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Best wordpress hosting

The Best (And Worst) WordPress Hosting

Today, you’re about to learn which web hosts are the best for WordPress sites, and which ones to avoid.

I’m going to talk about your best options for hosting WordPress websites.

Here’s the deal – it’s a minefield.

I know that because I’ve been hosting websites since 2004.

And I’ve been hosting WordPress websites since 2007.

Way back in the early days of WordPress.

So, I know what the concerns are.

I know what you need to be looking out for.

So, I’m going to show you:

  • The best web hosts for WordPress.
  • And, the ones you need to avoid.

Because it can be really problematic if you get stuck with poor service.

And there are a number of questions and concerns, such as:

  • What if the site doesn’t work?
  • What if the downtime is pretty high?
  • What if you have to install WordPress manually?
  • Which web hosts come with cPanel?
  • What if there’s no support available after you’ve signed up?
  • What if you get hacked?
  • Does the hosting company cover your back?
  • Do they take backups?

And for this, you need to understand that most hosting reviews are kind of biased.

There’s an ulterior motive for the recommendations of web host.

Because most people who review web hosts and then offer their recommendation are actually affiliates.

And that sways their decision – they tend to recommend the hosting companies that have the highest commission.

But I’m going to make sure I don’t go down the same road (I’m NOT an affiliate!)

So just so you know – my intentions are good.

  • I’m not going to use any affiliate links.
  • It’s all based on my hands-on personal experience over the last many years.
  • I’m not trying to profit from this in any way!

So, let’s dive into it.

Types of Web Hosting

There are 3 types of hosting.

And each type of hosting environment caters to a different need.

Shared Hosting

The most common one is shared hosting.

This is where they cram hundreds or even thousands of websites on to one server.

Everybody shares the resources.

This can be problematic if you have a high-traffic website.

Building a test website using Shared Hosting

I remember in a recent test we did with profitcopilot.com, I set up a test website using shared hosting.

On this test website, we started using traffic methods from one of my training courses.

In the first 2 weeks, the traffic started to increase.

It went up to approximately 1000 people a day.

On the hosting environment that we had tested, a 1000 people a day caused the website to shutout.

The server couldn’t handle that much traffic to that website.

This is a common problem with shared hosting.

To be completely upfront with you, I did that as part of a marketing strategy because I wanted to show what kind of results using my traffic methods can have on shared hosting website.

In fact, it allowed me to take a screenshot that displayed ‘server melting traffic’.

Such as situation will have you want to upgrade your hosting account.

VPS – Virtual Private Server

VPS or Virtual Private Server is still on a shared hosting account, but here you get more resources.

You get more room, more things to play with.

So, you can have more plugins installed; you can have more traffic coming to your website.

And that is generally the type of hosting account I use for my websites because it can sustain the traffic levels that I’m throwing at it.

Dedicated Server

A dedicated server is for when you have really high traffic websites.

I only have one dedicated server and there’s one website on that.

That website gets crazy traffic levels, upwards of 30,000 to 50,000 people a day.

Occasionally, we get over 100,000 people a day to that site.

For that, we need a dedicated server.

Even VPS wouldn’t cut it in this case.

So, here’s what you get with the three types of web hosting:

  • Shared hosting – shared resources
  • VPS – a bit more resources
  • Dedicated server – 100% resources.

Things to look out for when choosing a Web Host

Because I have multiple types of web hosting accounts, I’m going to show you what you need to look out for no matter which web host you choose.

  • Pick a host that has cPanel

This feature lets you install WordPress with a few clicks. It’s really important.

  • Test the Customer Support

Always check out the customer support before you sign up.

For this:

  • Send them an email.
  • Check the response time.
  • See what kind of detail they go into.

Most likely, you’re going to be dealing with a sales representative.

Now, if they know what they’re doing, they will either get the tech to give them the information they need, or refer you to someone who has got more knowledge.

The Companies You Should Avoid

Now, let’s get down to the companies you should avoid.

  • IX Webhost

You have to stay away from these guys. They’re shockingly bad.

The downtime I experienced with them was really high.

The support was non-existent.

  • iPower Web

I moved from IX Webhost to iPower Web, and I had almost the exact same experience.

The funny thing is, both are owned by the same parent company – EIG hosting company.

You have to avoid pretty much any web host owned by EIG – Endurance International Group (EIG).

