Category: Trans

You wouldn’t buy a brick and mortar business without getting a lock for the front door, right? I imagine you’d probably even get an alarm system and install some cameras.

These security measures are taken to prevent break-ins, from losing money, sustaining property damage, or putting sensitive information at risk.

Your internet business is at risk for these very same things. It may even be at greater risk — the Internet makes it possible for cybercriminals to break into your website without having to leave their couch: On average, 18.5 million websites are infected with malware at any given time. The average website gets attacked 44 times per day. Of the roughly 90,000 websites that get hacked each day, 83% of them are using WordPress.

That’s why you need to take as many precautions as possible when it comes to properly securing your website.

Don’t have the “it won’t happen to me” mentality. Nobody is immune to vicious attacks. Even retail giants like Target have had data breaches that affected more than 41 million customers. That one security breach cost the company over $18 million in settlements. Something like this can be extremely damaging to your company’s online reputation.

I could go on and on all day about why your website needs to be secure, but I think I’ve made my point.

So how can you install the security you need?

To start, WordPress has some built-in security features. It’s also crucial for you to choose a secure web hosting company — with a host like WP Engine a lot of the security features are built into your hosting plan. Beyond these steps, you can take additional measures to beef up your protections with a WordPress security plugin.

There are so many different security plugins available for your website. How can you know which one is the best WordPress security plugin?

Rather than taking weeks to go through and research all of them, you can just review the ones that I’ve listed in this guide. I’ve identified the top seven WordPress security plugins of 2021. Use this information to increase your WordPress security and add credibility to your website.

1. MalCare

The MalCare  security plugin is trusted by the likes of GoWP, WPBuffs, and Cloudways — so you know you’re in good company with them.

This is a security plugin you should get if you want to save time and energy. Their malware removal is fully automated, removing viruses and bad actors in less than a minute. They also protect your website from their own servers. That means you’ll never experience a slowdown on your site when they scan for viruses.

MalCare also comes with a powerful firewall to protect your website 24/7. It’ll also block any IP addresses that have been flagged for malicious intent from the thousands of sites on their network, according to their website.

Though it might not be for everyone, I really appreciate the fact that they have a host of features aside from security like their WordPress management plugin. It helps you manage multiple sites on WordPress and allows you to manage permissions so your team can collaborate on all fo them. This service also allows you to make 90 day backups of your websites so you never have to worry about losing data.

Pricing for MalCare is also relatively affordable for the features you’ll be receiving. It starts at $99 / year for one site and includes automatic malware removal, a website firewall, and complete website management.

2. Wordfence Security — Firewall & Malware Scan

With over two million active installs, Wordfence Security — Firewall & Malware Scan is one of the most popular WordPress security plugins available. It fights spam, malware, and other threats in real time. Unlike other plugins, Wordfence Security offers a dashboard that’s extremely user friendly. You don’t have to be a tech wizard, have a background in IT, or study cybersecurity to use this plugin.

One of my favorite parts of this plugin is the ability to see data about your overall website traffic trends. These reports will show you any attempted hacks on your site. You’ll be able to tell if traffic is coming from humans, Google crawlers, or potentially malicious bots.

Another great feature of this plugin is the country blocking option. You can block attacks that come from specific geographic regions known for high rates of cybercrime.

The free version of Wordfence Security offers plenty of features that will keep your website safe. They definitely give you more out of the box than other free security plugins. You’ll get firewall blocks and brute force attack protection.

Premium pricing starts at $99 per year. The premium version comes with added features like two-factor authentication, direct customer support assistance, and real-time IP blacklisting. The real-time IP blacklist feature blocks requests from any IP address that has attacked another WordPress website that is also using Wordfence Security. When it comes to the safety and security of your website, that’s a pretty good deal in my opinion.

3. Sucuri Security — Auditing, Malware Scanner and Security Hardening

The name of this plugin alone shows all of the extensive security features it offers. When you install Sucuri Security, you’ll benefit from things like:

• Firewall integrity monitoring
• Malware scanning
• Blacklist monitoring
• Security audits
• Security hardening
• Notifications
• Post-hack security procedures
• Website firewall

All of these features, except for the website firewall, come with the free version of Sucuri Security. If you’re looking for a cost-effective way to protect your WordPress website, Sucuri Security is a top choice. For most sites, you don’t necessarily need the website firewall offered in the premium version.

In the event of a hack or attack, Sucuri Security offers actionable steps to help you proceed with repairing any damage. Now, some of you might not love the idea of hearing something like this. But in all reality, it’s nearly impossible for any website to be 100% impenetrable. There is always the chance of something going wrong. When something goes wrong, you’ll instantly receive a notification about it so you can act immediately.

Sucuri Security is upfront about that. They aren’t going to sit there and promise that the plugin is 100% effective. Rather than making false promises, this plugin has added a feature to assist you if your site is compromised in any way. I really like that.

The security hardening provided by Sucuri Security is exceptional. It’s easy to go through and check the status of the different elements of your website to add additional security.

If you have questions, problems, or run into any trouble when you’re using the Sucuri Security plugin, you can reach the customer service team via live chat or email.

4. iThemes Security

Formerly known as Better WP Security, the iThemes Security plugin is another popular choice for WordPress users. Unlike the other plugins we’ve looked at so far, iThemes Security doesn’t offer as many free benefits, so it’s in your best interest to upgrade to the pro version if you’re going to install this plugin. The free version comes with basic security, but you won’t have access to the pro features, such as:

• Two-factor authentication
• Scheduled malware scans
• Google reCAPTCHA
• User action logs
• WordPress security keys
• Importing and exporting capabilities
• Dashboard widgets
• File comparisons
• Password security and expiration

As you can see from this list, it’s definitely worth upgrading to iThemes Security Pro, which starts at $52 per year.

With iThemes Security, users will automatically be banned after attempting too many invalid logins, which will help prevent a brute force attack on your site.

There is also a scanning feature that will identify any potential vulnerabilities for an attack. Once those areas have been identified, the plugin shows you how to repair the problems in a matter of seconds. iThemes Security even helps strengthen the security of your server. The plugin forces SSL for admin pages, posts, and other pages on supporting servers. The plugin will hide the most common WordPress security vulnerabilities that are usually targeted by hackers. You’ll receive a notification via email anytime there is a problem or potential security threat on your WordPress site.

This plugin fully integrates with your WordPress dashboard as well, which is a nice touch. It doesn’t feel like it’s intrusive, and you don’t need to navigate to any third-party platforms to add security to your site. iThemes Security also offers extensive video tutorials, which I found to be extremely helpful.

5. All In One WP Security & Firewall

All In One WP Security & Firewall is packed with free features. The interface is extremely easy to use, and you don’t need to be a technology or security expert to figure things out.

One of the reasons why this plugin made my list is because of the visual elements on the dashboard. You can get reports with graphs that explain all of the metrics related to your website’s security. Furthermore, the plugin tells you which actions you can take to improve the security of your WordPress website.

Each security feature is segmented into three categories:

• Basic
• Intermediate
• Advanced

You have the ability to apply certain firewall rules progressively in a way that won’t hinder the functionality of your website. As a result, the speed of your website won’t be slowed at all.

The plugin scans your WordPress website for vulnerabilities. After these vulnerabilities have been checked, the plugin will assist you in implementing changes to enhance your security. Everything is measured by a grading system. The grades are based on different levels of security for each element on your website.

Another top feature offered by All In One WP Security & Firewall is spam security for your comments section. Getting lots of comments on your blog posts or other website pages can be extremely beneficial for SEO purposes, but not if those comments are spam. Instead of manually checking all of your comments and deleting spam on your own, this plugin can do the work for you. It automatically detects IP addresses that are known for producing spam and blocks them from commenting. If certain addresses have exceeded a specific number of spam comments, they will even be blocked from accessing your site altogether.

I haven’t even mentioned the best part of all. This plugin is free. That’s right, 100% free. Unlike free versions of other plugins, All In One WP Security & Firewall doesn’t withhold top features and pitch upsells. It’s completely free to all WordPress users.

6. BulletProof Security

The BulletProof Security WordPress plugin isn’t necessarily as popular as some of the other plugins out there, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider it as a top choice for your website.

It claims that in the last seven years, none of the 45,000 websites that installed BulletProof Security Pro have been hacked. Impressive, though this number has some contingencies and doesn’t account for things like server hacks.

This plugin is extremely easy to install and get up and running in just a couple of clicks. The free version of BulletProof Security gives you access to features like:

• Security logs
• Security monitoring
• Malware scans
• Database backups
• Database restores
• Anti-spam tools
• Anti-hacking tools

I really like BulletProof Security’s maintenance mode. It will keep your site secure while you’re going through front-end as well as back-end updates and maintenance, times when your site would normally be more vulnerable to hacks or breaches.

While the installation and setup wizard is easy for anyone to do, overall I’d say this security plugin is geared more toward advanced WordPress developers. BulletProof Security allows you to customize so many different security settings. So, I’d say start with that version before you decide if you want to upgrade. That will at least give you a feel of the interface and navigation. If you go with the paid version, BulletProof Security offers a 30-day guarantee, so there’s no risk there either.

7. Jetpack

Jetpack is considered a WordPress powerhouse. It helps improve performance and protect your site in countless ways, including advanced security, automatic backups, easy-to-decipher analytics, marketing tools, site speed enhancements, and more. Plus, with more than 5+ million activations and frequent plugin updates, you know you’re in good hands. 

While Jetpack offers dozens of different features, its advanced security functionality is incredibly powerful on its own. As such, this WordPress security plugin is excellent for anyone needing real-time security scans, backups, and anti-spam protection. 

With it, you get real-time backups that automatically trigger anytime you make changes. So, your backups are always up-to-date and can be reverted back to if anything goes wrong. With your subscription, you get unlimited storage for backups so you never have to worry about running out of space. 

Furthermore, you proactively prevent security threats using Jetpack’s scan feature. You can set it up to automatically scan new files and content, or you can run it daily. It scans your entire website on the hunt for malware and malicious software to find vulnerabilities and stop attacks before they happen. 

Another standout feature is the ability to block and clear spam submissions through comments and input forms on your site. Without this, you may unknowingly end up with hundreds of spam comments creating an awful visitor experience for anyone unlucky enough to scroll to the bottom of your latest post. 

Not only that, but you have to manually delete them rather than blocking them from going through in the first place. 

Jetpack also delivers various other security features, including:

• Brute force attack protection
• Downtime monitoring so you learn about issues before your visitors do
• Detailed activity log outlining every site change that’s made

There are dozens of pricing options to choose from, depending on what you need. If you want all of Jetpack’s security features, you’re looking at $55.95 per month for real-time security or $19.95 for daily security. 

Alternatively, you can get Jetpack’s full suite of tools, including security, marketing, design, SEO, CRM, and more, for $79.95 per month. If it’s within your budget, this is a great way to simplify your plugin stack. 

But if you’re on a tighter budget, you can purchase security features separately. Each of the three major tools (daily backups, daily scans, and anti-spam) is $7.95 per month individually.

Conclusion

What’s the best WordPress security plugin?

It’s tough to name one as the definitive best, but I’ve been able to narrow down the top seven for you to consider in 2021. It all depends on what you’re looking for.

Some of these plugins have more advanced features than others, which aren’t always necessary for all websites. Some plugins are easier for beginners, while others are better for advanced developers.

Do you want a free WordPress security plugin? Or do you want a pro version with annual charges?

All of this needs to be taken into consideration when you’re picking the best security plugin for your website. I’m confident you’ll find what you need on the list above.

How fast is your website?

You might think your website is fast — but is it enough? You may be surprised that 47% of Internet users expect web pages to load in two seconds or less and they mean it: 40% of people will abandon websites that don’t load within three seconds.

That’s right. A second could cost you 40% of your website traffic. And of the 40% of visitors who abandon your site, 80% of those people won’t return.

Let’s say your website has 1,000 unique visitors per week. You have a 5% conversion rate, and your average order value is $100.

This translates to $5,000 per week and $260,000 per year. Not bad, right?

But if your website took longer than 3 seconds to load, you’d lose 40% of that traffic, and you’d actually earn $104,000 less than that.

Bottom line: Slow loading times could be costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.

Fortunately, there’s a way for you to speed up your website loading times. What’s the solution? Caching.

What is caching?

Let’s start with the basics. A request to your server is required each time someone visits a page on your site. The server sends those results to the user’s web browser.

On the user’s end, they see your website as the final product. Your website is complete with things like headers, menus, images, videos, blog content, and everything else that makes your site unique.

The server needs to process each request before delivering the final page to the user. Depending on the complexity of your website, sometimes this can take a long time.

That’s where caching comes into the equation. Caching stores recently viewed content, such as a web page, so server requests won’t be as in depth.

Here’s a visual representation of what caching looks like.

Simply put, caching means less work is required for pages to be viewed on your website. As a result, your site will load much faster.

Why do you need a WordPress caching plugin?

Without a WordPress caching plugin, requests for every element of your website need to be made to the server each time someone visits your site, even if they’ve seen the content before.

A caching plugin will:

• Speed up your website
• Increase the user experience
• Reduce the strain on your server
• Improve SEO
• Lower your TTFB (time to first byte)

Caching plugins will generate a static HTML page of your site, which will be saved on your server. Whenever someone visits your site, the plugin will display the lighter HTML version as opposed to the heavy PHP scripts.

There are tons of caching plugins out there that claim to speed up your website. How can you possibly know which one to install? Truthfully, it’s nearly impossible to determine which plugin is the fastest. Depending on the website content, what works for one site may not work as well for another. With that said, there are definitely certain caching plugins that stand above the rest. I took the time to identify the best WordPress cache plugins for you to consider.

The 5 Best WordPress Cache Plugin

After reviewing dozens of the top WordPress cache plugins, I’ve narrowed it down to the five very best ones. They are:

• W3 Total Cache
• WP Rocket
• WP Super Cache
• Hyper Cache
• Comet Cache

Check out our in-depth reviews below for more on each.

1. W3 Total Cache

With more than one million active installs, W3 Total Cache is one of the most popular WordPress cache plugins on the market.

W3 Total Cache is an open-source plugin, which is completely free to use. A free install gives you access to all of the features, and you won’t be pitched any upsells after the fact.

I included this on my list of best WordPress cache plugins because it offers minifications that save bandwidth, HTTP compression, as well as feed optimization.

This plugin works for both mobile and desktop versions of your website. W3 Total Cache integrates with your website’s CDN. It’s also helpful for sites with SSL certificates, making it a top choice for ecommerce websites.

You should keep in mind that W3 Total Cache can be a bit complex to use. Even though it’s a popular choice, it may not be the best option for WordPress beginners. There are 16 pages in the settings section of this plugin, for example. However, you won’t have to manually configure all of these options. The default settings work well right out of the box. So unless you’re a developer who has lots of experience with these options, I’d recommend sticking to the defaults.

If you want that type of added customization, there is a separate setting for each type of caching. You can have different settings for things like:

• Object caching
• Page caching
• Browser caching
• Database caching

The list goes on and on. It’s tough to find this type of in-depth customization for free on other WordPress cache plugins.

2. WP Rocket

The overall simplicity of WP Rocket t is what makes it one of the best WordPress cache plugins, which is why it’s great for beginners.

You can install this plugin and get it set up quickly. However, WP Rocket also has advanced settings that can be customized by developers or site owners who have a bit more technical knowledge.

Pricing starts at $49 per year for one website. WP Rocket also has a developer plan that’s $249 annually for unlimited sites.

I know what some of you are thinking: Why should I pay for this when there are so many free WordPress cache plugins available?

Simply put, you get what you pay for. For $50 per year, I’d rather have a plugin with an easy setup and smooth interface.

Plus, WP Rocket comes with extra features that you won’t find in free cache plugins. It indexes your website on search engines to help improve your SEO ranking and all JavaScript, HTML, and CSS files get minified to boost page loading speed.

Another benefit of this plugin is the “images on request” feature. This means that images only get loaded when they are visible on the screen. So if you have pages with lots of images deeper in the scroll, they won’t be loaded initially. This dramatically improves your loading time.

This plugin also helps optimize your Google Fonts, which is something that’s not offered by most cache plugins I’ve used.

Overall, WP Rocket is one of the best WordPress cache plugins for beginners and experienced developers alike.

3. WP Super Cache

WP Super Cache has more than two million active installations. I’m not saying you should always follow what other people are doing, but numbers this high are usually a pretty good indication of quality.

This plugin is completely free as well. So it’s a great option if you’re hesitant about spending money on a WordPress plugin.

WP Super Cache creates static HTML files and displays them instead of heavier PHP scripts. The plugin offers three different modes of caching:

• Simple
• Expert
• WP-cache caching

Most of you can get away with using simple mode. You’ll need a custom permalink, but this option is much easier to configure and doesn’t require you to change your .htaccess file. The majority of web pages will still be dynamic in simple caching mode.

As you might have guessed, expert mode is a bit more complex. Unless you’re experienced with coding and web development, I would not recommend this setting to you. It requires an Apache mod_rewrite module as well as modifications to your .htaccess file. If you don’t know what you’re doing, improper modifications of these files can be detrimental to your website.

WP-cache caching mode is used to cache content for known website visitors. This is ideal for those of you who have users who are logged in, leave comments, or need to be shown custom content.

If you don’t want to things to get too complicated, you can always just stick with simple mode, but the fact that WP Super Cache has so many other options makes it one of the best WordPress caching plugins.

4. Hyper Cache

Hyper Cache was designed with WordPress blogs in mind. It will work on every blog, without any complex configurations. Hyper Cache optimizes your bandwidth and ultimately boosts the page loading speed of your WordPress blog.

You can install Hyper Cache with ease and the process is very fast. I’d say this is one of the best WordPress cache plugins for users who are beginners and don’t want to manage tons of different cache settings. With this plugin, you can implement the “set it and forget it” mentality. So once you have it installed, you don’t have to do much of anything after the initial configuration.

You’ll notice that some of the settings may have some odd names that you’re unfamiliar with but Hyper Cache comes provides recommendations and detailed information about which should be activated and how each setting impacts your website.

