Update 2023: We still work with and recommend both Flywheel and WPEngine for WordPress Hosting. We also partnered with Google Cloud (the backbone of the internet) and offer a range of hosting, maintenance and support plans, that can be centrally controlled from your Digital Toolkit.
Fred Porter, Agent Digital
I wrote this blog originally back in 2018, and thought it would be a good time to tell you a story about something I am passionate about and a conversation I have with people almost everyday!
Back in 2010 I was Marketing Manager for a fast growing live entertainment company. I had the skills and had built the companies website using WordPress – I’ve actually been a WordPress developer since 2005 – long before it became what we know today as the the world’s most popular content management system. Back then, I, like many people starting out with their first website, didn’t really see the point in paying more than a few dollars a month for website hosting. The website worked, customers got serviced, we saved money, right? Wrong!
One morning we were just about to announce a new live show tour on Facebook and directed people to our website to check tour dates and buy tickets. The tour was a live show touring Australia for a kids cartoon character called Peppa Pig. We had planned on using the same process we had done to announce previous tours, that is: Create a Facebook Page, post the announcement the page, then send an email to our previous customers. We knew this process worked and we had never had a problem before.
The night before, I got everything ready for our big announce! I created a brand new Facebook Page. I never even posted on the page, nor did we announce via email or send a press release. By morning, I got to work, the new Facebook Page had gone viral and thousands of customers were flooding our website to find out the details. The power of the pig! There was so much traffic the site became unresponsive, our phones started ringing off the hook with desperate parents wanting to secure tickets for the hottest new show in town.
It took us 3 days to get our site back, and the support we receive from our (cheap and nasty) web host was, well, not very helpful. I asked around and was introduced to WP Engine. Our problem was solved, with hosting designed purely for WordPress sites, and no matter what plan you are on, when you need to scale up for more website visitors, it happens automatically. Thankfully, once we were able to relaunch our campaign a few days later, it went without a hitch, and I never looked back.
I’ve been with WP Engine for more than 10 years and since launching my own business I am proud to be a WP Engine partner. I am not plagued by the issues affected others on cheap web hosts, and on the rare occasion I do have a problem, real 24/7 support is just a click away.
They way I see it, it really comes down to weather you want to build a house of straw or a house of bricks. Sure, when you are just starting out, keeping costs low is appealing, and when you have low website traffic, you may not notice the difference.
But you are not doing doing this to have low traffic forever! At some point, if all goes to plan, you will also go viral, and it could be off the back of a single blog post and come unexpectedly. When that moment happens, you want to be ready, if a flood of potential new customers come to your website and it’s down – they will simply leave, and you may never be able to get them back.
You may have just one shot at this – make sure you get it right the first time!
For more information on how to get it done and other benefits of WP Engine and their new acquisition FlyWheel, please read The Best Host for WordPress.
Disclosure statement: The opinions stated in this article are all mine. The links are affiliate links to my preferred provider. Signing up via these links won’t cost you anymore, and I’ll get paid for referring you. Win, win!
Fred Porter