Other webhosting companies owned by EIG are:

  • Bluehost
  • Fast Domain
  • Host Gator
  • Host Monster
  • Site 5

And many more.

EIG purchase good hosting companies and then they lay off the support staff.

They stop investing in the technology, because that company only exists to increase the profit for its shareholders.

Not really for providing a good customer experience.

  • One-on-One Hosting

Speaking of web hosting companies to avoid, another one is one-to-one webhosting. With them, I went ahead with WordPress hosting option, and everything was fine.

Until, I tried to install a plugin.

Also, the second I installed Jetpack, things started to go totally downhill.

The site just stopped working.

It took around 3 days for support to get back to me to investigate.

Their solution was that ‘I needed to upgrade to a dedicated server’.

So, that’s one to stay away from.

  • A2 Hosting

I found here that the lack of features was kind of worrying.

The speed wasn’t very good either.

And to do anything worthwhile with the hosting account, I needed to pay additional monthly purchases.

For example, installing WordPress incurred an extra monthly fee.

And the support wasn’t too helpful when I needed them.

  • InMotion Hosting

These guys have got a pretty good reputation.

But based on my own experience, I can’t really recommend them.

This is because almost immediately, every test site that I built on their VPS got hacked.

And it got hacked very quickly.

I also found the support to be very disorganized.

I had to repeat myself to about 8 different members of support staff, before they took any action.

I found that to be a bit unacceptable.

However, the uptime is pretty good, but the speed of the server is quite slow.

So, these are the web hosts that should be completely avoided, based on my personal experience, (other people may have completely different experience, but here’s what I went through!).

Better Web Host

Croc Web

I used to really love this company.

And, for a while, everything I had, was hosted with these guys.

But for the last couple of years, their support has been kind of lacking.

I still have a dedicated server with them, and that’s really because the site that I’m hosting there is mammoth!

It’s got around 100,000 posts on there, and people keep contributing to that every single day.

So it’s a nightmare to move for me.

And the server is just fast enough to do what I need it to do.

But, there are frequent problems, and it seems that there’s only one member who actually knows what he’s doing.

I have to personally request that he takes a look at the issues when they arise.

Otherwise, I’m left with support staff that don’t really know what they’re doing.

So, I would recommend them if you don’t mind dealing with lazy support staff.

The Best Companies that I’ve Used

Finding a good hosting company is quite difficult. We know this now.

These two I totally recommend as I’ve personally used them, and I’ve had really good service working with them.

  • Liquid Web

I found them to be an amazing company.

  • Site Ground

At the moment, I have my most important website hosted with Site Ground.

That is because the uptime has been brilliant.

The websites load fast and the support is fantastic.

They make everything easy to use.

They even give you free SSL’s!

So if you’re looking for an option that doesn’t break the bank, then I recommend Site Ground at the moment.

That might change over time.

But if you really want to know how to put your web host to the test, and want to get more traffic then you know what to do with, then here’s the deal:

I’ve got a free training course for you that is 100% free.

That will give you 3 secret traffic methods that you haven’t seen before.

And it won’t cost you a single penny!

So claim your free course by going to profitcopilot.com/traffic

Microphone Test: Blue Yeti vs Zoom H4N

Microphone Test: Blue Yeti vs Zoom H4N

Which is best, the Blue Yeti or the Zoom H4N?

We’re going to find out. Hit play on the video above to hear the difference between both microphones.

The Blue Yeti is a USB microphone, while the Zoom H4N is requires an SD card, so they work in different ways.

I know there is a lot of debate online about which is best so I’ve done a test for you and I’m gonna let you decide for yourself which one is best.

There’s no opinion from me about this.

Because the Zoom H4N requires batteries, I changed all the batteries before starting the video.

And also to make sure its fair I’ve put both mics equal distance from me.

Here are the tech specs for the Blue Yeti:

Blue Yeti Specs

Here are the tech specs for the Zoom H4N:

Zoom H4N Specs

Let me know which one you think is best.

Microphone Comparison: Blue Yeti vs Rode Podcaster

You know the drill: When you’re shooting videos or recording podcasts there are a few essentials you’re going to need – and the microphone is possibly going to be the most important tool in your arsenal.

In fact, I’ve heard it said that people will endure low-quality video, but they will not tolerate low-quality audio.