Like some of the other options on our list, Hyper Cache is free. It offers CDN support and has mobile-friendly caching as well. It’s a great tool to have for those of you who have blogs with lots of comments.

Something that I found interesting about Hyper Cache is the way that this plugin completes website backups. The cache folders aren’t included in your backups, meaning the backup files will be smaller and save you space.

While this plugin should be a top consideration for WordPress bloggers, I wouldn’t recommend it for more complex sites, such as ecommerce platforms. If you fall into that category, you’d be better off with a more advanced plugin from this list.

5. Comet Cache

Comet Cache has a quick and easy installation process. Once installed, you’ll find that the navigation on the dashboard is extremely user friendly.

I like this plugin because it’s so informative. You’ll find tons of resources that will tell you everything there is to know about caching. This will help you configure the settings to optimize the performance of your own WordPress site.

You’ll have plenty of different options for caching with Comet Cache:

• Pages
• Posts
• Tags
• Categories

If you’re looking for simple customization, this plugin is definitely one that you should consider. The ability to cache users who are logged in makes Comet Cache a top option for membership websites.

Comet Cache has both free and paid versions. Most of you can probably get away with the free WordPress plugin, but the paid upgrades offer better features. If you upgrade your plugin, you’ll have the option for automatic and intelligent cache clearing. Basically, this feature allows you to configure all of your settings from the beginning, and then have a “hands-free” approach moving forward.

Conclusion

Installing a WordPress cache plugin will boost your website speed and improve the user experience. Now that we’ve established why caching plugins are important, the question becomes, Which is the best WordPress cache plugin?

It depends what you’re looking for. Some plugins are designed for ecommerce websites, while others are intended for WordPress blogs. Some cache plugins are made for beginners, while others have more complex settings for advanced developers.

Do you want a free WordPress cache plugin? Or are you looking for a paid version?

Based on all of this information, I narrowed down my list to the top five options to consider. There is something for everyone on this list, based on the type of website you have, your technical experience, and the type of settings you want to apply. Use this guide as a reference to help you find the best WordPress cache plugin for your website.

Want my quick answer? BlogVault and BackupBuddy are the best WordPress backup plugins out there. 

If your website crashes, you need a way to get it up and running ASAP.

That’s why you need a good WordPress backup plugin. Your website could become the victim of user errors, vicious attacks, or malware.

When that happens, expect a hit to your SEO ranking, and damage your relationship with customers and website visitors. On top of rebuilding your website, you’ll also need to run campaigns to improve your online reputation.

Backup plugins help you avoid these situations. It’ll restore all of your WordPress website content if you ever have any problems.

So what’s the best WordPress backup plugin?

6 Best WordPress Backup Plugin

There are tons of options to choose from. The last thing you want is to install a backup plugin as a fail-safe and have it cause more problems. That’s why I narrowed down the list to the six best WordPress backup plugins for you to consider.

• BlogVault
• BackupBuddy
• Jetpack
• UpdraftPlus
• Duplicator
• WP Time Capsule

Use this guide as a reference to help you find the right one for your website.

1. BlogVault

BlogVault is trusted by 400,000+ websites for their backup needs—and for good reason.

In between its affordable pricing ($7.40 / month) and it’s great features, it’s sure to give you everything you would need out of a WordPress backup plugin.

It’s also incredibly intuitive. Even the newest WP user will be able to learn the ropes quickly.

They also offer easy migration in case you’re changing web hosts.

One other very nice feature is the fact that BlogVault backs up your website even if your website is down. You’ll be able to access any backups via your BlogVault dashboard while you wait for your site to go back up.

BlogVault also creates multiple backup copies of your website, allowing you to upload them into a third-party storage site like Google Drive or DropBox for even more protection against lost data. And with daily automatic backups, you’re sure to have the most up-to-date backups as possible.

Recovering your website is a snap too. With just one click, you’ll be able to restore your backed up website and return it to what it was the day before the hack or loss of information occurs.

BlogVault allows you to add sites to their service to. You’ll be able to manage all of your website backups on one dashboard, and generate reports and analytics for each one.

Pricing for BlogVault starts at $7.4 / month and includes real-time backups, a 90-day backup archive, and one site. Try BlogVault now.

2. BackupBuddy

The BackupBuddy WordPress plugin has been around for nearly a decade. Other backup plugins on the market only backup your database, but BackupBuddy covers the entire WordPress installation.

• Website pages
• Posts
• Comments
• Widgets
• Users
• Database
• Core files
• Custom posts
• Categories
• Tags
• Images
• Videos
• Plugin files
• Settings
• Themes

All of these components will be backed up with this plugin. The files are backed up and stored off-site in a location that’s safe and secure. Each time a backup is completed, you can download a zip file to have another copy on your hard drive. You can also send backups to remote storage locations such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and BackupBuddy Stash.

If you ever have a problem and need to recover content, BackupBuddy makes it easy to quickly restore your entire WordPress site.

While this plugin can back up nearly every element of your WordPress site, that doesn’t mean you have to do so. For one reason or another, you may only want to backup certain components, like a database or specific files. You can completely customize the backups to fit your needs.

Another reason why BackupBuddy is a top choice is because you can schedule automatic backups, so you won’t have to remember to do this manually.

BackupBuddy is extremely helpful when it comes to user error as well. If you accidentally delete a post, you can restore the content in just a few clicks.

If you ever need to change domains or hosts for your WordPress site, the BackupBuddy plugin will help you do so with ease. The WordPress migration tool makes this plugin a popular choice for developers who create custom websites for clients on a temporary domain before moving the site over to a domain that’s live.

BackupBuddy also runs malware scans, which can potentially identify any problems before they happen.

All of these features make BackupBuddy one of the best WordPress backup plugins available.

3. Jetpack

Jetpack offers a suite of WordPress plugins to help backup you WordPress website and scan the website for malware.

True to its name, it backups your website at jet-like speeds. Their real-time backup package means you’ll be able to make changes to your website with peace of mind, as the plugin backs up your changes in real time.

The daily backup package offered by Jetpack is also pretty good. It’ll automatically back up your website once a day, with a 30-day backup archive to draw on. That means if your website goes down, or a change that you make to it causes it to crash, you’ll have the past month of backups to revert back to.

Their one-click restore from desktop or mobile means you’ll be able to get your website up and running no matter where you are (so as long as you have an Internet connection of course).

As mentioned they offer two different plans: Real-time backups and daily backups. Both come in monthly or yearly billing (though you’re saving more money with yearly billing).

Real time backups per month cost $49.95 per month and $479.40 per year. With that you’ll get real-time backups, unlimited backup archives, unlimited log of site changes, and one-click restore.

Daily backups cost $9.95 per month and $95.40 per year. This comes with automatic daily backups, 30-day backup archive, 30-day log of site changes, and one-click restore.

Personally, I’d go with the yearly real-time backups. Nothing beats the peace of mind of knowing if something goes wrong, you’ll be able to revert it back at any point.

4. UpdraftPlus

Over two million active websites have installed UpdraftPlus as a WordPress backup.

UpdraftPlus gets my vote of confidence because it’s so easy to use. Even if you don’t have much technical experience, the interface is very straightforward. The simplicity allows you to backup and restore content in just a click or two.

The free version of UpdraftPlus lets you run full backups, manual backups, and scheduled backups. You can also back up and restore your plugins, themes, and database with the free version.

Automatic backup options range anywhere from hourly to monthly. If you want to manually manage UpdraftPlus, you’ll clearly see the restore, clone, and migrate options in addition to the backup buttons. You can access all of your current backups directly from the dashboard. It’s easy for you to restore or delete older versions that you no longer need.

Like other backup plugins, UpdraftPlus gives you remote storage options to places such as Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and many more.

UpdraftPlus is fast. So it uses up fewer server resources. This is a great feature for those of you who are using shared web hosting services.

It’s comforting knowing that there are free WordPress backup plugins out there with so much functionality. With that said, you can upgrade to a premium plan that’s extremely affordable, starting at $42 per year to get these additional features and reports:

• Incremental backups
• Migrator
• Multisite/multi-network compatible
• Backs up non WP files and databases to multiple remote destinations
• OneDrive, BackBlaze, Azure, SFTP storage destinations
• Database encryption
• Advanced reporting
• Dedicated expert support

The incremental backup feature is one of the best reasons to upgrade this plugin. Instead of having to back up your entire site when you make a change, such as adding an image, this option only backs up those new files.

If you have any issues with this plugin, the customer support team is exceptional.

You can tell that UpdraftPlus is a reliable plugin just by the sheer number of active installs on other websites. The plugin wouldn’t be so popular if all of those people had problems.

5. Duplicator

With over one million active installations, Duplicator is another popular choice. As the name implies, the primary function of this plugin is to migrate, move, or clone a WordPress website between domains. This can be accomplished without any downtime, which can’t be said for other plugins out there. You can also use Duplicator to transfer your WordPress website between hosts.

This plugin lets you duplicate a live website to a staging area, or duplicate your staging area to a live site. Duplicator allows you to execute a full migration in WordPress without having to import and export SQL scripts.

This plugin is a great option, but I can’t say I’d recommend it to beginners. It’s definitely better for those of you who have some technical knowledge. Don’t get me wrong; you don’t need to be a coding expert, but you should have a basic understanding of how things work before you attempt to use the Duplicator plugin on your website.

It’s great for developers who are tired of manually configuring themes and sets of plugins each time they build a new site. You can just do this once and bundle it with Duplicator, then just use that as your template by migrating it over to different locations for each client.

Here’s how it works: All of your website content, plugins, themes, and database get bundled into a zip file, which is referred to as a “package” by Duplicator.

In addition to these features, you can also benefit from scheduled backups by upgrading to Duplicator Pro. The pricing is pretty affordable; it starts at $79 per year.

Backups can be stored locally, or in remote locations. You can also set up email notifications for updates on the status of your backups.

I’d say this WordPress plugin is more suitable for developers who have the need for migrations and things of that nature. So if that’s what you’re looking for, Duplicator can fulfill the requirements. It’s great for developers who are tired of manually configuring themes and sets of plugins each time they build a new site. You can do this once and bundle it with Duplicator, then just use that as your template by migrating it over to a different locations for each client.

But if you just want a basic backup plugin, you’ll probably be better off with one of the other choices on our list.

6. WP Time Capsule

WP Time Capsule seamlessly integrates with your cloud storage applications. This WordPress backup plugin is definitely one of the easiest options available. So unlike other options that we’ve seen, even a novice user can handle all of the features. Once the plugin is installed and set up, it’s pretty hands-off moving forward.

After you install this plugin, the first thing you’ll need to do is connect it with one of the cloud storage locations:

• Google Drive
• Dropbox
• Amazon S3
• Wasabi

Once that happens, the plugin will automatically start creating your first backup.

Next, you just simply have to set your backup schedule and the WP Time Capsule plugin will take care of the rest.

Another great feature of the WP Time Capsule is the calendar view option. This is extremely helpful if you want to restore content from a specific date.

As you can see, this is very straightforward. All you have to do is click on the date, and decide if you want to view or restore files from your selection.

Since WP Time Capsule backs up your site incrementally, you won’t have multiple copies of files. This means less disk space will be used. WP Time Capsule doesn’t create zip files either, so fewer server resources are used compared to other backup methods.

If you want a backup plugin that’s simple, straightforward, user-friendly, and easy to use, WP Time Capsule is a top choice to consider.

Conclusion

What’s the best WordPress backup plugin?

I narrowed down the top six options for you to consider. Each of these plugins is slightly different from the others, so what’s best for your site will depend on what you’re looking for.

For those of you who want to go with a popular choice for WordPress backups, then you should take a closer look at BackupBuddy and BlogVault.

If you’re a developer, a bit more tech-savvy, and plan to use a backup plugin for cloning, migrations, and moving content between servers, you’ll want to consider Duplicator.

Maybe you just want a simple backup plugin that’s easy to use, has automatic backups, and stores content in your personal remote storage accounts. In this case, you’ll want to go with WP Time Capsule.

If you want added security functionality in addition to WordPress backups, VaultPress has what you’re looking for.

Want to just get started? Click here to sign up for Shopify and transfer your website to Shopify today.

More than 2 million users have chosen to make their store on Shopify, and that number is growing every year.

Are you looking to make the switch? This guide will help you transfer your store to Shopify in four easy steps. I’ll walk you through each of them, so you can move your store to Shopify without any hiccups.

Top Ecommerce Platforms Compared

We rated Shopify as the top ecommerce platform and recommend you migrate your online store there.

• Shopify – Best all-around ecommerce platform
• Wix – Best for stores with fewer than 100 products
• BigCommerce – Best for large inventories
• Squarespace – Best for cornering a niche market
• Bluehost – Best for WordPress users who want to sell online

You can read our full reviews of each ecommerce platform here.

4 Steps to Transfer Your Website to Shopify

In mapping out these steps, I’ve assumed that you have a store that’s generating revenue, and you want to keep that revenue going while you build your new store.

Moving your website to Shopify is easy when you follow these instructions:

1. Build your new Shopify site
2. Get your redirects ready
3. Go live and point your domain to Shopify
4. Shut down your old ecommerce site

Step 1: Build your new Shopify site

First, let’s get your Shopify store built.

During this step, don’t worry about your new Shopify store conflicting with your old store. Your Shopify store will be locked behind a password, so no one will be able to see it until you’re ready to launch your new store. You’ll control when it becomes publicly accessible.

The new store will be built on a Shopify subdomain that looks like this: company.myshopify.com — this means there won’t be any conflicts with your current store, which will still be live on your current URL. Traffic and revenue will keep coming into your current store like normal.

You’ll sign up for Shopify, find the temporary subdomain (which doesn’t need to be perfect since no one will ever see it), and pick a theme. From there, you’ll load your products, build out your pages (About Us and the Homepage), and set up payments.

If you’ve never set up a Shopify store before, you may want to stop here for a minute and check out my complete guide on how to create your ecommerce store on Shopify.

For some of this, you’ll have to build it by hand. You’ll need to add the elements to the homepage yourself, for example. It’s definitely tedious, but once it’s done, you’ll be so glad that you moved everything over. The benefits of Shopify drastically outweigh this one-time transfer.

Transferring your store to Shopify from WooCommerce

If you’re transferring from WooCommerce, you’re in luck. Shopify does have an import process that should allow you to import the bulk of your product info into Shopify.

As you create your Shopify store, Shopify will ask you if you’re transferring stores and which platform you’re transferring from. If you select WooCommerce, you’ll see an import option in your store dashboard as soon as your store is created.

There’s more info on the WooCommerce import process for Shopify here.

Batch importing products and customers to Shopify with a CSV

Even if you’re not moving from WooCommerce, you can import your products and customers from a CSV file. (You can’t import your order history unless you have Shopify Plus. More on that below.)

To import your products to your new Shopify store, you’ll go to Products in the admin panel. Near the top, there’s a small text link that says Import. There’s a sample CSV — format yours like the sample.

The process for importing customers is similar. Format your CSV per the guidelines, then navigate to Customers from the admin panel, then Import customers.

Another option is to use a migration app from the Shopify App Store. Here’s one called Cart2Cart. Price is based on how many products you want to import.

Shopify also has the option to hire a store expert through its Services Marketplace to help with the transfer.

Transferring your store with Shopify Plus

If you have Shopify Plus, the enterprise version of Shopify, this transfer process is even simpler. You’ll have access to the Transporter app.

Shopify Plus only makes sense if you’re a larger business with lots of revenue and thousands of products to transfer over. There are details on which data can be uploaded and how to organize the CSV here.

I highly recommend that you also import all your historical customers and order info if you have access to Shopify Plus. Getting all your core business data in one place avoids lots of headaches with reporting later.

Step 2: Get your redirects ready

There are two major reasons why you need to prepare a list of redirects when transferring your site to Shopify.

First, this step ensures that any customer using an old URL will end up on the correct page of your new site—even after the switch. So you won’t lose revenue from visitors who would otherwise land on dead pages.

Second, proper redirects will transfer the page authority that’s already been established on your site. So Google won’t treat your Shopify site as brand new pages starting from scratch. The link authority will be passed on and help prevent a dip in search traffic after the switch.

Shopify makes it easy for anyone to add redirects to a new store. From your Shopify dashboard, you can locate the URL Redirects option within the Navigation menu of the Online Store tab.

If you follow this process, all of your redirects will automatically go live when your Shopify store launches. 

Just make sure you create a redirect for every URL that has a different location in Shopify. For example, products in Shopify have a URL like this: company.com/products/product-name

If your old product URLs use a different URL structure, you’ll need to create a redirect for each product. Repeat this process for all  pages with a different location in Shopify.

Check the URL path of every page and product that you create in your new Shopify store. If they’re the same as your old store, there’s nothing you need to do. If they have a new URL path, create a redirect for them.

Do I have to redirect every URL from my old site?

You don’t necessarily have to redirect every URL from your old site when you’re switching to Shopify. Here’s the rule I like to follow:

Redirect every URL that has a clear corresponding page on the new site. 404 everything else.

404s simply tell anyone landing on an old URL that nothing is there.

A few years ago, I was very anti-404. I used to think that every single URL needed a proper redirect and I went a bit overboard on a site.

Eventually, our hosting provider reached out and told us that we had too many redirects on our site — we needed to cut them down to 1,500. We had about 2,500 at the time.

They were right, we did have too many. I was paranoid about trying to help users land on the right page. I was also worried about losing any traffic from Google and I thought 404s might reduce our rankings. I was wrong on both counts.

First, users struggle a lot more with weird redirect paths than a 404. A 404 gives a super clear message: the page you’re looking for doesn’t exist. But weird redirects can be tough for site visitors to understand.

Second, Google prefers 404s for pages that no longer exist. It’s a clear signal for them and they don’t reduce rankings for sites that have 404s. They’ve publicly stated numerous times how they only want sites to add redirects for pages that have a one-to-one relationship.

Definitely build out your list of redirects for the pages that have changed URLs in Shopify. For everything else, don’t build a redirect and allow the page to 404 once you switch your site to Shopify.

