was getting too much traffic and shut down my site. Apparently, the traffic was slowing down the other sites on the shared hosting plan, so they literally shut my website off.

Crazy, right? By that time, I had committed to growing Eventual Millionaire into what it is today, got a big break that most people only dream of, and my shared hosting plan flipped a switch and shut me down.

I was featured on CNN’s website, on a CNN show, and on Yahoo!’s homepage and got no benefit because I was on a shared hosting program. No real traffic. No leads. No email subscribers. Nothing.

Unfortunately, I didn’t learn my lesson. After I got my site back up and continued building my audience, I got another break, this time on Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine. And I never in a million years thought I would be featured on Yahoo’s homepage again. But guess what? My face with a different photo was there again. People from high school were messaging me again. And again, traffic came flying in. AND again, my hosting company shut my site down! Ouch. It was like my hosting company was working against me regarding building my business. Again, I got no traffic, leads, or subscribers.

You would think as a geek and business coach I would have fixed it the first time. Apparently, I learn lessons the hard way!

And here’s how WP Engine solved my web hosting problems.

I had enough. I was committed to Eventual Millionaire by that time and needed hosting that wouldn’t get in the way of building my business.

It was time for a change. I needed hosting that allowed me to work on building my business with confidence. I wanted to worry about building my content, promoting my business, and serving my readers, listeners, and clients.

I was interviewing some of the most successful people in the world. Many of those people had large audiences and would promote our interview. I couldn’t risk my site going down every time a spike occurred.

I immediately researched my options. It was an easy decision to switch from my hosting company at that point. After evaluating a bunch of other web hosting options and even trying a different company I ended up disliking, too, I decided to go with WP Engine and have never regretted it.

I hope you learn from my mistakes. Your website is the backbone of your ability to scale your business and connect with leads. Don’t skimp on speed, security, simplicity, service, support, or scale. Consider switching to WP Engine today.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR WP ENGINE NOW

AND I’ve made a deal with Anthony Tran of marketingaccesspass.com – Get WP Engine through this affiliate link and get a Free Website Migration to WPEngine.

Just forward the email receipt to wpengine@eventualmillionaire.com

And I’ll have Anthony contact you to set everything up!

Categories: Business

Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

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