So, if that’s true it makes sense to spend more time, and money, in getting the right sound for your videos and podcasts. Over the years I’ve tried a wide range of microphones to try and get the highest quality audio that I can.

I love shooting videos, (and not including my phone which does a surprisingly good job), I’ve only tested three cameras in the last seven years.

In comparison, I’ve tried at least a dozen microphones during the same period.

The one I’ve settled with, for most of my videos is undoubtedly the  Zoon H4N – combined with the Audio-Technica ATR-3350.

However, because I’m a creature of convenience, I like to have a permanent microphone on my desk too, so I can quickly shoot screen-capture videos and record directly-to-the-computer, without the hassle of transferring the file from SD disk. And without the hassle of syncing the audio file to the video footage.

It’s time-consuming and at times when I’m mainly recording the tutorial screen-capture videos, the Zoom H4N set-up is overkill. And I record a lot of tutorials.

So if you’ve ever spent a caffeine-fueled afternoon of researching the wide variety of microphones on the market, two names keep cropping up; the Blue Yeti and the Rode Podcaster.

The Blue Yeti is a condenser microphone – that means it’s more sensitive than a dynamic microphone, and it could result in picking up background noise on the recording.

The Rode Podcaster is a dynamic microphone – that means it’s less sensitive than a condenser microphone, and it could result in less accurate audio.

So it’s largely a personal preference and the end result will be different for each environment you record in.

For me, I couldn’t tell a great deal of difference between the two.

I loved the overall sound of both, and struggle to find fault with either.

I had to get in close to the Rode Podcaster, so leaning back was out of the question.

Getting in close with the Blue Yeti made me sound too breathy.

It’s a difficult one for me to call, and I’m not sure which one I prefer – both do a fantastic job and produce professional-sounding audio.

In the end, it’s up to you to decide which one you prefer, so watch my side-by-side comparison and decide for yourself.

Aweber vs ActiveCampaign – Why I Moved From Aweber

I’ve been an Aweber customer since 2009… that’s a long time in Internet years.

Back then it was the autoresponder to use.

And during those years, every time I was asked about email marketing I proudly recommended Aweber.

But that all changed in 2017.

A year previously, in 2016, a friend told me about a little-known company called ActiveCampaign.

“It’s almost an InfusionSoft-level CRM, but without the price tag,” she said.

Obviously, I was skeptical.

She wasn’t wrong though. Well, it’s very close – at least it gives us a taste of what’s possible.

And it planted a seed of doubt in my mind. Maybe Aweber wasn’t the holy grail of mid-budget autoresponders, after all?

So I started an afternoon of intense caffeine-fueled research.

Not Your Grandfathers Autoresponder

To my amazement, the email marketing scene had changed since I last took the time to look. And Aweber’s leading position had slipped, considerably.

Now, I’m not one to jump onto the latest and greatest shiny objects. If you’re familiar with my videos, blog posts and podcast then you’ll know I favor using methods, techniques, and technology that can stand the test of time. I like things to be consistent, predictable and reliable.

I’m a creature of habit and I know what I like.

I also believe in brand loyalty and Aweber had always been good to me.

It had always worked as I expected it to. I didn’t feel like there was any real reason to jump ship.

It’s not like I felt that I was missing out on anything – I’d never seen any of that fancy automation stuff in action and truthfully, I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about anyway.

So, maybe if things started going wrong with Aweber, on then would I think about moving.

Then a few weeks later, a turning point came when I read a post on the Thrive Themes blog. As soon as I hit the page, a lightbox popup took over the browser window and gave me three choices – it asked me to choose which area of my business I was currently focused on.

When I made my choice, it showed an opt-in form, so I signed up. I was in awe of the lightbox, the way it made things interactive. Of course, it was only a standard two-step opt-in form, but it was presented in such a way that I felt involved.

It was the first time I had been given a choice about the type of content I wanted to receive.

So then, curious to learn how it was done, I went back and repeated the process twice more, for each of the options I didn’t choose the first time around.

I was amazed to see that behind the scenes, I was being sent to different stages of the same funnel.

Theme envy, I think it’s called.

So I contacted Thrive Themes and asked them directly how they did it. A combination of Thrive Leads and ActiveCampaign, they told me.

This was now the exact set up I wanted for my sites. At the time, the doors to Profit Copilot had been shut, but I immediately saw how it could benefit my main site, RINF.