Step 3: Go live and point your domain to Shopify

Now it’s time to go live!

It is possible to buy a domain directly from Shopify, which sets everything up for you. But I’ll assume you already have a domain with another domain registrar since you’re transferring your site to Shopify.

In this case, you’ll need to get your domain to point to Shopify so when people visit your site, they find your Shopify store.

You’ll need to log into your domain registrar and edit your DNS settings. You’ll be adding an A record and a CNAME.

Shopify has step-by-step instructions and the exact settings you need to configure here.

As soon as you save these DNS settings, your domain will start pointing to Shopify, so make sure you’re completely ready to make the switch before doing this step.

It’ll also take up to a few hours for the changes to go live completely. This is because the DNS servers of the internet don’t update instantaneously. It takes a while for them all to spot new changes.

It’s very normal for you to see the change but for someone else to still get your old site. Nothing’s broken — it’s just taking some time for the new DNS settings to reach everyone.

If you have a smaller ecommerce site and you’re not too worried about having a few hours when visitors are routed to both sites, feel free to do the switch any time.

If you want a cleaner cut between the two sites, the most popular method is to do the switch during your lowest-traffic time. For most sites, it’s usually in the middle of the night on a weekend.

For major sites with tons of revenue and users, that’s typically when “maintenance windows” occur. For most of us, picking the middle of the night during the week works really well. This causes the least disruption and is standard practice these days.

My advice on when to switch your site

• If the stakes are high and you have a lot of revenue coming in, do the domain switch in the middle of the night, even though it’s inconvenient.
• If you’re not too worried about the switch, do it on a Monday morning. That gives you all week to fix gaps or put out any fires that come up with the new site. As a general rule, you don’t want to release anything on Friday because if something goes wrong, you’ll spend all weekend trying to fix it.

What happens if something goes horribly wrong?

Keep your old ecommerce site live during the transition. The domain and all your URLs will point to your new site, but you want the old stuff on standby in case something critical breaks during the transition.

What if new orders stop processing?

What if traffic plummets and doesn’t come back?

What if conversions fall off a cliff and people stop ordering even though everything technically still works?

There’s an endless list of weird scenarios that could seriously impact revenue and your business. The odds are slim that any of these will pop up, but you want a foolproof backup plan just in case.

If something horrible happens, your backup plan is to point your domain back to your old site. It’ll take a few hours for all the changes to reverse themselves but they will reverse.

I like to keep my old site for at least 30 days to make sure everything is healthy.

Step 4: Shut down your old ecommerce site

Once everything has been switched over, and you have at least 30 days of healthy activity on your new ecommerce site, it’s time to take the old ecommerce site down entirely.

Skipping this step can cause problems later on.

I personally find it easy to neglect infrastructure cleanup items. For the time being, it doesn’t cause problems. But sooner or later, I get hit with a random fire that I’m not expecting.

On one site I was managing, I found old ecommerce checkouts that were still live years after they should have been shut down. Occasionally, a customer did manage to find the page themselves and use it. This created all sorts of fulfillment problems.

Not to mention the fact that you’re probably paying for another ecommerce tool at this point. Better to get it shut down and reduce your monthly software expenses.

This step should be pretty easy. Once you cancel your subscription to your old ecommerce software, that company should turn everything off for you. Other than logging into your old account and hitting the cancel button, there shouldn’t be anything else that you have to do.

Then you’ll be completely transitioned to Shopify without any loose ends to worry about.

Want to just get started? Click here to sign up for Hostinger and start your online store with WooCommerce today.

Starting an online store isn’t only about having a brilliant idea—you also need to market it well to maximize your reach.

Get it right and you’ll watch sales start to roll in. Get it wrong and you’ll just have a very time-consuming hobby on your hands. In this post, I’ll show you how to create an online store today and how to get your first customers to show up.

Top-Rated Ecommerce Website Builders to Create an Online Store

If you want to create an online store, you’ll need an ecommerce website builder. Here are the best options.

• Hostinger — Best for WooCommerce sites
• Shopify — Best all-around ecommerce website builder
• Wix — Best for launching an online store in minutes
• BigCommerce — Best site builder for multichannel selling

You can read our full reviews of all our recommended ecommerce website builders.

Start an Online Store in 6 Easy Steps

The sooner you start, the sooner you can pick up on the trends that really matter to your market.

1. Pick your marketing strategy
2. Find the right product niche
3. Pick a name for your brand
4. Create your online store
5. Do a 60-day marketing burst
6. Build your marketing flywheel

Step 1: Pick Your Marketing Strategy

Create a solid marketing strategy that helps you achieve your short-term and long-term business goals. While this may not look too hard, how well you choose your marketing strategy can make or break your online store. 

Generally, successful online stores use one of the following three tactics:

1. SEO
2. Paid marketing
3. Platform marketing

Let’s discuss them in more detail.

SEO for Online Stores

This marketing strategy is pretty simple: find keywords for products that you want to offer, then get your site to rank in Google for those keywords.

In this example, IKEA, Target, and Amazon rank very well organically (the ones underneath the carousel and the ads) for the search term “bookcase.” That means when hundreds of people search the term bookcase every day, they’ll be led directly to these websites where they can purchase bookcases.

If you get this strategy to work for your business, you can make a lot of money with your online store.

SEO has a few benefits that are ideal for a business:

• The traffic streams are very dependable, which means dependable revenue for your business.
• Search traffic usually has the highest volume of traffic of any traffic source.
• Even at scale, search traffic can be enormously profitable.

Dependable, high volume, and profitable. It’s everything you want.

There is one major downside: SEO takes a lot of time and effort. Even if you’re pursuing a product category without any competitors, it can still take a good 3–6 months to see your site appear on the first or second page of search results for a keyword.

And traffic volume will be pretty small until you get your page into the top 1–3 rankings on a keyword. If your category is even modestly competitive, it can take years of effort to get to that point.

If you go with SEO as the marketing strategy for your online store, you’ll focus on three things:

1. Optimizing your product pages for product keywords.
2. Building useful and engaging content for non-product keywords that are also in your category. This helps your product pages rank.
3. Making your content so good that people will link to it as a resource.

When playing the SEO game, there are only two things that matter: content and links. So that’s where you’ll spend the bulk of your time.

Paid Marketing for Online Stores

Some online stores do exceptionally well with paid marketing. This includes sponsored posts on Instagram and Facebook, and paid results in Google searches. Paid marketing involves ad placements you buy.

But is paid marketing right for your business? My general rule of thumb: paid marketing is a great option if your product is the type of thing that could be featured in a mall.

Why?

The biggest paid marketing channels right now are Facebook and Instagram. Instagram in particular has gotten very popular for online stores in the last few years.

But think of the frame of mind someone has while scrolling through their Facebook or Instagram feed. They’re relaxing for a few minutes, laughing at a few photos, and leaving quick messages for a few friends. They’re enjoying themselves. It’s a lot like how people shop at a mall.

Sometimes, people are looking for a particular item, but a lot of people go to the mall to enjoy themselves. Malls have known this for a long time and stores have optimized around this browsing experience.

Products that sell effectively in a mall are also likely to do well with a paid ad on Facebook or Instagram. These products typically are:

• Consumer products. Business products have a much harder time on these channels.
• Highly visual and eye-catching. This is why apparel companies do so well in malls and why apparel companies have been really aggressive on Instagram in the last few years.
• Simple to understand. The offer needs to be understood within 3 seconds. If you have a more complicated sales process that requires more explanation, people will have scrolled past your ad long before you have a chance to make the sale.
• An impulse-friendly price point. If the price is too high that people need to carefully think through the decision, they’ll skip your ad and quickly forget it.

If your product meets all these criteria, you should seriously consider going the paid marketing route.

Google Ads (formerly AdWords) is one exception to this. Since you’re bidding on keywords within Google, you put your ad in front of people who are already actively searching for that type of product. As long as the keyword has enough search volume and the ad bids aren’t too competitive, it’ll work very nicely.

The biggest downside to paid marketing is that you’ll have to invest a bunch of money upfront before you know whether or not you can turn a profit. Many of us don’t have those thousands of dollars to invest without a reliable chance of getting it back.

Most paid campaigns don’t turn a profit initially; they usually take a lot of iteration and work before they start making a profit. Most professional paid marketers need 3–6 months before their campaigns become profitable.

So be careful and make sure you don’t invest more than you can afford to lose here. If cash is tight, choose one of the other marketing options.

Platform Marketing for Online Stores

This is a completely different direction than the two methods above.

Instead of creating your own store and using a type of marketing to acquire traffic, you’ll leverage one of the main ecommerce platforms:

• Amazon
• Etsy
• eBay

It’s definitely possible to be successful at any of these three. I recommend most folks go after Amazon. Amazon’s audience is much larger which gives you more upside and just about every product niche already exists on Amazon.

The main exception is if you’re doing a craft business of some kind, like making your own bookends to sell to people. In that case, Etsy is a better fit since the audience expects more craft-oriented products.

eBay is still great if you’re doing a bunch of buying and reselling. But if you’re producing the same types of items consistently, the potential on Amazon is much greater.

You treat whichever platform you choose as your marketing channel. First, you’ll create your store on that platform and list all your products. Second, you’ll optimize your store to the best of your ability so the platform wants to feature your products.

Optimizing your store usually involves focusing on two areas:

• Targeting your product pages to specific terms searched for within the platform
• Getting as many 5-star reviews on your products as possible

As you improve your search terms and reviews, more people will see your products on that platform, which will produce more sales for you.

How to Choose the Best Type of Online Store for You

The type of online store you open will be directly tied to your marketing strategy. Those options include:

• SEO — Focusing on content and links, which requires time and patience. 
• Paid Marketing — You’re paying for exposure. This strategy requires money upfront, an easy-to-understand product, a friendly price point, and about three to six months of work to pay off. 
• Existing platforms like Amazon, Etsy, and eBay — You’ll focus on winning the search terms within that marketplace and stacking up 5-star reviews. Success here requires a commitment to that platform.

I strongly recommend that you pick one of these and build your entire business around it. That’s right, just one.

Why can’t you do more than one?

I’ve made this exact mistake so many times myself. After a decade of working in online marketing alongside some of the most well-respected marketers out there, I’ve noticed one overwhelming trend—businesses that are good at one type of marketing are generally pretty bad at the others.

Here’s why it’s hard to be good at multiple types of marketing:

• Every marketing channel is completely unique. While some marketing principles apply across all channels, you’ll have to learn all the tactics from the ground up. Constantly trying to learn new channels really slows you down.
• Online marketing channels constantly change. What works today won’t work next year. Even though I’ve spent a decade doing SEO, I still feel like I’m relearning it every year. If you’re focused on a single marketing channel, you’ll have a much easier time keeping up.
• Online marketing channels are power laws. This means the majority of the profits go to a few big players, and everyone else fights for scraps. If you’re not one of the winners, you won’t be making much.

If you stick with one marketing channel, you’ll get through the learning curve a lot faster. The faster you unlock your marketing channel, the sooner you’ll be making real money with your online store.

This step is crucial, so don’t rush through it. Landing on the right choice here will set up the foundation for your online store. 

Step 2: Find the Right Product Niche for Your Online Store

After choosing your marketing strategy, picking your product niche is the most important decision you’ll make.

One tip: Don’t just jump into product categories. Yes, being personally interested in the category really helps with building the business. But it’s also an easy trap.

You might pick a category that won’t support a thriving business. It doesn’t matter how much time and energy you put into it. If there’s no demand, the business won’t succeed.

Here are some of the things I look for in a good product category for an online store:

Avoid picking a category that’s too niche

A common best practice in marketing is to differentiate yourself. And this is powerful advice — it’s a huge advantage when you have it.

It’s also tricky to find a genuine way to differentiate yourself that the market is willing to pay for. There are countless ways to differentiate any given product, but only 1–2 actually matter.

Does the top-rated toothbrush holder on Amazon need to do something wacky and unique? Not at all. It needs to be simple, easy to use, reliable, affordable, and have a ton of reviews on Amazon. That’s it.

Instead of trying to differentiate yourself from every other product in your category, find a category with competitors that aren’t dominating their marketing channel.

Are the Amazon reviews low for all the top products? Are the SEO results of low quality? Are there no companies putting serious ad dollars behind a product? If the answer is yes, there’s an opportunity for you to out-compete them with your marketing.

A moderate price is key

Avoid any product category with too low of a price.

After all, if you only earn $1 in profit for each sale, you’ll have to sell 100,000 products every year to support yourself. After taxes and overhead, that’ll give you about $50–60K per year to live on.

Selling 100,000 of anything is a lot of work.

Is it terrible? Not necessarily. Could it be better? Definitely.

Now let’s assume that you’re selling something for $80 and making $40 in profit on each sale. To make $100,000 per year, you’ll only need to sell 2,500 items. That’s much more manageable.

However, you also want to avoid selling something at a price that’s too high. As pricing changes, so does buyer behavior. Prospects demand more proof. They may even demand a completely different buying process.

How many people buy cars without test driving them first? Not many. They want to see the car and talk to a real person before making a purchase that big. Cars require a lot of extra work and sales skills to sell effectively because of their higher price point.

We recommend finding a product that you can sell for between $50 and $100 dollars. It’s high enough that sales will add up quickly for you. Yet it’s also low enough that the buying process will be straightforward.

When trying to find the right price for the product you want to sell, it is important to accurately assess the costs involved. 

Setting the proper price for your items requires a lot of research. Determine what it will cost for you to obtain, store, and ship the products. Check out the competition for what kinds of price ranges you will be going against. 

If you estimate you will make a $40 profit, but you really only end up making a $20 profit, you will need to sell twice as many items to make that $100,000 per year we referenced. It is vital to accurately research your costs when you are looking for a product with a moderate price.

Make sure there’s demand.

You can tell if there’s demand by doing some easy research using the marketing channel of your choice.

For SEO, Google Ads has a Keyword Planner that tells you how many times something is searched in Google every month. If the keyword for your product gets less than 1,000 searches per month, it’s probably too small to build a business on.

Same with Amazon. If you have trouble finding products in your category with more than 100 reviews, it’s probably too small.

These days, I’d much rather pick a category that I have zero experience in but has genuine demand. That’s much better than realizing that a passion category of mine has zero demand later on.

Step 3: Pick a Name for Your Brand

Heads up: This is a TOUGH step.

That’s because a lot of the good names have been claimed. The websites are taken, the best names have been trademarked, and you’ll feel like you’re hitting dead-end after dead-end.

You might feel tempted to cut corners. You might even want to choose a less-than-ideal name just to get on with it.

Do not do this.

It’s 100% worth the effort to find a good one. It will pay off.

Here’s the naming checklist I use:

• Easy to spell. I never want any friction when people are trying to find my site.
• 3 words or fewer. I like to keep it as short as possible so it’s easier to remember. One or two words is ideal, three is still good…more than that is too many.
• Pass the bar test. I should be able to say the name in a noisy bar without repeating it. That’s a great sign that it’s easy to understand. This is huge for word-of-mouth marketing later.
• Can get the .com domain. Every online store needs a .com. It’s become too much of a standard. Some folks use weird domains like company.online or company.io. In my opinion, this causes problems later because whoever owns company.com will know how valuable it is once you try to buy it. I either buy the domain early or find one that’s instantly available.
• Relevant to your category. Make sure the name relates to your product category in some way.
• No trademark conflicts. Any corporate law firm can do a quick check for you on this. Since legal time is expensive, find 3–5 name options that check all the above items. Then have an attorney check for the trademarks all at the same time. It’s rare to not have at least one of them work.

We have an in-depth guide on how to pick and buy a domain name here.

Once you have your name picked, grab the domain using your domain registrar. Or if you’re buying the domain from someone, get it transferred into the domain registrar that you want to use for the long term.

Step 4: Open Your Online Store

If you’re pursuing an SEO or paid marketing strategy, this is a crucial step.

Why? Simple: The quality of your site has a huge impact on how much of your traffic will turn into buyers.

To make sure you make the highest-quality site, we recommend you use Hostinger.

Visit Hostinger

• 30-day free trial
• Pre-built ecommerce templates
• Integrated payment processing
• Free marketing & SEO extensions

Try Hostinger for Free

Hostinger offers a great deal on WooCommerce (starting at $3.99 per month), and they make the setup of your online store as easy as humanly possible.

Even if you have never built a website before, let alone an online store, Hostinger offers a truly plug-and-play solution. You can be adding your first products in less than an hour of signing up, even if you’re an ecommerce rookie.

Here’s a step-by-step walkthrough of how to set up your WooCommerce store with Hostinger. There’s a much more detailed process there.

If you plan on carrying thousands of items, or have multiple inventory locations (brick & mortar stores, warehouses, etc.), you probably want something like Shopify or BigCommerce that is built to scale. Learn how to set up your Shopify store in our in-depth guide. WooCommerce is still a solid choice, but those two platforms handle bigger operations better.

But for most people starting their first store, running WooCommerce on Hostinger is all they need at a lot lower price.

Every ecommerce platform I’ve recommended comes with built-in marketing tools. You” also be able to connect your online store to social networks, like Instagram and Pinterest, as well as marketplaces, like eBay and Amazon.

Let’s talk about how to drive some digital foot traffic to your new shop.

Step 5: Do a 60-day Marketing Burst

There’s a good chance you’re starting small when your online store launches. 

So looking for quick wins to build momentum will really help you out in these early stages. You still need to get your first review, first page that ranks on Google, and first purchase from a paid ad.

Don’t worry about scalability, efficiency, and optimizing your systems in these first few days. Instead, find easy ways to build momentum—even if it takes lots of personal outreach and effort on your end. 

Examples include:

• Tap into your personal network to see if anyone is willing to do an interview, and publish it on their own website. This will help you get your first few backlinks.
• Ask personal friends and relatives to leave reviews on Amazon.
• Spend some of your own cash on paid ads to test the offer.

These obviously aren’t sustainable strategies over the long term, but they’ll get you some quick wins. 

