5 Reasons You Might Want to Switch WordPress Hosting Providers

It can be tempting to think any working web host will provide you with a top-notch experience, but that, unfortunately, isnt always the case. No two hosting providers are the same, and performance can vary wildly between different hosts.  All that means that even if youre feeling happy with your WordPress host (and definitely if youre not!), you might not necessarily be getting the  best service possible. And thats why its important to look at some metrics that indicate when its time to  switch WordPress hosting providers.The good news is that  moving to a new hosting service isnt as difficult as it sounds.  So even if youre ambivalent about your current host, we encourage you to consider these metrics because theres a decent chance you might be able to improve your sites hosting situation without much hassle or money.Because of how important metrics like uptime and page load times are to your sites success, every little improvement counts. For that reason, whether youre ha ppy with your current host or not, were going to walk you through five reasons you might want to switch WordPress hosting providers and explain what makes each important. Lets get started! If your site takes less than one second to load, youre well ahead of the pack.As a rule of thumb, if your website takes more than two seconds to load, roughly 40% of your audience is going to leave. 30% of eCommerce shoppers are even more demanding and want sites to load in under one second. If that isnt bad enough, a majority of users say they wont consider shopping at your site again if its too slow.(Chart by Visualizer Lite.)One second is  fast. So you might not even notice that your current host isnt performing as well as it is. Thats why its important to look for potential issues that are slowing your site down more than necessary, even if your site doesnt feel especially sluggish. These issues can include:Poor server configuration. For example, your server might not support PHP 7, which is roughly twice as fast as PHP 5.Too many users on the same server. Shared hosting is a stepping stone for many websites, and it doesnt necessarily correlate with bad performance. However, if your provider oversells its resources, every subscriber will suffer for it.A lack of strategically placed data centers. The greater the physical distance is between visitors and your servers, the longer it will  take for your site to load.The easiest way to figure out if this is an issue for your site is to run multiple speed tests and average their results. If your site is consistently taking over two seconds to load, youll need to  work on optimizing its speed or switch WordPress hosting providers. Even if you optimize your site, getting better hosting still might be the most important factor.2. Youre dealing with a  sluggish WordPress dashboardThe WordPress dashboard is where the magic happens, and if its slow youll be less productive.Your  WordPress dashboard is the main interface th rough which you  interact with your sites. You need it for everything from uploading new content to customizing your pages. If your web host is poorly optimized, however, you might end up with a  slow WordPress dashboard.Weve already established how frustrating it is for users to deal with slow-loading sites, and the same applies to you and your dashboard. If you need to wait a few seconds for your dashboard to load each time you click on a new tab, that lost time can add up quickly. A quick dashboard, on the other hand,  makes you more productive instead of sapping your time.Whereas long loading times on your front end can be the  result of poor optimization, a slow dashboard is typically  the fault of your provider (though certain plugins and caching configurations can also be culprits). If youre dealing with this problem, switching to a more WordPress-friendly host is the obvious choice.3. Too much downtime is hampering your sites growthIf your website isnt reachable, y our visitors will go elsewhere.At the risk of sounding clichà ©, time is money, and every minute your site spends out of commission is a loss. In hosting terms, any period where your site is unavailable to users is referred to as downtime.The problems with  downtime are easy to grasp, so lets go through them quickly:It leads to a loss of traffic.You miss out on potential customers and conversions.An unavailable site makes you look unprofessional.Fortunately, most web hosts these days are excellent at  minimizing downtime. In fact, your website shouldnt spend more than  one tenth of a percent of the entire year down (about nine hours  total), and its possible to reduce that even further. So even if your host reaches a 99.00% uptime,  thats not necessarily good enough. You need a host that can go even further and hit 99.90% uptime (at a minimum).You might not think thats a huge deal, but that extra 0.90% of downtime per year can mean  3+ days per year where your site isnt available.  Thats a long weekend of downtime!To measure your sites actual uptime percentage, you can use free tools like Uptime Robot or UpDown.io. If your sites actual uptime is less than 99.90% after a few months of monitoring, you may want to switch  WordPress hosting providers.4. High hosting costs are hurting your budgetIts easy to find affordable WordPress hosting plans with great performance.Thanks to WordPress popularity, many  web hosts offer robust WordPress-optimized  plans at incredibly low prices. In practice, that means you should expect top performance even if youre paying less than $5 a month for your plan.Of course, more expensive plans tend to boast even better performance and more features (especially as your sites traffic increases), but you should only ever pay for what you need. Lets break down why:Long-term savings. Even a few  dollars each month  can add up over the long term, so you dont want to overpay for your hosting.More expensive doesnt alw ays mean better.  For  example, SiteGround is one of the cheapest hosts in the business at only $3.95 per month for their starter WordPress plan. However, theyre still near the top of the pack when it comes to performance.In some cases, youll need something more comprehensive than a basic plan, but you can always upgrade at any time. The logical move is to choose a provider with a good cost-to-performance ratio, and upgrade only when you need the added performance or extra features.5. Migrating your website is easier than you thinkMigration services can help you move your site painlessly and quickly.One of the main reasons a lot of people dont consider switching hosting providers is that they believe it will  be too difficult. After all, building a site from scratch is complicated enough, so it stands to reason that moving it would be  similarly challenging.Fortunately, that just isnt the case. In fact, here are three reasons moving your WordPress site doesnt have to be a bi g deal:There are migration plugins that enable you to do handle the process yourself.If you migrate your site during off-hours, your downtime should be minimal.A lot of hosting providers will migrate your site for free.In many cases, your new web host will be happy to handle your sites migration at no cost after youve signed up with them. That way, they ensure themselves a happy new customer, and you save some time on your end. Its a win-win situation. If you want to do it yourself, here is a quick video-guide about how you can safely migrate your website without losing SEO rankings.Sometimes you really need to switch WordPress hosting providersIf you want your website to succeed, youre going to need a web host you can rely on. Even if youre generally happy with your current host, that doesnt mean switching hosting providers cant get you a better situation. After all, WordPress hosting is a highly competitive field, and chances are youll be able to find a better provider that meets all your criteria (no matter if youre looking for an affordable shared hosting setup or a more advanced managed hosting heres the difference).Here are just five reasons you might want to switch WordPress hosting providers:Your site takes too long to load.Your dashboard feels sluggish.Theres too much downtime on your current provider.Your hosting costs are too high.Migrating your site is easier than you think.Do you have any questions about how to switch WordPress hosting providers? Ask away in the comments section below! 5 reasons it might be time for a new #WordPress #host