Do some research on your marketing channel and create a list of 50 ideas that you could do on your own. Then prioritize those ideas and create a 60-day Marketing Bust. The idea here is to ship as many ideas as you possibly can within those 60 days.

Be reasonable with your time and effort here. You don’t need to put in 90-hour weeks and burn yourself out. But expect to roll up your sleeves and put in some work.

By the end of this 60-day burst, you should have your first handful of sales. That sales stream should be enough to start building your marketing flywheel.

Step 6: Build Your Marketing Flywheel

Once you have some initial momentum, it’s time to start building the marketing flywheel that will grow your business around the clock without you having to personally accomplish every task.

What’s a flywheel? It’s a big wheel in an engine that helps create and preserve energy. We’re taking the same concept to your marketing plan to create big growth.

In the early days on Amazon, you’ll need to personally ask for a lot of your first product reviews. But that’s not sustainable.

Instead, look for marketing tactics that help create Amazon reviews for you without you asking for them.

Here’s an example:

A popular tactic on Amazon is to ask customers to leave a review. Some will even promise a discount code on the next purchase if a review is published.

You can automate that tactic. Have an assistant send the same templated email to every new customer, asking for a review and promising a discount code on their next order. All the platforms allow you to message customers personally through the platform.

So while you shouldn’t email blast all your customers at once, you can have an assistant send messages out one by one every week on your behalf. That’s a repeatable flywheel that doesn’t take up your time.

There is a ton you can do with email marketing that doesn’t cost a dollar.

A quick side note on this review tactic: Before you try something like this, make sure to check the guidelines and policies of the platform you’re on. There are always rules about these sorts of things and every platform is slightly different. Be careful to not push things too far, putting your store in danger of getting removed entirely.

Look for as many of these repeatable marketing flywheels as you can.

Instead of creating content yourself, can you pay someone for content?

If you did the keyword research, made a list of requirements that you want on each piece of content, and hired someone else to write the post itself, you could create a lot more content to help you win with an SEO marketing strategy. That’s a flywheel.

Instead of optimizing your paid ads yourself, can you delegate that? If your conversion rates are consistently improving and your cost to acquire a customer is going down, that lets you buy more customers with the same amount of capital. That accelerates your business without your personal effort. Another flywheel.

Focus on your core marketing channel and then build a marketing flywheel that will keep your online store growing without any effort from you. This is the key to opening an online store, generating sales quickly, and accelerating its growth.

Final Thoughts About Starting an Online Store

With the six tips above, you can start building an online store with Hostinger–or whichever ecommerce website builder matches your needs best. See all of our top picks on the list of our favorite ecommerce website builders. You can also check out our guide to the best web hosting companies to see what you need to go live with your online store. Happy selling!

Start your free trial with Hostinger today and start your online store in just minutes. Then follow the rest of my tips above to get an edge on the competition.

Visit Hostinger

• 30-day free trial
• Pre-built ecommerce templates
• Integrated payment processing
• Free marketing & SEO extensions

Try Hostinger for Free

Our recommendation for most people is Hostinger because it’s an affordable, fast, and reliable web hosting service. Sign up with Hostinger for as low as $1.99 per month.

With the wrong web host, you’ll end up paying for more than bad service. You have to get this right because a reputable web host keeps your site online and helps you avoid unnecessary downtime.

This guide explains the best types of web hosting for different situations. Use these reviews to find the best web host without breaking the bank.

The Top 10 Best Web Hosting Providers

Best of 2023: A2 Hosting, Bluehost, DreamHost, HostGator, Hostinger, InMotion, Nexcess, Scala Hosting, SiteGround, and WP Engine.

Whether you’re setting up your first website or adding to an existing portfolio, all of my top picks give you all the tools you need. However, five providers stood out to our researchers in terms of performance, value, and ease of use.

Our favorite web hosting providers for 2023 are:

• Hostinger – Best overall
• DreamHost – Best value for shared hosting
• SiteGround – Best for extra speed and security
• Bluehost – Best for new WordPress websites
• Scala Hosting – Best upgrade from shared hosting

All of the hosts above are well-rounded providers that make launching your next website a breeze.

Our research team reviewed and tested dozens of web hosting providers to narrow it down to the five on this list. In addition, we reviewed a handful of other hosting providers that are excellent for more specific situations.

Each review covers the highlights and pricing for each web host. After the reviews, we include a buying guide to help you compare the best options.

Hostinger – Best Overall

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• Starts at just $1.99 per month
• Free weekly backups
• Free SSL certificate
• 30-day money-back guarantee

Get started now

Hostinger offers dependable web hosting at an incredible price. Shared hosting plans start at $1.99 per month, which includes free weekly backups and enough bandwidth for 10,000 visitors to your site.

Normally you have to back up your site yourself or pay extra, but you get that peace of mind for free with Hostinger.

The most popular option is the Premium Shared Hosting plan which costs $2.99 per month. This lets you create up to 100 websites and host 25,000 visitors. You’ll also get a free domain for one year and a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate to secure your website.

The Premium Shared Hosting plan provides 100 GB SSD storage, which is enough for various website content. Should you need more space, upgrade to one of their VPS or cloud hosting plans.

Hostinger uses its own control panel called hPanel. Thanks to the eye-catching and well-organized navigation icons, it’s user-friendly and easy to navigate. It also comes with an auto installer that lets you set up WordPress or other content management systems using only a few clicks.

Another great feature is their dedicated WordPress dashboard on hPanel. 

You can manage several tasks, such as updating the core WordPress version, activating or deactivating plugins, and enabling maintenance mode from the hPanel. A navigation button lets you access your WordPress dashboard via hPanel with a single click.

LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress (LSCWP) is automatically installed when you set up WordPress. Its server-level cache and other optimization features help you accelerate the website for a better user experience.

Hostinger ensures your maximum online presence with its 99.9% uptime guarantee. Quick-response 24/7 live chat support will also assist you whenever you need help.

For more information on Hostinger, including its plans, pricing, and benefits, check out our in-depth Hostinger web hosting review.

DreamHost – Best Value for Shared Hosting

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• Unlimited bandwidth
• Free Privacy Protection
• Recommended by WordPress
• 24/7 In-house Support

View the Latest Deals

DreamHost is home to more than 1.5 million websites. People trust DreamHost because they provide fast websites, at great prices, in clear terms.

The company has a 100% uptime guarantee and will compensate you if your site goes down. After signing up, if you are not happy with the performance, you can cancel within the first 97 days to receive a full refund.

There are no surprises, just a streamlined web hosting experience that beginners can master quickly. Advanced users will be happy to find that they can access anything they need without having to upgrade plans.

As far as shared hosting goes, DreamHost provides the most value of any web host out there.

Free daily backups of your site? Unlimited traffic? It sounds too good to be true, but it’s not.

As long as you’re running a legitimate website, you never have to worry about bandwidth or backups, even on DreamHost’s most budget-friendly hosting plans.

Dreamhost keeps your contact information from being registered publicly with your domain. Almost all of web hosts charge a fee for this, but it’s free with DreamHost.

It’s also a great option for WordPress hosting. DreamHost is one of three web hosts that is officially recommended by WordPress. It’s virtually hassle-free with one-click WordPress installation and automatic updates.

If you have a WordPress site, DreamHost will migrate it free of charge.

They also include a no-code WordPress website builder with every hosting plan. Roll out a new site quickly and make changes going forward, even if you’ve never built a site before.

DreamHost shared hosting starts at $2.59 per month for one website with a Shared Starter plan. This is a great price for everything many small organizations will ever need.

Our complete DreamHost review covers the plans and pricing in greater detail.

Ticketed customer service is available 24/7, and you will always communicate with one of DreamHost’s in-house team. Phone support is an add-on for shared hosting plans, but you will be able to get help through email and live chat.

Sign up with DreamHost today for low-stress, high-value web hosting.

SiteGround – Best for Extra Speed and Security

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• Starts at $2.99/month
• Free SSL, email, CDN, & backups
• Recommended by WordPress
• 30-day money-back guarantee

Get an 80% discount

SiteGround is built to deliver top-class speed and rock-solid security for WordPress hosting. Currently, it’s running a huge promotion. You can get 80% off all annual hosting plans and a free website transfer. It makes a good deal even better.

Hosting on SiteGround means you won’t have to worry about speed or security at all. It starts with the technology the hosting is built upon. SiteGround utilizes Google Cloud to maintain swift and stable connections and SSD persistent data storage to ensure low latency.

Of course, you’re not on the hook for any of this–you just have to sign up for SiteGround and launch your WordPress site–they’ll take care of the heavy lifting on the backend.

SiteGround security is on constant alert. It runs server health checks every 0.5 seconds, and its AI-driven anti-bot system blocks between 500,000 and 2 million brute force attack attempts every hour.

This combination of speed and security can work for most sites. But as one of WordPress’ recommended web hosts, SiteGround is particularly skilled at delivering this performance for WordPress sites and includes an extra layer of security just for those sites.

Plus, all SiteGround plans—not just the WordPress hosting options—include one-click WordPress installation, the WP Starter site builder, easy-to-use interfaces, and auto-updates for both the WordPress platform and its plugins.

For a limited time, you can receive up to 80% off all annual Site Ground hosting plans:

• StartUp: $2.99/month for one year, paid annually
• GrowBig: $4.99/month for one year, paid annually
• GoGeek: $7.99/month for one year, paid annually

Keep in mind that each plan will renew at a higher rate after one year. SiteGround also gives you options at checkout to pay for a 24-month or 36-month term instead– and gives nice discounts on renewals longer than one year. Two-year renewals get a 20% discount on the base renewal rate, and three-year renewals get 30% off.

So, in terms of long-term value, you’re still getting the best deal by capitalizing on their great intro rate for one year upfront.

Altogether, SiteGround offers the best technology and services to host your site and keep it fast and safe for all visitors. Refer to our full SiteGround review for more information.

Bluehost – Best for New WordPress Websites

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• Normally $9.99/month
• Free domain and SSL certificate
• Recommended by WordPress
• 30-day money-back guarantee

Get a 63% discount

Bluehost is one of the most popular web hosting companies in the world, especially among people launching their WordPress websites. Bluehost is one of three hosts that is officially recommended by WordPress, and we agree.

They offer great rates and a beginner-friendly platform that makes every aspect of running a WordPress website easy. You can certainly build other types of websites on Bluehost, but it is definitely set up to work best with WordPress.

Most of the time Bluehost will walk you through a task the first time, like setting up a blog or email account on your site.

If you get stuck or have a problem, Bluehost has 24/7 support by phone or live chat. The support number and live chat options are listed right on the site, so you can reach out for help within two clicks.

Installing WordPress takes one click, as do hundreds of other apps available in Bluehost’s deep app marketplace.

Bluehost also offers fantastic marketing tools, analytics, and SEO tools to track how well your website is ranking for specific keywords. This gives you a good idea of how you should optimize your site for the best search rankings.

The Basic shared hosting plan is usually $9.99 per month, but there are major discounts if you are a new customer. If you sign up for three years and lock in the price, you can get it at $4.75 per month.

Like other hosts, renewal pricing is higher than promotional pricing, so I recommend signing up for a longer contract to lock in the low price.

Quick Sprout readers an even bigger discount on Bluehost. New customers can click here to get a rate of $2.75 per month when they sign up for a new three-year contract.

If your site keeps growing and you want to upgrade, Bluehost gives you lots of options: managed WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated hosting. When you are ready for more server power and control, you can grow and stick with the same provider.

Bluehost is a very safe play for people who want to build their site with WordPress. If you want to use another content management system besides WordPress, there will probably be a little extra legwork and backend maintenance.

Try Bluehost today and test-drive their web hosting with a risk-free, 30-day, money-back guarantee.

You can also check out our full Bluehost review for a closer look at this web hosting provider.

Scala Hosting – Best Upgrade from Shared Hosting

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• Starts At $2.95/month
• Anytime Money Back Guarantee
• Free, Effortless & Guaranteed Migration
• Free Domain & SSL Certificates

Get Started

Maybe you’ve been running your website on shared hosting for a while and you’ve outgrown it. Or maybe you have an ambitious new website idea and you know the lower speed and security of shared hosting isn’t going to cut it.

No matter your reason, Scala Hosting offers the best way to take the first step up from shared hosting into something more powerful and secure.

While they offer an array of competitively priced shared hosting packages (starting at $2.95 per month), Scala’s Entry Cloud plan is a potent combination of server resources and premium features for boosting and fortifying the sites you host on it.

First, you’re getting the dedicated resources that come with cloud hosting. No more worrying about how other sites that share server resources with yours are dragging down your site’s performance. You’re guaranteed two CPU cores for processing power and 2 GB of RAM that no one else is going to tap into on Scala’s cloud hosting.

Entry Cloud also comes with the helpful features you’d expect from a step up from shared hosting. Scala provides 50 GB of NVMe storage space, which you can upgrade as needed. Simply pay a one-time fee to add anywhere from an extra 10 GB to a whopping 2 TB to your disk space.

You also get one year of a custom domain for free, free SSL certificates, daily secure backups of your site data, and additional premium features such as:

• 24/7 SShield malware monitoring
• OpenLiteSpeed caching for faster site loading times
• Dedicated IP address
• Priority support from Scala Hosting
• Dedicated firewall
• Custom access role for site and hosting management

It’s a really potent package that will set your site up for success. Scala’s Entry Cloud plan is faster, more reliable, and more secure than any form of shared hosting. 

Best of all? It’s one of the most affordable cloud hosting plans you’ll find.

Scala Hosting offers Entry Cloud for as little as $14.95 per month when you commit to a three-year term. That means you’ll lock in 36 months of upgraded hosting for just over $538 at checkout. 

While that might be a lot to spend up front, consider that some of the other providers on our list charge between $30 per month to $100 per month for comparable plans.

Don’t want to commit to three years? Entry Cloud’s rate rises for shorter terms, but not by too much. A one-year contract will lock in a rate of $19.95 per month while month-to-month billing will cost you $29.95.

Another benefit of going for a longer term with Scala Hosting is that you save on the renewal rate as well. One-year and three-year terms renew at $24.95 per month, five dollars less than the base monthly rate.

Stop playing in the shallows and get the upgrade your website needs to achieve success. Take the next step in web hosting by signing up for Scala Hosting’s Entry Cloud plan.

More Good Web Hosting Services

HostGator – Best for Simple Websites

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• Normally $7.99/month
• Month-to-month at $11.95
• Free domain and SSL certificate
• 45-day money-back guarantee

Get a 61% discount

HostGator offers all the hosting essentials you need at a great price, plus comes with a 45-day money-back guarantee. If you just need a standard business info website with products, services, “our story”, and so on, HostGator makes it as easy as possible.

HostGator offers an extensive list of how-to guides for technical support. If you don’t find the answers you need, you can turn to phone, live chat, and email support. You can also purchase optional services like their SEO package, which is especially helpful for those who aren’t sure where to start to optimize their website.

Unlike some hosts, HostGator does include support in all its plans. If you want a hosting plan that’s cheap and includes support, this is the host for you.

If you want to get your hands dirty, there is a bit of a learning curve to taking advantage of their advanced options.

HostGator does offer Windows hosting in addition to Linux, as well as a variety of options to upgrade, including cloud hosting, VPS hosting, managed WordPress, and a dedicated server. Shared hosting plans normally start at $2.75/month with a three-year contract.

But QuickSprout readers can get up to 66% off new HostGator plans using the link.

If you’re interested in trying HostGator, I recommend taking full advantage of the 45-day money-back guarantee and testing out their support thoroughly before committing.

We have a complete review on HostGator that dives deeper into its web hosting capabilities and plan options.

Overall, this is a great web host for simple deployment and uses like a company website that doesn’t necessarily see a ton of traffic each month. However, with VPS options, it’ll allow you to scale if you need.

A2 Hosting – Fast and Reliable Shared Hosting

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• Starts at $2.99/month
• Month-to-month pricing at $9.99
• Free domain and SSL certificate
• 30-day money back guarantee

Get a 63% discount

A2 Hosting stands out for its great speed and low prices. It’s what the company is known for.

At every hosting tier (shared, VPS, dedicated), A2 Hosting beats other hosts on speed. If you’re coming from another shared web host, you’re likely going to see an improvement in loading speed once you migrate to A2.

With their Turbo Boost and Turbo Max plans, you’ll get access to their Turbo Servers. They boast that it’s 20x faster than their other servers and includes:

• 40% faster AMD EPYC CPU performance
• 2x faster to first byte
• Manage 9x more traffic
• 3x faster read/write speeds with NVMe drives

A2 Hosting also has a 99.9% uptime commitment on all plans so you know you’ll have a reliable host that won’t be down often.

They offer free site migration with each plan too. If you’ve set your site up on a bad host and want to migrate, this is a fantastic deal. It’ll save you dozens of hours trying to get your site rebuilt. The A2 Hosting team takes care of it for you.

Like many of the other web hosts, there are 1-click installs for all the popular CMS tools like WordPress, Magento, and Drupal.

Plans start at $2.99 per month for a single website.

If you plan on hosting multiple websites, you’ll need to get the Drive plan which is an extra $2/month after the promotional period ends.

Our A2 Hosting review covers these plan options in greater detail.

One trick to save money with A2 Hosting: the promotional prices end on renewal. To lock in the 63% discount for as long as possible, go for the tri-annual billing which will bill for three years at once. You’ll get 2 years of hosting for free.

InMotion Hosting – Best VPS Hosting

Visit InMotion Hosting

• Normally $19.99/month
• Free domain and SSL certificate
• Free and unlimited email
• 90-day money back guarantee

Get a 57% discount

InMotion is the host for you if you’re looking for a virtual private server (VPS). They have the best pricing around, along with top-notch customer support as an added value. Something you usually have to sacrifice for a better price. But not with Inmotion. 

With VPS hosting, you get more control over the server than you do with shared hosting. This is great, but you definitely need to know what you’re doing configuring a server.

If you’re not super confident in the command line, you can opt for a managed VPS plan from InMotion. They’ll handle the technical side of things and keep an eye on security for you.

For the developers out there, InMotion VPS includes optional root access with every plan. You won’t have to upgrade to make the changes you want to the server.

Whenever questions come up, you can reach out to the company’s excellent customer support team. Don’t believe it? Try for yourself. InMotion’s 90-day free trial period gives you plenty of time to test out the quality of support.

Managed hosting, great support, and the latest technology–these are the reasons people choose to go with InMotion. This is covered extensively in our InMotion web hosting review.

I highly recommend this option for ecommerce. Online shoppers like a fast experience with no hiccups. With InMotion VPS you can ensure that your site has the resources it needs to handle any traffic spike.

There are also a number of fail-safes built into the hosting platform. If anything happens to your server, InMotion will automatically spin your site back up almost instantly on a server in the same cluster.

You also won’t have to worry about SSL certificates, which keep your shoppers’ credit card info private. All InMotion VPS plans include AutoSSL, which lets you enable this crucial protection for every website visitor with a single click.

VPS hosting with InMotion gives you the speed you need along with the peace of mind that your site will always be safe and secure.

Managed VPS hosting starts as low as $19.99 per month. Visit InMotion to find out if you can get an even better deal today.

WP Engine – Best Managed WordPress Hosting

Visit WP Engine

• Normally $30/month
• Month-to-month pricing
• Free domain and SSL certificate
• 30-day money back guarantee

4 months free or 20% off

WP Engine is one of the best (if not the best) WordPress hosts out there. Full stop.

They provide a truly excellent product, that’s highly optimized for WordPress websites. If you want all the storage and speed you can get for your WP blog or online store, this is the host for you.

It does come at a price though. A fully managed WordPress host is noticeably more expensive than shared hosting providers.

WP Engine’s lowest-priced plan is $20/month, and that’s only for one 10GB site with max 25,000 visitors/month. You get two months free when you sign up for a year, however, and can get an even better deal signing up through Quicksprout.

Yes, the price tag is higher than other hosts, but when you factor in what WP Engine does, it’s an incredibly appealing option for WordPress site owners.

As a managed WordPress host, WP Engine only provides service to WordPress users, which means its entire infrastructure can be optimized for WordPress. Your site will be wicked fast, there’s virtually no downtime, and lots of maintenance tasks get taken care of automatically.

It also offers special plans for people who are running an online store with WordPress. These are much more expensive than managed WordPress hosting, but you’ll get access to premium WordPress ecommerce themes and other tools that would cost hundreds of dollars sold separately.

Customer support is also laser-focused on WordPress, which makes for highly competent knowledgeable support staff available through tracked tickets and on live chat 24/7.

To see how WP Engine stacks up against the crowd, I recommend reading our complete WP Engine review.

Bottom line: If you want a blazing-fast WordPress site where everything is taken care of automatically, you’ll want WP Engine. You’ll be paying more in order to get a lot more.

Nexcess – Best for Ecommerce Hosting

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• Managed web hosting for 9 CMS
• Great for ecommerce sites
• 24/7 customer service
• Choose from 9 different plans

Learn More

Nexcess is a web hosting solution from Liquid Web — a provider I’ve featured on my lists for best dedicated web hosting, best VPS hosting, and best WordPress hosting.

So it’s no real shock that Nexcess makes my list of best web hosts. Where it really shines is managed ecommerce hosting. This is ideal for people who need a speedy site, but don’t want to be the one configuring the backend.

Nexcess really specializes in these managed hosting arrangements, and offers a great selection of ecommerce platforms to build on:

• Magento
• Woocommerce
• WordPress
• Drupal
• BigCommerce
• Sylius
• ExpressionEngine
• Craft CMS
• Orocrm

Again, all of these are managed ecommerce hosting plans–you won’t be on the hook for configuring the server or troubleshooting issues that pop up.

Need more speed? Not a problem. The Nexcess Cloud Accelerator—a feature that adds a layer to the cloud stack–increases the speed of your website’s loading time. That’s a huge boon because speed is everything when it comes to keeping your customers on your website and browsing.

Pricing starts at $15.83 per month with an annual contract for WordPress. There are many more plans and rates available for each type of hosting, it just depends on the resources you need.

This makes Nexcess perfect for any growing business looking to scale. No matter where you are with your business, there’s likely a plan for you with Nexcess.

On top of that, it has a dedicated support team available 24/7 to help you address any technical issues as they occur.

If you’re running an ecommerce website or if you have a startup that you know will grow quickly, Nexcess should definitely be in consideration.

Prices vary depending on which CMS platform you want to use. But WordPress plans start at $13.30 per month.

Additional Web Hosting Reviews

In a broad top list post like Best Web Hosting, I considered how different options stack up against one another and how they fit within the general category.

But there are more things to think about, like taking a deeper dive into individual hosting providers to learn more about their strengths and weaknesses. Likewise, you also want to think about the different types of web hosting available, and check out reviews of the providers that excel in those different categories.

The following information will be helpful to you as you make your decision about the best hosting provider for your unique needs.

Hosting Company Reviews

Narrowed your list to a few top options? Before you make that final decision, check out our detailed company reviews on some of the most popular web hosting services out there today.

• Hostinger Review
• Bluehost Review
• Dreamhost Review
• HostGator Review
• A2 Web Hosting Review
• InMotion Review
• SiteGround Review
• iPage Review
• GoDaddy Review
• Whogohost Review
• NameCheap Review
• Bluehost vs Dreamhost Comparison
• Bluehost vs HostGator Comparison

Types of Web Hosting

Not clear on the different kinds of web hosting available? Wondering who is the best in a given category? No matter which criteria is most important to you, be sure to read up to learn more about it all in the following posts.

• Understanding Different Types of Hosting
• Best Free Web Hosting Plans
• Best Cheap Web Hosting Plans
• Best Cloud Web Hosting Plans
• Best Cpanel Hosting Plans
• Best Dedicated Hosting Plans
• Best Reseller Hosting Plans
• Best Shared Hosting Plans
• Best VPS Hosting Plans
• Best WordPress Hosting

How To Find the Best Host for You

You do not have to know anything about web development to get hosting.

But knowing how to assess a few key factors helps a lot.

I’ll hit on each one in this section. You’ll be able to assess your options, get something that works for you, and not have to worry about hosting again for a while.

So how do you evaluate web hosts? What actually matters?

Let’s go through all the key items.

Site Uptime

Uptime is the most crucial component of a good web host. If your site isn’t up, you won’t make money or gain an audience.

First and foremost, you want a web host with great uptime. This means your site is always available and never goes down.

To try to avoid the “just trust us” promise of near-perfect uptime, most hosts provide some sort of guarantee of at least 99.9 percent uptime. However, that guarantee isn’t much of a guarantee. It just means your bill can be discounted in the event of any unplanned downtime.

HostGator, for example, will credit you one free month of hosting if your uptime ever dips below 99.9%.

There’s a lot of fine print on these guarantees, too, including not accepting self-reported or third-party uptime data, and not providing refunds for downtime that was out of the host’s control (for example, a hurricane).

Site Speed

Site speed impacts everything related to your site. Want search rankings? Get a fast site. Want conversions on your site? Make it fast. Want happy users? Speed it up.

Every part of your business is impacted by the speed of your site.

When looking at different web hosts, make sure you’re choosing a host that can serve every page lickety-split.

There is some nuance with site speed.

In the early days, you need a host that’s fast “enough.” It doesn’t have to be blisteringly fast, but it needs to be fast.

Think of Amazon. Back in the day when Amazon just sold books, its site needed to be fast but it didn’t need to be instantaneous.

But now that many people use it for all their shopping, Amazon’s site can’t be fast enough.

In other words, the bigger you get, the faster you’ll want to be. If you’re planning on building a high-traffic site, you’ll want a host that can maintain crazy-fast speeds on large sites.

Customer Support

When running your own site, web host customer support is the single most important thing a web host can offer.

Digging through use reviews doesn’t always give you a conclusive answer on the quality of support at a particular web host.

Watch out for glowing reviews on top publications, they don’t always reflect reality.

There is one true test for assessing the customer support quality at any host.

The free trial customer support test.

Pretty much every web host has some sort of money-back guarantee on their shared hosting plans, which means you can set up your website and see what you think of the service with relatively low stakes — just your time and any add-on fees you opt into, like paying for domain registration.

I recommend going to town with customer support during that trial period. Get on live chat, open tickets, and hop on the phone as much as possible to see if you like what you’re being served up.

Most web hosts offer some sort of free trial period. I recommend using this time to really dig into your host’s customer support — its knowledge center and especially support staff across all channels. That’ll tell you the real story.

Traffic Volume

The amount of traffic that you get has a huge impact on the hosting that you need.

For a site that gets 300 visitors every month, pretty much any standard hosting package will be good enough. As long as your web host has strong customer support, you’re good to go.

As you get bigger, all sorts of small details start to matter a lot more.

Is the PHP on your server being updated regularly? Do you have a CDN for your content?

Is your site being backed up daily and can you restore it within 15 minutes if something goes wrong?

Do you have an SSL certificate? Can your server handle a giant traffic spike during a marketing promotion?

Whenever I have a larger site, I look for premium hosting that takes care of all this for me. And if I’m planning on building a large site, I look for a host that can easily scale to millions of visitors per month. I’m happy to pay a premium price in order to guarantee easy upgrades in the future.

Don’t skimp if you’re going big. And if you’re wondering how to get to big, here are 25 tips for growing your website traffic.

Of course, not everyone has aspirations to go big. If that’s you and you plan to stay under 50,000 visitors/month, get a standard shared hosting package. It will simplify your life, trust me. There’s no reason to worry about the advanced stuff.

Price

While you don’t want to overpay on hosting, you definitely don’t want to underpay either.

That being said, avoid choosing a host exclusively on price.

Most basic web hosting plans are in the $10-$20/month range. Yes, there are cheaper options. Some of them are promotional offers that go away at renewals. Others are hosting plans with terrible support and uptime.

My rule is if the price sounds too good to be true, it probably is. For example, you may find a very attractive introductory rate for just a few dollars per month and lock that price in for one or more years. However, when the time comes to renew your hosting, you will likely find the price will jump, sometimes by a lot.

If you don’t like the renewal price you either have to live with it or change hosts. Changing hosting services can be a huge hassle, especially if you’re not tech savvy. You definitely do not want to be moving your sites every year or two, and that is what can happen if you start choosing a host based exclusively on price.

I don’t worry about chasing promotional offers to save a few dollars. For every site I’ve ever managed, I used the same host without ever switching. Once you have a host you’re happy with, changing to save a few bucks isn’t going to be worth it. Promotional offers come and go pretty quickly.

Migration Features

The ability to easily and quickly migrate an existing site will save you weeks of time.

Even a basic WordPress site can be a real hassle to migrate.

First you have to set up a new WordPress install on your new host. Then you need to export the database of content from your old site and import it into your new one. Finally, you have to re-configure everything in WordPress like the theme, plugins, and settings.

And if something doesn’t go quite as planned? You might be stuck with a website that doesn’t function. Fixing errors can sometimes take days, meaning your site is out of commission. Not something any website owner wants to see happen.

All this potential risk can be a real pain–and it’s why I put together an entire guide on WordPress migration.

Fortunately, it is possible to skip all these steps and mitigate your risks, too. Some hosts will offer a one-click migration for popular site builders like WordPress.

If you’re switching hosts and handling the migration yourself, look for an easy migration feature. This is a great way to make the final decision on which hosting service is best for you, once you’ve narrowed it down to a few final options.

If you are really concerned, A2 Hosting has a team of specialists that will migrate your site for you free of charge.

Managed Hosting

Here’s how a normal host works:

• After you sign up, you get a login.
• The login takes you to cPanel. The cPanel is an app on your server that lets you manage it through a UI without needing to know how to code anything.
• You configure your server however you want.
• There’s an FTP option to upload files manually to your server.
• There are also quick options for installing WordPress and other site software if you want.
• You get full access and can do anything you want. It’s a “choose your own adventure.” Install WordPress, Drupal, Magento, or code your entire site by hand.

Alternatively, there are managed web hosts. These hosts customize the hosting environment and manage a lot more of it for you.

WP Engine is the best example, they’re a managed host for WordPress. Instead of getting a cPanel login that lets me do anything I want, WP Engine gives me a login to their custom interface that’s built to manage WordPress sites specifically.

When a web host is optimized exclusively for WordPress, three key things happen:

1. Faster-performing sites than shared hosting. Everything can be tailored to make WordPress work its best, whether that’s optimizing website caching or tinkering with the command line tools. The host only needs to know how to support WordPress, as opposed to, say, Joomla and a Node server and some sort of custom-made site and on and on.
2. More security and stability. A managed WordPress host can build a system that predicts, accommodates, and patches all of WordPress’s vulnerabilities. That means fewer malicious attacks and less downtime.
3. Admin and site maintenance get a lot easier. And that service is vital because managed WordPress hosting is significantly more expensive than shared web hosting services.

While I give up some flexibility from not having a basic web server like other hosts, a managed host takes care of a lot of ongoing tasks that I’d normally have to handle myself.

If you have a small business site, a normal host is fine. If you’re building a larger site, a managed host will save you a ton of time in the long run and is worth the extra cost.

Best Web Hosting: Your Top Questions Answered

The Top Web Hosting Providers in Summary

The best hosting providers offer different types of web hosting, including shared hosting, cloud hosting, VPS hosting, WordPress hosting, and managed hosting. You also need to evaluate factors like uptime, site speed, and support.

As your traffic grows, you need a hosting provider that can scale with your site. Whether you’re starting a new website or looking to switch providers, this guide has you covered.

My quick take? I prefer Domain.com over other top registrars. They have great prices and super easy to use. It’s the registrar that I personally use and always recommend.

You need a domain name.

More specifically, you need the RIGHT domain name.

This is like choosing the name of your child. You want to get it right the first time.

Don’t just register whatever domain name is available and call it a day. That’s a big mistake.

In this guide, I want to walk you through my process for buying a domain name, starting with how I go about coming up with a name in the first place.

Visit Domain.com

• Straightforward and easy to use
• Great for multiple domains
• Easy domain transfers
• Top notch customer service

Get 25% off with coupon code: QUICKSPROUT

Brainstorm Concepts and Ideas

If you already have a name you want to buy, awesome! Head on down to the next section.

If you want to see if your domain name is actually good (or if you don’t know what domain name to pick), keep reading.

This is crucial. It’s the name you’ll use for your business, or a campaign, or a blog. You want to try your best to nail this on the first try.

Create a Concept List

Take your project and write down of all the words, descriptors, phrases, ideas, mantras, etc. that come to mind. Come up with as many words as possible. Use a thesaurus to help. I like to call this a concept list. It’s the list before your final name list. It isn’t necessarily names, but for now, just concepts.

Some high level rules:

• Don’t worry about SEO or keywords — that doesn’t matter.
• Avoid hyphens.
• Stick with a .com only. If you are in the UK, Australia, etc. then of course a .co.uk, .au, etc. is also good.
• The shorter the better, generally speaking.

I personally find a mind map useful for this process.

Concepts are intrinsically more generative than specific words because concepts can include other concepts. —Operative Words

Choose Potential Domain Names

Once you have a thorough concept list, you can develop a more refined list of potential names. Start by listing all the names you like. Since you might not have an unlimited budget, make sure to dig deep here. You can’t be too picky yet, because that will end up limiting your options. Write down everything you think might work.

I recommend browsing through the following websites to get more ideas. You might get lucky and find something you like just by browsing. If you do, add those to your list as well.

BrandBucket — They put together more creative, brandable domain names and then sell them. I’ve found a lot of names here I would not have thought of on my own.

BuyDomains.com — They have a huge selection of domain names for sale. They have transparent pricing and offer a seamless experience. This is always my starting point, and preferred approach to acquiring a domain name.

Sedo.com — Probably the biggest selection of domain names and the most well known place to acquire a name.

BuyDomains.com and Uniregistry are the biggest players in selling domains. More times than not, if a domain name is for sale when I type it into my browser, it is one of those two companies that is behind the sale. I find them to be the most reasonable. HugeDomains.com is another one I have bought from.

More Naming Tools to Come Up with Concepts

If you get stuck, I recommend listening to this podcast episode with Anthony Shore from Operative Word, a company that specializes in naming things. Recently, he’s named the on-demand fitness system Tonal (love how it’s a word that conveys fitness tone and some sense of the futuristic) and Virgin Voyages (formerly Virgin Cruises, which really, who wants to take a cruise when you can take a voyage?). He uses a variety of tools, too, which I’ll list here:

OneLook.com – This is like a thesaurus juiced up with killer capabilities and wildcarding options. Say you want a name that starts with Bl and ends with rd, and it’s seven letters long — you can literally search for that.

RhymeZone – Pretty self explanatory. Bet you didn’t know that Quick Sprout rhymes with six out, big trout, this crowd, clear out, and sixth round. In addition to rhymes, you can also find synonyms and adjectives.

Sketch Engine – This is very intense corpus linguistics database; it uses a large body of real world language that it runs through a computer to organize and tag that language. Anthony sets his to all the news articles from 2014–2017. You can look up words that are used near or in relationship with other words. Basically, you’re finding words that are already natural together. This makes your name more relatable, credible, and adoptable. He talks about it more on the How Brands Are Built podcast.

MRC Psycholinguistic Database – He talks about this more in the podcast — it’s a pretty advanced way to search for words with certain criteria. You can use it to find words that start or end a certain way for example.

Now that you have a giant list of options it’s time to narrow down the list.

Narrow Down the List According to Viability

Narrow your list down quickly by typing in the .com for each name that you like. Type it into your browser and see what is there.

• If there is an established website built on the domain name, cross it off your list. It is very unlikely to be a viable option.
• If nothing comes up at all, then keep it on your list. That could mean that the domain name isn’t registered yet, which is great!
• If a landing page with ads comes up, the domain name is parked. It is owned by someone already, but might be an acquisition target. Keep this on your list.
• If the domain name is for sale, that’s the best case scenario. It’s exactly what we are looking for. Keep this option on your list, and take note of the listed price if there is a listed price.

The best domains are typically the ones for sale unfortunately. But if you have the budget for it, it’s well worth the investment.

Once you have the narrowed down list, the next step is to dig even deeper to determine what your final options will be.

Choose Your Name

It’s now time for the big decision.

Remember the rules-of-thumb:

• Don’t worry about SEO or keywords — that doesn’t matter.
• Avoid hyphens.
• Stick with a .com only. If you are in the UK, Australia, etc. then of course a .co.uk, .au, etc. is also good.
• The shorter the better.

Then, ask yourself these 10 questions about each of your domain name options:

1. Do you feel good about the name?
2. Do you like it?
3. Are you confident when you say it?
4. Does it feel good when you write it down?
5. When you read it?
6. Is it brandable?
7. Is it unique, easy to remember and meaningful?
8. Is it easy to read and spell?
9. Does it pass the Google test? Google the name. Ideally there are not any other organizations that pop up. If there are, you at least want to make sure they are not in the same industry, or even in a closely related industry.
10. If it passes the Google test, you are probably good to go, but just in case is it trademarked?

The Starter Domain Approach

An approach that I am a fan of is to use the starter domain approach. The idea here is that you can start with a domain name with the intention to move to another one down the road.

Let’s say you identify a domain name that you really like, but it is out of range for your budget. For example, when I was coming up with a name for my latest company, I really liked GoodLife.com. Someone else owns it and isn’t necessarily looking to sell it. If I wanted to buy it, I would have to offer a lot of money — a lot more than I was ready to pay. If I wanted to take the starter domain approach, I could have gone with the name Good Life Media, and acquired GoodLifeMedia.com which is for sale for $24,500. (That price must have gone up, because it wasn’t that high when I was actually considering this as an option.)

Anyway, I could start with GoodLifeMedia.com and eventually try to acquire GoodLife.com. It would be very easy to rebrand from Good Life Media, to Good Life. Internally, we would just go by “Good Life.” The day that we eventually acquire GoodLife.com would be a huge milestone and would create a built-in company goal that we could go after as a team.

If you want a real life example, The Wirecutter just recently rebranded to Wirecutter.

Considerations for the starter domain approach

• Make sure the names will translate cleanly. The two names have to be very closely related. Ideally they’re so close you could use the desired name everywhere outside of the actual domain name, including in your logo.
• It’s a risk — there is no guarantee your desired target domain name will be there when you are ready.
• I recommend getting into discussions with the broker or domain owner of your desired name as soon as possible. Even if you know there isn’t any chance you can afford it today. They don’t need to know that. This is actually a huge advantage for you, because it is common that over time the owner will drop the price as they realize their high price isn’t going to happen.

A Note on Social Handles

In a perfect world, you’d pick a domain name whose social handles are also available. This isn’t a perfect world. My take on this is that it’s hard enough to get a good domain name. Don’t make it even harder or nearly impossible by also adding this criteria. When it comes to picking up the social handles, you’ll have options. You can get creative, or even potentially acquire the handles from the current owners.

It’s a good idea to consider social handles when making your final decision, but don’t let that stop you from picking the right name.

How Much Domain Names Cost

There are two options when it comes to getting your domain name:

1. Register a name that isn’t already currently registered.
2. Buy a name that is already registered from the person that owns it.

Regardless of which option you go with, you’ll pay an annual registration fee of $7–$15/year on average. If you are acquiring the name on top of that, you’ll pay an additional acquisition price.

The cost of acquiring a domain name varies widely: You can easily spend 4–5 figures on a name. In some cases you can find a good one for hundreds of dollars. Some domain names aren’t for sale at all, while others have sold for millions of dollars. Recently, someone bought CoolQuotesCollection.com for $2,500 and Boot.com for $70,000.

There’s nothing wrong with registering a domain name that is available, as long as you’ve thought it through and are intentional about it. In fact, I encourage that.

The issue is that in many cases, people don’t even realize that there are other options. Getting your hands on the optimal name is more doable than you might think.

I suggest you put some budget behind your domain name — especially if it’s for your business. The tighter your budget, the more limited you’ll be more limited in what you can do.

Like most things you don’t pay for, a domain you get for free sometimes shouts to your customers that you’re cheap. I agree with Anthony Shore of the naming agency Operative Words that a non-natural word name probably won’t serve your brand well because it comes off as he puts it in this podcast, “domain desperation.” It’s not a good look.

Buy Your Domain Name

Visit Domain.com

• Straightforward and easy to use
• Great for multiple domains
• Easy domain transfers
• Top notch customer service

Get 25% off with coupon code: QUICKSPROUT

At this point you should have a narrowed down list of viable options for your domain name. The next step is to own it.

Each of your options should fall into one of three categories:

1. The domain name is available and unregistered.
2. The domain name seems to be acquirable, but it is not clear.
3. The domain name is clearly for sale.

We’ll tackle each one of these situations.

What to Do If the Domain Name is Unregistered

In this case, all you need to do is go to Domain.com and register the domain name (get 25% off with coupon code QUICKSPROUT).

You’ll find out for sure if that is an option or not once you type the domain name into the search bar.

You’ll go through a straightforward process here. Don’t buy any of the add ons or worry about web hosting or any of that yet except for “privacy protection”. It’s what will keep your name off a bunch of spam call lists. You want to use Domain.com to register your domain name and keep your information private (get 25% off with coupon code QUICKSPROUT). That’s it. They are the best domain registrar and I use them exclusively.  I do not use them for anything else because there are other companies that I use for the rest of my web needs. I’m a huge proponent of going to the expert in each area of my business.

After you finish registering the domain name, you’re done! You are officially the proud owner of your new domain name. All you have to do moving forward is  renew the domain name each year. If you fail to renew it, then someone else will be able to replace you as the owner. I recommend setting your domain to auto-renew. It’s just one less thing to worry about.

What to Do If the Domain Name Seems Acquirable

If the domain name seems acquirable, but it isn’t clear — you have two options. Either you can try to figure out who owns the domain name yourself and reach out to them. Or, you can hire a broker to do it for you.

If you hire a domain broker, there isn’t much risk. Typically, the only way you will have to pay a fee is if you buy the domain name. That’s the biggest downside.

Sedo is a good place to start if you want to hire a domain broker. I’ve used them before and have read good reviews from others.

In the case of doing it yourself, you can start with a WHOIS search to try to figure out who owns the domain name. Googling the domain name and seeing if it is tied to any social media profiles or other websites is also a good approach.

More times than not, I will fail at finding out who owns the domain name myself. It is common for people to use privacy features that hide their contact information. Most domain registrars offer this for free, so people tend to do it by default. (Like I said above, you should definitely opt into this feature.)

The benefit of a domain broker is that they have a huge network. They almost always know who owns what, and if they don’t, they have ways of figuring it out. Back to my GoodLife.com example. There is no way I would have figured out who owns that domain name if I didn’t have a broker figure it out for me. Of course, I still do not know who owns that domain name, but at least I have a broker who does.

Another benefit of a broker is that you do not have to deal with the awkwardness of negotiating price. You have a middle man who can be the bad guy for you.

What to Do If the Domain Name Is Clearly for Sale

Domain names that might be acquirable, as outlined above, can be challenging. I much prefer to focus on names that are clearly for sale. These are easy.

If the name is already for sale, the process is straightforward. The only thing you really need to think about is negotiating price.

Negotiating Price

There is often opportunity to negotiate price. Depending on who you are dealing with, there could be some room to get the price down. I don’t recommend pushing too hard or overthinking this. That might just lead to wasting time and potentially losing out on the name. However, there is no harm in giving it a shot and doing some level of negotiating.

After the Acquisition

Once you acquire the domain name, the next step is to transfer to your domain registrar. Again, I recommend Domain.com (get 25% off with coupon code QUICKSPROUT). You can see the process for transferring your domain name here. It also helps to understand how domains work.

Regardless of how you acquire your domain name, the final step is to see it sitting inside of your account. That is when it’s official!

My recommendation for most people is Shopify because it works well with most dropshipping services. Try Shopify free for three days, no credit card is required.

If you’ve always wanted to create an ecommerce brand but don’t have the time, space, or desire to store inventory and ship products yourself, consider starting a dropshipping business. This simple business model allows people to sell products online without taking on inventory, shipping, or fulfillment. 

Dropshipping offers a lot of potential for people with a knack for marketing. 

The 11 Best Dropshipping Companies, Suppliers, Databases, and Tools

Best of 2023: Shopify, Dropified, SaleHoo, Printful, Spocket, Wholesale2b, Inventory Source, Worldwide Brands, Modalyst, Importify, and DSers.

From finding the right ecommerce platform to locating suppliers, I’ve narrowed down the wide world of dropshipping and reviewed the best options on the market. In doing so, six companies stood out above the others.

My favorite dropshipping companies for 2023 are:

• Shopify – Best for beginners
• Dropified — Best Shopify app for AliExpress
• SaleHoo — Best database to find suppliers
• Printful — Best for print-on-demand products
• Spocket — Best for international dropshipping
• Wholesale2B — Versatile supplier and dropshipping hub

Whether you’re starting a new online store from scratch, looking for new suppliers, adding new products to an existing store, or expanding to new markets, the companies above work well for just about anyone.

It can be hard to break into dropshipping because most dropshipping businesses don’t like to share their items or their suppliers. Their concern is that you’ll just replicate their shop and eat into their market.

I’m here to help. The following are my top picks for dropshippers, databases, and suppliers — along with what each does best.

Shopify – Best for Beginners

Visit Shopify

• 14-day free trial
• Social media marketing tools
• 70+ dropshipping apps
• 24/7 customer support

Try for free

Shopify offers one of the most popular ways to build an online store, and it comes ready to integrate with a long list of dropshipping services. In fact, many of the other dropshipping companies on my list recommend using Shopify as your base of operations.

The reason is simple: Shopify is a true plug-and-ecommerce platform. It works as well for dropshipping as it does for traditional online stores. 

Make a Shopify account for free to explore more than 70 different dropshipping apps. Link up with a variety of wholesalers, suppliers, and warehousing services and start selling.

Like any other dropshipping company, all the inventory and logistics are handled by third parties. You just have to get the word out there about your products. That’s where Shopify’s built-in marketing tools come in handy.

Create ads for TikTok, Facebook, and Pinterest, or showcase your items on marketplaces like eBay. The Shopify dashboard automatically tracks where customers are coming from, so you can focus on selling where it counts.

There are plenty of resources on Shopify if you are new to dropshipping, as well as live chat and email support 24/7.

Sign up today and get two weeks of Shopify free, no credit card required.

Dropified — Best Shopify App for AliExpress

Visit Dropified

• Free plan to get started
• Easy auto-fulfillment solution
• Saves time adding new products
• Free trials of premium plans

Try Dropified for free

Dropified is a very useful Shopify app that you can use to stock your store and automate your orders on AliExpress (including shipping addresses).

There’s no Dropified marketplace–it’s a browser plugin that’ll let you pull products from anywhere on the web.

What used to be a long process is now just a few clicks. On AliExpress, Alibaba, and eBay, you’ll be able to get new products in front of your customers faster.

To speed up the process even further, you can set up margin parameters and rules for changing the price points in your store.

There’s a 14-day free trial; after that, it’s $47 per month for the Retro plan or $39 per month for the annual plan.

The Channel Management plan, which costs $127 per month or $97 per month with annual billing, recently added a profit dashboard, Zapier integration, and an unlimited high-speed captcha solver.

If you have a Shopify store and you are ready to start dropshipping, Dropified can help you make your work as efficient and profitable as possible.

SaleHoo — Best Database to Find Suppliers

Visit Salehoo

• 60-Day Free Trial
• Annual plan is $67 per year
• Lifetime plan is a one-time payment of $127
• 9.6 out of 10 stars

Get 1 year free

SaleHoo is a great dropshipper that offers a massive supplier database to draw on.

A $67 yearly membership with SaleHoo grants you access to this database of 8,000+ wholesalers and dropshippers. They’re all screened by SaleHoo before they’re added to the directory. There’s a 60-day free trial period, and the customer service gets high marks in public reviews.

The best part is that you don’t have to worry about something being too good to be true if it’s on SaleHoo. If it made it onto the site, it has been vetted and confirmed.

You can make back the yearly membership fee with a single sale.

Along with access to fully vetted suppliers, you also get SaleHoo’s Market Research Lab. Look at the trends and play with the data to find out what really matters to your market right now.

Within the Market Research Lab, you can see competition for the product among other dropshippers, compare profit potential between items, and spot emerging trends. Data like this allows you to strike while the iron is hot (or before other sellers are hip to the trend).

With SaleHoo, access to the wholesaler database is just half of it. The other half is the unprecedented agility you’ll gain compared to other dropshippers.

As a bonus, when QuickSprout readers purchase one year of SaleHoo dropshipping, you’ll get one additional year for FREE.

Printful — Best for Print-on-Demand Products

Visit Printful

• No monthly fees
• Customize hundreds of items
• Integrates with most ecommerce platforms
• No minimum purchase

Get Started Now

Printful is a full-service print-on-demand dropshipper that allows you to sell branded, custom-designed merchandise to anyone in the world.

Just head over to the Printful website and add your own custom designs or use something from their library of designs on anything. The experts at Printful will print, package, and ship the orders to your customers.

You can put your design or logo on seemingly anything. Printful offers over 330+ different options, including men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing, wall art, hats, mugs, water bottles, stationery, bags, blankets, and more.

Best of all, the platform integrates with almost every ecommerce platform you can think of:

• Shopify
• Bigcommerce
• WooCommerce
• Amazon
• Etsy
• Squarespace
• Wix
• Big Cartel
• Storenvy
• Gumroad
• Tictail
• Ecwid
• Weebly
• Inktale

The list goes on and on. So no matter what platform you’re using to power your dropshipping business, integrating with Printful shouldn’t be an issue.

If you need help with your designs or company branding, Printful goes a step further by offering several options for adding your branding to your orders. These services include branded stickers on your packages, your logo on t-shirt labels, and even adding stickers or business cards to your packaging.

It’s free to sign up, and there are no monthly subscription fees.

You simply pay the cost per item plus a markup fee to Printful. When someone places an order on your site, they pay your price, and then Printful does a second transaction charging you for the product, fulfillment, and shipping. You keep the difference.

Get started with Printful today to sell your custom designs via dropshipping. 

Spocket — Best for International Dropshipping

Visit Spocket

• Free Starter Plan
• Browse international suppliers
• Premium plans start at $25 per month
• 14-day free trial

Try Spocket for free

Spocket gives you a great database app for dropshipping items that works especially well for people shipping in the US and beyond. They allow you to sort by country and simply upload the products into your Shopify store.

They make it easy to find US and EU items that’ll ship within your country rather than from China, cutting down on slow ship speeds. This also keeps costs lower–for you and your customers.

Lower costs and faster shipping times? Spocket is the answer for people who want to dropship around the world.

Spocket offers a free plan, which will let you check out their database of products. Once you are ready to start selling, you can upgrade to one of the paid plans.

The Starter plan (25 products with unlimited orders) is $24.99. Upgrading to Pro is $49.99 per month for 250 products and branded invoicing.

The Empire plan unlocks unlimited products for $99.99 per month.

Take a 14-day free trial of Spocket today, and start selling around the globe.

Wholesale2B — Versatile Supplier and Dropshipping Hub

Visit Wholesale2B

• Browse for Free
• Multiple Plan Options
• $29.99 to $49.99 per month
• DIY Plan $67 per year

Try Wholesale2B for free

Wholesale2B is one of my favorite dropshipping suppliers. They offer more than 1 million products you can start selling right now.

Think of them as a one-stop shop for anything related to drop shipping. You’ll get access to a massive directory and all the tools you need to process orders.

You can sign up for free (no credit card required), and start reviewing Wholesale2B’s massive inventory of products. Take your time–you won’t be charged until you’re ready to start dropshipping.

On top of that, they allow you to sell products on:

• eBay
• Amazon
• WooCommerce
• Shopify
• Magento
• Weebly
• BigCommerce
• Your own Wholesale2B store

Handle the orders yourself by becoming a registered reseller with each supplier. Or pay Wholesale2B a 3% fee to handle that for you.

Wholesale2B starts free and includes their 1 million products, customer support, and a lifetime free account.

More Great Dropshipping Services

Inventory Source — Time-Saving Dropshipping Automation Tool

Visit Inventory Source

• Dropship Automation Solutions
• Inventory $99 per month
• Full Automation $150 per month
• 180+ Dropship Suppliers

Learn more

Inventory Source is an automation tool built specifically for dropshippers. If you are looking to cut down the time it takes to fulfill orders, this could be the tool you’re missing.

It allows you to either sync the suppliers’ products with your page (inventory automation) or to sync the entire customer purchase flow so that your orders are automatically placed with your supplier (full automation).

Inventory Source has pre-built integrations with more than 230 suppliers. Many companies say that it’s “easy” to connect your site with a supplier’s inventory–but it’s not always so easy. Inventory Source’s integrations really work, and the company puts a ton of effort in making sure they continue to perform flawlessly.

This cuts down on busy work big time. You choose a new product, and Inventory Source automatically uploads the quantities, weights, colors, titles, and more. This data is coming directly from the supplier’s feed, so it’s always up-to-date.

Inventory automation is $99 per month, and full automation is $199 per month. However, getting just a directory account that allows you to view all dropship suppliers and preview product feeds is free. Nothing beats that, right?

Worldwide Brands — Best Budget-Friendly Database

Visit Worldwide Brands

• Lifetime Plan $299
• Direct Access to All Wholesalers
• 16+ Million Wholesale Products
• BBB A+ Rated

Signup now

For $299, you can get a lifetime subscription to Worldwide Brands’ database of wholesalers and dropshippers. It’s a great budget-friendly solution for those competing to sell products on Amazon, eBay, and Etsy.

They carry every category of consumer goods: electronics, home & garden, clothing, shoes, accessories, sporting goods, art, health & beauty, books, and much more.

With a subscription to Worldwide Brands, you can cut out the middleman and increase your own profits. It’s a one-time subscription, so you will always have direct access to the best possible deals.

They are constantly updating their database, which is easy to search and filter results.

Give yourself the edge by relying on Worldwide Brand’s team of specialists. You’ll get the most up-to-date information without any extra work on your part.

Worldwide Brands distinguishes itself with its extensive upper-market wholesale directory of certified dropshippers and its reliable and quick-to-respond support team. The lifetime membership certainly doesn’t hurt either, with many similar services charging you each month or year.

Modalyst — Best Wix Plugin & Directory

Visit Modalyst

• Free Starter Plan
• Basic Plan $35 per month
• Pro Plan $90 per month
• 4.8 out of 5 stars

Try Modalyst for free

Modalyst seamlessly automates your dropshipping business. You’ll be able to add suppliers (for free), set your own prices, and showcase a large inventory however you want.

Where Modalyst really shines is their integration with Wix, the popular website builder. With just a single click, you’ll be able to install their app and get started selling to your customers.

In fact, Wix acquired Modalyst back in 2021 as a way to expand its ecommerce footprint. So it should come as no surprise that the two platforms integrate so seamlessly with each other.

Modalyst also integrates with BigCommerce, Shopify, and other platforms. But if you are using Wix for dropshipping, this is what I would choose.

It’s so easy to connect with suppliers and get your customers the products they need. Modalyst has a long list of suppliers of products including clothing, jewelry, accessories, and more.

Modalyst is also centralized—making it very easy to use. You’ll be able to connect with suppliers from a single dashboard, and they even have an app for easy communication.

You can start for free, adding millions of products to your site with just a few clicks.

In fact, the Modalyst Basic plan is $0 per month to sign up. There’s a 5% transaction fee and a 25-product limit, but it’s completely free.

Upgrading to the Start Up ($35 per month) or Pro ($90) per month unlocks more suppliers, shorter shipping times, and more.

If you are thinking about dropshipping, use Modalyst’s free option to get started. Plug it into your ecommerce site and supercharge your inventory overnight.

Start selling more with a free Modalyst account.

Importify — Best Dropshipping Tool for WooCommerce

Visit Importify

• Switch suppliers on the fly
• Automation on Gold plan
• One-click product importing
• Also works on Shopify and Wix

Get a 14-day free trial

Importify handles product importing and automation for dropshipping stores running on WooCommerce, Shopify, Wix, or Jumpseller.

With so many dropshipping tools focusing almost entirely on Shopify stores, Importify stands out as one of the best all-purpose platforms for improving your WooCommerce-based WordPress operation.

It starts with its research and sourcing tool, allowing you to find products through notable wholesalers such as:

• DHGate
• Costco
• Walmart
• Sears
• Kohls
• com
• Bonanza
• Etsy
• Flipcart
• Geekbuying

Find what you want to sell and import it to your WooCommerce store in just one click.

Importify makes it easy to switch suppliers on a product if one runs out or you find a better deal elsewhere. You can set pricing rules before you import as well, so you can go from sourcing to selling even faster.

You also get a product listing editor, a Chrome extension for even easier product importing, and 24/7 support.

Everything I’ve described comes on Importify’s Basic plan for $14.95 per month.

If you want to import products from Amazon and Aliexpress, upgrade to the Premium plan for $27.95 per month.

High-traffic dropshippers will want Importify’s Gold plan, which runs $37.95 per month. That unlocks the platform’s automation for order fulfillment. You can automatically have customer addresses filled out on supplier forms, and product variants picked so you can sell and ship faster than ever at high volume.

Boost your WooCommerce-based WordPress dropshipping site by starting a 14-day free trial of Importify today.

DSers — Best Shopify Plugin & Directory

Visit DSers

• Free Basic Plan
• 14-day free trial
• Partnered with AliExpress
• 5 out of 5 stars

Try DSers for free

DSers (pronounced “dee-zers”) offers an excellent plugin service that works through AliExpress. Its directory offers you all the products you need and is a trusted partner of Shopify, Wix, and WooCommerce.

DSers does bulk order fulfillment and has over 150,000 merchants you can choose from.

Every time you make a sale, DSers will handle product selection and fulfillment for you. That frees up your time to focus on driving traffic to your store. All plans, including the free version, have features like shipping method pre-selection, automated order status updates, supplier optimizer, automated address fixing, and more.

The DSers app is available in six languages:

• English
• German
• French
• Brazilian Portuguese
• Italian
• Spanish

DSers does have a free Basic plan with bulk ordering, basic mapping, and up to three stores and 3,000 products. It also offers an Advanced plan for $15.90 per month billed annually for up to 10 stores and 20,000 products and a Pro plan for $39.90 per month billed annually for 25 stores and 75,000 products. They also offer an Enterprise plan starting at $399 per month. See pricing and features here.

DSers has a 5-star rating with over 7,000 reviews in the Shopify app store. You can try one of the paid plans now with a 14-day free trial.

What’s the best dropshipping company for me?

Naming just one brand as the best overall dropshipping company is nearly impossible. That’s like asking for the best product available on Amazon—it depends on what you’re looking for.  

But the best dropshippers have a lot in common. They offer fast shipping and great communication. All products arrive on time, in one piece, and match the photographs and descriptions online.

All of the dropshipping companies on my list meet this description. Finding the best one for your unique situation ultimately depends on what you’re interested in buying and selling to your customers. You need to find a company that can reliably offer those products at a price point that allows you to satisfy your customers and simultaneously turn a profit. 

Most dropshipping companies use platforms like Shopify or Wix combined with an automation app like Modalyst. So if you’re new to the dropshipping game, this is definitely the easiest way to get started.

Why Shopify is the best way to start your dropshipping business

That means you are basically setting up the equivalent of any ecommerce store. For ecommerce stores, the clear winner is Shopify. It’s been the frontrunner for a while.

What’s most important about that for dropshipping is that the app store is super robust. Most stores use Shopify, so developers looking to make a high-quality app develop it for the Shopify app store.

I don’t recommend dropshipping with eBay.

Selling on a marketplace like eBay requires less work — you don’t have to start a website, pay a subscription, etc., as you do with Shopify. But it’s not the way to go, in my opinion.

First of all, Shopify is super excited and helpful with new dropshipping businesses, whereas eBay is growing more and more against them. Here are the sticking points for me:

• Your store’s reputation is on the line — eBay is not forgiving and will downgrade accounts with reports of slow shipping
• You’re probably not the only one selling that item
• Your business case isn’t clear — why should someone buy that item from you, just another eBay store?
• eBay has been cracking down on dropshippers and resellers, asking for proof of having the item in possession and freezing your store until you send in that proof. Proof could be a photo of your ID card with the item — not a photo of the item from a different listing.

If you do want to build your dropshipping business with eBay, I’d spend a few weeks or months in the seller forums to understand the specific risks and challenges of dropshipping on eBay.

How to start a dropshipping company

1. Find items to sell

First, find your niche.

There’s lots of chatter on the internet about finding your dropshipping niche, but this is just a trendy buzzword for product-market fit: are there people who want to buy your product? From you?

If not, you won’t have a successful business.

You’ll have the most success dropshipping a product if there’s an audience that wants to buy it and doesn’t have an easy way to access it. That’s where you come in.

Some ways to find your niche: brainstorm rabid fan groups or audiences with a common need or interest (dog lovers, anime fans, parents who love to dress up their kids in matching outfits, sailors, very tall people, people who love 90s throwback tees). These are purchase-ready populations looking to love and buy things that they’re interested in.

Then, see what’s trending on Facebook.

Doing a quick search of a phrase like “Get yours here” or “Buy now” and looking at the videos featuring items for sale that are getting traction. This can give you a sense of which products are interesting to people on Facebook right now.

Look for a high number of views in a short period of time, then search for the item at a dropship supplier like Salehoo.

Consider the price point of the item in the video and the assets you can create for it. Can you replicate — or improve on — the current trending video? If so, you may have an item worth dropshipping.

I have a few pieces of advice after you’ve taken care of all that:

Don’t sell anything dangerous or copyrighted

If you’re a beginner, don’t start with something that goes in or on a person’s body. If you do not know the quality and source of the ingredients, and something goes wrong, do you have coverage for that liability?

Also, if there’s a celebrity or character from a movie franchise on the item, it could get you in trouble. Steer clear of mice with big round ears.

Look at seller’s reviews and order a test product

How long has the seller been selling? What feedback have they been getting? When you order a test product, does it meet your expectations? What do you need to tell your customers, so they’ll be happy when they receive the product?

Consider dropshipping only some items

Just because you’re dropshipping some things doesn’t mean you need to dropship everything. Perhaps it makes sense to use dropshipping for large, bulky, high-priced niche items.

Say, for example, you have an online store that sells nautical gear. You may want to personally store and ship some items but dropship the anchors. For items like this, your customers may also be more accommodating to longer shipping times since it’s a large and more considered purchase.

The same goes for home goods: perhaps you keep small items in stock but dropship the couches. You can increase your inventory breadth very simply this way.

Go directly to a supplier and build a dropshipping relationship with them

This is a killer plan: there’s guaranteed to be less competition. You’re basically creating a new audience for an under-marketed product that’s not getting seen by a ready-to-buy audience. If you use a database, every single other subscriber is using that same database.

2. Nail the basics

You want to invest in a good domain name. It’s a key component of any ecommerce operation.

I buy all my domain names from Domain.com. (You can read my full review on the best domain registrars.)

Once you’ve done that, then you can set up your website.

If you go with Shopify, you’ll be up in minutes. Lots of dropshippers recommend the Shopify Brooklyn theme with a good font choice. You can also use another ecommerce option. Here’s my review of the best ecommerce platforms if you’re interested in exploring them.

You can get a professional logo for your site for a reasonable price (and no design expertise) with 99Designs. See my post about how to get your first brand identity on a budget for more details and how to run a logo design contest.

Make sure to set up professional email addresses for your dropshipping store. It should be a sensible start (help@, support@) with your own domain name. I recommend getting Google Workspace for $6 a month per user. There’s nothing to trust about emailing customer service that’s at yahoo.com or gmail.com.

Here are some other key elements to factor into your planning and setup:

Give your customer strong trust signals

One of the ways to gain trust among your customers is through the use of high-quality photos and unique item copy. Don’t forget to spend time creating a real and robust About Us page, as customers want to know more about your store. Make use of things like discounted prices and pop-ups. Displaying trust logos and writing some FAQs are a good idea, too.

As you create the site, ask yourself: Would I buy from this store? Would I feel comfortable suggesting it to a friend or family member? If the website has simple text errors or has poor-quality images, you probably wouldn’t recommend it.

Set shipping time expectations

With shippers like Amazon providing two-day shipping or even same-day shipping in some locations, dropshipping’s shipping times may disappoint some of your customers. A dropshipment can take around 30 days, which feels like an eternity by comparison.

The key to overcoming customer disappointment is through setting clear expectations. You need text on your website that spells out the likely amount of time the shipment will take to arrive to head off customer complaints regarding shipping times.

I’ve seen very straightforward copy, like “All our items ship directly from our suppliers in China. Shipments are processed the day of your order and arrive in 25–30 days.”

Make sure your orders go through

Bundle credit card orders, so your bank doesn’t cancel your numerous orders. Let your bank know what types of orders and in what quantities you’ll be placing so that they’re not flagged as fraudulent. There is no pain so rich as having to reorder orders you’ve placed (you do have a business credit card, right?).

Prepare for returns and cancellations

Although having significant success with a dropshipping business is the hope and expectation, you have to anticipate that things will not go perfectly smoothly every time. Even if you do everything right, something could go wrong that’s completely out of your control.

Set up a policy to figure out how you plan to deal with unhappy customers. You need to set up a return policy. If you need to make returns of payments, how will you do this? Will returned items be shipped to you or to your distributor? How will that work? Like with anything in business, it’s important to anticipate problems and prepare to deal with them. This gives you a better chance at success.

Set aside money to pay taxes

If you’re using Shopify as your payment gateway, once you get to a certain sales threshold, Shopify will automatically report your sales to the government. You’ll want to make sure you have money available to pay applicable taxes.

I also recommend getting an accountant and a lawyer (I’ve heard good things about UpCounsel and LegalZoom) and setting up Quicken.

3. Differentiate yourself

Studies show that the global dropshipping market is expected to reach $476.1 billion by 2026. The massive growth in this space can be attributed to more competition, meaning you must find a way to differentiate your brand from competitors to succeed.

A great way to stand out right from the jump is to make your store listings and ads unique.

Remember, if you can quickly and easily set up a dropshipping order for a specific product, it’s likely another store will be able to do the same. You will need to find an edge: why would someone order from you or find your store selling the product and not your competitor?

Make sure people know about your store. This can be through word of mouth, social media ads, viral memes, influencer programs, SEO, or a newsletter. You’re going to need visitors to make sales.

Take your own pictures. Write your own copy. Shoot unique social videos. Really put thought into how to best convey the product and why a person would want it: What problems does it solve? Can it make them feel joy?

If you’re using AliExpress, you can import the user reviews. No one likes being the first to buy something.

Consider offering free shipping, too. That can really entice customers. Do all orders have free shipping or only when a certain order spend is hit? What threshold or minimum spend works best?

I do not recommend offering “Free products — you pay shipping.” Many customers would rather know the price up-front than go through a purchase flow that says $0 the whole way through and then slaps on a $15 shipping charge.

4. Iterate, iterate, iterate

Use ads to gather data and test strategy. I’m assuming that you’ll be buying ads. If you do, buy and use the data to test what’s working. What gets traction? Double down on it. What doesn’t? Trash it.

This may lead you to change your products, your ad style, or your audience. Following the early traction means you head toward what’s working and away from what’s not.

Get analytical with your sales trends, as well. What’s selling well? What’s not selling at all? Is there any common theme in the items? Replicate what you can. Stop what’s not working.

Best Dropshipping Companies: Your Top Questions Answered

The Top Dropshipping Companies in Summary

Dropshipping can be a lucrative ecommerce strategy. But it all starts with the right partner.

Choosing the best dropshipping company for you depends on the type of products you want to offer your customers, the supplier’s quality, and how well the service integrates with your process.

Want to jump straight to the answer? The best web hosting for most people is Hostinger or Cloudways.

While it’s true that you can use any web host for your WordPress website, a WordPress-specific web hosting solution delivers better service, performance, and support for WordPress sites. If you’ve been feeling frustrated with your non-WP-specific web host and want something better suited to WordPress, you’re in the right place. 

I’ve gone through dozens of available hosts and ranked the best options on the market today, including providers WordPress itself recommends. The solutions below provide the best security, performance, and reliability for websites built on WordPress.

The Top 9 WordPress Web Hosts for 2023

Best of 2023: Bluehost, Cloudways, Flywheel, Hostinger, Kinsta, Nexcess, Scala Hosting, Siteground, and WP Engine.

My team and I spent countless hours pouring over every detail from price and performance to ease of use, migrations, and features. Along the way, we identified five hosts that outshine the rest.

Our favorite WordPress hosts for 2023 are:

• Hostinger – Most affordable WordPress web host
• Cloudways – Best for flexibility and extensive options
• Siteground – Best for ecommerce websites with easy site migration
• Bluehost – Best for creating your first WordPress website
• Scala Hosting – Most freebies with WordPress hosting plans

Whether you’re looking for something affordable and easy to use, a lot of bang for your buck, or a host with limitless flexibility, you can’t go wrong with any of the hosts above.

Depending on your goals, one of my recommended hosting providers may work better than another for your specific needs.

Below you’ll find in-depth reviews that explain my recommendations, followed by a brief tactical section to help you assess your options.

Hostinger — Most Affordable WordPress Web Host

Visit Hostinger

• Starts at $1.99 per month
• Month-to-month pricing available
• Free domain and SSL certificate
• 30-day money-back guarantee

Get started now

Hostinger stands out for its low prices and stellar loading times.

How low? Hostinger’s current managed WordPress plan starts at just $1.99 per month for a single website—which is unbeatable compared to other web hosts out there. While that is promotional pricing, even the contract renewal price of $3.99 per month is very affordable.

But here’s the kicker: for just one dollar more per month (currently $2.99), you can build 100 websites along with 100 GB of SSD storage, free email, and unlimited bandwidth.

That’s right, for the price of a single cup of coffee each month, you’ll be able to host up to 100 websites. That’s an amazing deal.

For more information on plans and pricing, check out our in-depth Hostinger web hosting review.

With their great prices, does that mean you’ll be sacrificing quality? Nope. In fact, you’re going to get solid uptime reliability with Hostinger.

Loading times are speedy, too. According to the Hostinger website, server response time clocks in at around 43 milliseconds, which is very fast. To give you a comparison, that’s just 13 milliseconds “slower” than a lightning strike. In our testing, every Hostinger hosting type (shared, VPS, and WordPress hosting) averaged well under one second for loading.

Hostinger recently implemented a new feature for page speed insights, where you can measure your site’s speed and see its performance history with just one click. If you find that you want to improve your loading speed, the new server transfer feature will recommend what to do.

The company also recently added an advanced malware scanner and a WordPress staging tool so you can test changes without actually changing your entire live site.

Overall, this is a great web host if you want good prices with quality hosting. If you want to maximize the number of sites you can host at a low cost, get signed up with Hostinger today.

Cloudways – Best for Flexibility and Extensive Options

Visit Cloudways

• Five IaaS provider options
• Fast and reliable managed hosting
• Only pay for what you use
• Starts at just $10 per month

Try it free

Cloudways has been providing managed WordPress hosting for over 11 years and has hosted 600,000+ WordPress websites. Another impressive statistic is that Cloudway has access to more than 120,000 active servers!

Cloudways strives to provide flexibility to all of its clients. Some examples of this flexibility are offering unlimited WordPress websites, pay-as-you-go pricing with hourly plans (so you only pay for what you actually use), one click to add more server space, unlimited staging URLs, and more.

And with an extensive knowledge base and 24/7 expert support, you don’t have to be a technical expert yourself to jump in with Cloudways.

Cloudways currently has 62 data centers in 15 countries and 33 cities, so no matter where you are in the world, you will get speedy, reliable performance.

For plans and pricing, the rates depend on several factors, including selecting from five Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) providers, plus the level of RAM, processor cores, storage, and bandwidth you need. The IaaS provider options are:

• Linode
• DigitalOcean
• Vultr 
• AWS
• Google Cloud

The managed WordPress plans run the gamut of pricing. The least expensive is $12 per month including DigitalOcean Standard hosting charges, with 1 GB of RAM, 1 core processor, 25 GB of storage, and 1 TB of bandwidth. The most expensive is $3569.98 per month including the AWS hosting charges. That plan includes 384 GB of RAM, 96 vCPU, 20 GB of storage, and 2 GB of bandwidth.

All plans come with 24/7/365 support, free SSL, CDN add-on, free migration, unlimited application installation, 24/7 real-time monitoring, automated backups, advanced caches, auto-healing, and more.

You can try Cloudways for free with a three-day free trial to test their managed WordPress hosting and how it will work for your needs.

SiteGround — Best for Ecommerce Websites with Easy Site Migration

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• Starts at $2.99/month
• Free SSL, email, CDN, & backups
• Recommended by WordPress
• 30-day money-back guarantee

Get an 80% discount

SiteGround is another of WordPress’ recommended web hosts. It offers incredibly affordable managed hosting solutions–that are incredibly powerful as well.

Where SiteGround really shines is in how easy it makes:

• Migrating to their host. Their free migrator tool lets you easily port your old website over to their website in just a few days’ time. No development or coding knowledge is required.
• Setting up an online store. With the powerful combination of WordPress and WooCommerce, you’ll be able to set up an ecommerce site to start making money in a snap. Seriously, it just takes a few clicks.

I also like its advanced features for WordPress, like automatic updates and enhanced security on all SiteGround plans. You’ll also get free daily backups. That’s an amazing deal for the lowest-tier pricing.

This covers most of the problems you could run into, freeing up more of your time to focus on your business or project. You can read even more about their offered services in my complete SiteGround hosting review.

I recommend the StartUp plan. It gives you 10GB of space and up to 10,000 visitors for one site. This intro-level plan is $2.99 per month for your first year (paid upfront).

You can boost your WordPress or WooCommerce site even further by going one step up to GrowBig. That lets you tap into SiteGround’s own Ultrafast PHP to speed up the visitor experience even more. Plus, you get the safety of on-demand copies of your site backups, all for $4.99 per month. The biggest plan is GoGeek for $7.99 per month with 40 GB web space, priority support, staging + Git, and the ability to white-label clients.

All told, this is a great host for web stores on WordPress, ecommerce sites who want to switch to a better host, and anyone who wants solid security and easy site backups for their pages.

Get started with SiteGround today.

Bluehost — Best for Creating Your First WordPress Website

Visit BlueHost

• Normally $8.99/month
• Free domain and SSL certificate
• Recommended by WordPress
• 30-day money-back guarantee

Get a 67% discount

Bluehost is a favorite for many because it is one of the three web hosts that WordPress officially recommends for people to use. That’s about as good of an endorsement as you can get for WordPress hosting.

The main reason people enjoy Bluehost? It’s simple to get started. Once you get started, you can install WordPress immediately and you’ll have your bare-bones site live within just 15 minutes. From there, you can follow our full guide on how to create a website so that you can get your site looking and functioning just the way you want it. 

Another reason that Bluehost is a fan favorite is that it has millions of users, which means that the kinks and issues with setup and the continued hosting of websites have generally been worked out. In the rare case that you do run into an issue, help is just a call away. You can reach out 24/7 to Bluehost’s award-winning customer support team if you find yourself with any questions or concerns. 

If that doesn’t have you convinced to try Bluehost, how about this: Bluehost has some of the lowest pricing around, with plans as low as $2.75/month. That’s incredibly cheap, especially for a brand that’s so reliable, trusted, and easy to use.

As you might imagine, these traits make Bluehost the perfect host to choose if you’re just starting out.

Yes, you will be on shared hosting. So if you or someone else on your server gets a huge spike of traffic, your site could go down. But honestly, this almost never happens. I’ve had websites on shared hosting for over a decade and never had a site go down.

If and when you want to upgrade, Bluehost also offers managed WordPress hosting that starts at $9.95/month. Not the absolute lowest price point I’ve seen, but it’s still one of the lower-cost options out there for managed hosting.

Bottom line: Bluehost is a great option for the vast majority of people reading this—but especially those who are just getting started.

Scala Hosting — Most Freebies with Every WordPress Hosting Plan

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• Affordable plans across the board
• Free migration of as many sites as you need
• Seven daily backups
• Robust security features

Try it Today

WordPress hosting can be deceiving. While a lot of providers will boast about WordPress optimization on their servers, what more are you getting from them specifically?

Scala Hosting not only makes sure its servers help your WordPress site perform better, it also throws in a ton of useful features on almost every plan.

It starts with a free website migration, which not every provider offers. And it’s not just one website—Scala’s specialists will carry over as many WordPress sites as you need to their service, free of charge.

These experts will handle the migration and verify everything’s working before you point the site to your new servers. That way, there’s no downtime for your sites whatsoever in the process.

Security features are also prevalent in all Scala WordPress hosting plans. You get a dedicated firewall installed on your behalf, plus a brute force attack blocker, custom security rules that Scala’s team implements without you having to lift a finger, malware scans and removal, and automated updates to prevent vulnerabilities from arising.

All Scala plans also include:

• Seven daily backups with restore points kept for a week
• Free content delivery network
• Free SEO analysis and tools

You can also unlock additional useful features by going with plans above Scala’s entry-level WP Mini (one website, 20 GB storage) package. Those are:

• WP Start: unlimited websites, 50 GB storage, double the CPU power of WP Mini
• WP Advanced: unlimited websites, 100 GB storage, quadruple the CPU power of WP Mini

On those plans, you get managed service, meaning Scala’s support team of WordPress experts will help you with everything from plugin issues to overall troubleshooting.

You also get a free domain if you opt for WP Advanced. And not just one year, either, like most providers. Each year that you prepay for hosting, you get a free year of your domain. That’s a very nice bonus.

Scala’s pricing is also very competitive with other providers on this list and in the WordPress hosting space at large:

• WP Mini: $3.95 per month for a three-year commitment, $4.95 for two years
• WP Start: $5.95 per month for a three-year commitment, $7.95 for two years
• WP Advanced: $9.95 per month for a three-year commitment, $10.95 for two years

Give Scala Hosting a try or get connected with a representative to learn what more they can do for you. If you want worry-free WordPress hosting at a competitive price, Scala Hosting should be near the top of your list.

More Good WordPress Web Hosting Options

WP Engine — Best for Hosting Multiple WordPress Sites with Tons of Traffic

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• Starts at $22.50/month
• Biggest name in WP hosting
• A premium product with a premium price
• Easily the all-around best

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For pros, I recommend WP Engine. In fact, WP Engine is what we use here at Quick Sprout—and for very good reason. If you’re trying to get serious and build a high-traffic blog or business on WordPress, it’s by far the best managed WordPress host out there.

But I don’t recommend it for anyone who’s just starting out, since it’s much more expensive. We’re talking between $30 to more than $100 each month versus a range of $4 to $15 with other products on my list.

Most WordPress sites would do much better with Bluehost or Siteground. You’ll save a lot of money and won’t be paying for WP Engine’s advanced features you don’t need.

For $20 per month paid annually, you can use the Startup plan to host one 10GB site with a limit of 25,000 monthly visitors. The Professional tier of service is $50 per month for three sites and 75,000 monthly visitors.

That might seem like a lot of money for fewer resources (especially when compared to services like Hostinger and Bluehost, and especially given the fees you’ll pay if you exceed the visitor limits during a big traffic spike) but, remember, this is managed WordPress hosting.

As a managed host, WP Engine professionally maintains speed and security at the server level—meaning you don’t have to do anything to maximize performance on your end.

You don’t have to research and rely on plug-ins to shave seconds off your load time or become an expert on the best practices for building a lean site.

Nor do you have to carve out time to install and update your plugins, run backups, or implement security features to ward off brute force attacks. WP Engine takes care of it all behind the scenes.

The customer service is also excellent, with 24/7 support that includes trackable service tickets and a comprehensive knowledge base.

WP Engine’s support staff are WordPress experts, providing detailed answers to your questions and issues.

Every time I’ve had to reach out to customer support, I’ve always been impressed. The speed, thoroughness, and expertise are world-class.

Overall, WP Engine is an excellent solution if you want to get serious about growing your WordPress sites. Refer to our complete WP Engine web hosting review to learn more about this top-rated provider.

Nexcess — Best for Effortless Website Staging

Visit Nexcess

• Price starts at $12.67/month
• Designed for advanced users
• Extremely customizable
• Server-level access

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Nexcess, by Liquid Web, is a powerhouse designed to service other powerhouses, like if you’re an enterprise customer or are charged with manning multiple WordPress sites.

What I really love about Nexcess, though, is how easy it allows you to stage a website. Its one-click staging tool allows you to easily create a facsimile of your website that you can edit and test to your heart’s content—without worrying that you’re screwing up the actual website.

The company also offers a ton of great plans that make it easy to scale. Prices start at just $15.83 per month for one website (as long as you pay for the entire year up front). You also can pay $19 per month if you prefer to pay month by month.

If you need more features than the lowest-priced tier provides, the cost jumps quite a bit. The Maker tier costs $65.83 per month in the annual plan, but you get up to five sites and 40 GB storage with that plan. Nexcess calls its most popular plan the Designer tier, which offers up to 10 sites and 60 GB of storage for $90.83 per month. These plans offer a discount for the first three month.

In all, the platform offers seven plans. The most expensive plan is the Enterprise tier, which provides up to 250 sites and 800 GB of storage. If you’re an agency or freelancer who plans to host websites for clients, one of the higher-end plans is a great solution for you.

If you need more control but doing everything yourself through AWS isn’t appealing, then Nexcess is for you, too. You won’t have to do nearly as much setup and upkeep as AWS while still having a lot more control than other hosts give you.

It also automatically updates WordPress and your plugins. That’s fewer headaches for you and your team.

You’ll get all-level access to MySQL, SFTP, and SSH. You also get Git version control. Security, speed, and customer support are virtually unparalleled.

Nexcess is obviously not right for everyone. Small businesses should choose one of the other options, as Nexcess plans would be overkill.

For power users, though, Nexcess is the WordPress hosting that you’ve been looking for. Use coupon code QUICKSPROUT to get 40% off 2 months of any Nexcess hosting plan.

Flywheel — Best If You Want Experts to Migrate Your Site for You

Visit FlyWheel

• Price starts at $14/month
• Geared toward freelancers and agencies
• Easily build and transfer sites to clients
• User-friendly interface

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Flywheel is a managed WordPress host that really puts the “support” in customer support.

The company offers a great migration service that takes care of the often stressful process of site migration for you. It has a dedicated team that handles the entire process of moving your site to its web host so you don’t have to.

The best part: it’s absolutely free.

That’s right. They’ll take care of everything at no extra cost.

Flywheel is also fantastic because of great features like “blueprints” that allow you to save customized themes and plugins you use over and over again.

You’ll also have 14 days on a free, password-protected demo site to show your work before having to pay. You can also easily transfer billing on any of your sites to a client.

That makes FlyWheel an excellent option if you’re an agency or freelancer working on client websites. If you build sites for clients, we highly recommend you start using Flywheel.

Flywheel offers a single-site plan with 5,000 monthly visitors and 5GB of disk space for $13/month. From there, you can scale up to a souped-up single-site plan for $25/month, or accommodate more sites in the two highest packages. If you need more than 30 sites, you will have to reach out to Flywheel for a custom quote.

Bottom line: I’d use Flywheel if I were looking for a hassle-free migration experience and/or developing websites for clients.

If that sounds like you, go with Flywheel as your web hosting provider.

Kinsta — Best for Managing Unexpected Surges in Traffic

Visit Kinsta

• Price starts at $30/month
• Premium managed WordPress hosting
• All features included across all plans
• Built for scalability

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Kinsta is a great alternative to WP Engine if something about WP Engine doesn’t gel with you.

What truly separates it from WP Engine, though, is its auto-scaling feature. In the event of an unexpected surge in traffic, its servers will automatically allocate more CPU and RAM to your website.

That means you won’t have to worry about your website slowing down or crashing when you get an influx of readers. Instead, Kinsta takes care of it for you.

That’s great for websites that frequently see infrequent spikes in traffic like when a blog post goes viral or if you have sporadic product launches in your ecommerce store. It can also be very good for websites that experience inconsistent traffic performance (e.g., viral videos, big product launches).

Kinsta also offers a ton of pricing plans for excellent scalability. In fact, it offers a whopping 10 plans as well as a customizable enterprise solution.

Pricing starts at $35 per month for 25,000 monthly visitors and scales up from there. If you need more than 2.5 million visitors per month, you can contact the Kinsta sales team to put together a custom plan. All plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Bottom line: Kinsta can handle any volume of traffic that you need. You won’t have to worry about outgrowing them.

One especially nice thing about Kinsta is that you get access to the same features across every plan, as opposed to upgrading to a higher-priced plan to unlock something.

It also makes Kinsta’s pricing super simple. Pick the plan based on your traffic and you’re good to go.

How to Choose the Best Web Hosting for WordPress

Now that you know about some of the best choices for hosting your WordPress site, it’s time to find the best one for you and your business. Here are some of the major considerations to decide among the top options.

Note: We intentionally didn’t include speed, security, and uptime on the following list of WordPress hosting factors. They are certainly important, but our recommended hosting providers have these responsibilities locked down. We wouldn’t recommend them otherwise.

Multi-Site vs. Single-Site Hosting 

Every provider on our list offers different solutions if you plan to host multiple sites. That’s why it’s important to make sure the provider you choose can support all the sites you’ll be hosting in the future. The price and features for each package must be taken into consideration here.

For example, WPEngine offers a few great packages if you’re managing multiple websites. Their multi-site hosting packages start at $44.25 per month with three sites included. You’ll also get 125 GB of bandwidth each month along with 15 GB of storage.

It scales up from there to their Growth package that’s $86.25 per month—quite the jump. But you end up getting 10 sites included in that package with more bandwidth and storage.

Kinsta is also another excellent option to consider if you’re looking for multi-site WordPress hosting. These packages are also built to scale. So if you end up getting more clients who need websites, you can just upgrade your package as needed.

Providers like Bluehost offer unlimited websites at just $5.45 per month. But there’s a catch—it is completely unmanaged.

That means it doesn’t come with the level of customer support and automatic maintenance you’d get with managed hosting.

Customer Support That’s Actually Supportive

You want your website must operate as smoothly as possible. This is especially important if you’re making money from it. So when something goes wrong, like an outage or security breach, you want someone in your corner to get you out of the jam.

That’s why good customer support is an important consideration when you’re deciding on a WordPress host.

WordPress hosting platform WPEngine offers one of the best-reviewed customer support teams. The team is on hand 24/7/365 to help you with any and all issues that arise. 

The trade-off here is that it’s a managed WordPress host, which means it comes at a steeper cost. With that price tag comes a stellar hosting service, though, along with a support team that’ll be at your disposal whether you need to optimize your website or guide it through any down times.

Even better, the help desk and support staff of a managed WordPress site are WordPress experts. They understand your site and the plugins you’re using. They are essentially trained to help you—unlike a general host with customers running all sorts of applications.

Managed hosts have built their business model on providing timely, reliable service. Conversely, cheaper hosts don’t put much of an emphasis on helping customers in their time of need.

That’s not to say that all unmanaged options offer inferior customer support. In fact, hosts like Bluehost offer award-winning 24/7 customer support for all of your needs. They just might not know your site as well as a managed WordPress host does.

Managed vs. Unmanaged Hosting

This is one of the most important decisions to make when it comes to choosing a WordPress web host from this list. It determines everything from your level of customer support to security to price.

First, let’s talk about the WordPress hosting most people are familiar with. You get a regular web host and that host usually gives you an easy way to install WordPress. You have a host, WordPress is installed, and that’s it.

This is known as unmanaged WordPress hosting—and most WordPress hosting works like this. After a one-click install, you get the basic version of WordPress, the same version that you’d get if you installed WordPress on a server that you owned.

Managed WordPress hosting takes things up a notch and offers several additional features.

Instead of a basic host with WordPress installed, everything is built from the ground up with WordPress in mind. This hosting infrastructure is tailored specifically to WordPress, and the hosting provider usually customizes WordPress itself to make it better.

Your site will be a lot faster and more secure with a managed plan. You’ll also benefit from much better support since the hosting team specializes in WordPress.

The downside is that managed WordPress hosting is more expensive, but this makes sense. You’re getting more value for the higher price tag.

Headache-Free Site Migration

WordPress hosting is typically an upgrade from old shared hosting solutions. So there’s a good chance you’re migrating your website to a new web host altogether.

A quality web host will help you migrate your website between web hosts easily and seamlessly. You might get a dedicated technician work through the process for you, or have a customer support team to guide you through the process yourself. Some might even charge you a little more in order to migrate your site—and it’s usually worth the price in my opinion.

See which hosting providers offer site migration as you’re reaching different options. For example, SiteGround has a free migrator tool you can use to get your website over to its host.

WPEngine is another host that offers a migration plugin. Once downloaded, the plugin takes care of all the complicated work for you.

Flywheel has experts on hand to help you migrate your website. Their migration team will take care of the whole process, so you don’t have to.

If you want to transfer your website to a new host, be sure to check what the WordPress hosting provider offers to help transfer your website. You’ll want as much assistance as you can get to make the transition smooth.

Best Web Hosting for WordPress: Your Top Questions Answered

The Top Web Hosting For WordPress in Summary

WordPress web hosting puts your site on a server that’s only used for WordPress. This improves security and performance and enhances the overall experience for your website visitors.

Factors like site traffic, technical experience, and scalability are all important factors to consider here. Beginners launching a new WordPress website likely won’t use the same solution as a high-traffic site that wants to switch hosts.