I imagined the millions of people who visit my site now being given not just one insentive to subscribe to my list, but three. The numbers made me drool.

Straight to Aweber I go, looking for a way to achieve it.

But all I find is frustration.

A long chat with a member of the support team didn’t help much either. It turns out that it’s impossible with Aweber, unless I created three separate email lists, with a sequence for each one.

Should the same person subscribe to all three lists, then I’ll be charged X3 for that one subscriber.

I thought it was a raw deal. Disappointed, I put the idea on the back burner and carry on as normal – for another few weeks.

The final straw came when my emails had stopped going to my subscribers’ inbox and started landing in their junk folders instead.

Aweber’s response was to change the subject line of the confirmation email, even though I was using their recommended default one.

It didn’t make a difference, so I decided to jump ship.

And then something amazing happened.

Almost immediately, my open rates increased – which meant my click through rates climbed and my email list became more responsive.

Suddenly I had a whole new set of tools to use. My email campaigns could now use advanced behavioral technology – so a campaign can change and adapt according to subscriber actions.

Powerful stuff.

How Is It For Affiliate Marketers?

But as good as this sounds, ActiveCampagin isn’t the right solution for everybody. There are some instances when Aweber is the best option.

If your business model is dependent on affiliate marketing, then avoid ActiveCampaign. They don’t like affiliate marketers.

Aweber welcomes this practice with open arms, so if you send a lot of affiliate links to your list, stay put.

I can’t express this enough. If you’re an affiliate marketer you should avoid ActiveCampaign at all costs – it will damage your business.

Imagine logging into your account to see that it’s been frozen. No email notification to warn you, nothing to let you know that your campaigns have stopped running.

That actually happened to one of my friends.

Despite that, this is my only issue with ActiveCampaign. In my experience, all other areas of their support have been top notch so far, but this a major flaw that’s impossible to overlook.

But if you’re a content creator, if you’re a blogger, a YouTuber, Podcaster etc, and don’t send overly promotional emails, then ActiveCampaign is worth a look.

What Does It Do?

Right now, almost every autoresponder on the market has advanced behavioral technology, besides Aweber. So ConvertKit, GetResponse, and even Mailchimp all out-perform Aweber.

I chose ActiveCampaign because it was recommended by my friend who raved about it. We have similar businesses models, so if it works for her then it will probably work for me too.

So here are some of the things it can do, and Aweber can’t:

  • A/B split testing
  • Campaign segmentation
  • Activity logging and tracking
  • Behaviour tracking
  • Visitor tracking
  • Lead scoring
  • Pipeline management
  • Data filtering
  • Advanced automation
  • SMS marketing
  • Real-time tracking and reporting

You might not think you need all of this, but just the ability to run A/B split tests is now essential for any business that’s using email marketing.

Email marketing as a whole has changed and Aweber has failed to keep up.

So, how exactly can all these new shiny objects help your business?

Well, let’s pretend that you sell apples and oranges. On Monday, you send an email that’s all about apples, and on Tuesday you send another one all about oranges.

If your subscriber opens the email about apples, ActiveCampaign knows and you can automatically trigger for more emails about apples to be sent. If they don’t open the email about oranges, you can automatically stop them from receiving any future emails about oranges.

This level of automation is powerful, it makes sure that your subscribers only receive the type of content they’re interested in. This can make your email list more responsive and can increase the overall engagement of your subscribers.

When I say it’s changed how I run my business, I’m serious. It’s also brought in more revenue, as I’ve been able to re-engage subscribers that I wouldn’t have been able to re-connect with, with Aweber.

So to sum up and to put it bluntly, if you’re a content creator who’s still using Aweber, then you’re losing money.

‘WP Tweet Machine’ Review

Disclaimer: I never put affiliate links or profit from any of my reviews. They are solely to help guide you so you know where to invest your time and money. 

Getting yourself established on Twitter is hard.. I know that because I’ve never managed to crack it.

Building a decent following takes time and dedication, which to be straight up with you, is time I just don’t have. And I never really understood the attraction to Twitter anyway.. but I do understand it’s a great way to promote a business.

So enter WP Tweet Machine, which is a WordPress plugin developed by Ankur Shukla and Dan Green and it claims to solve that problem by getting your Twitter profile, or whatever it’s called, in front of real followers who are actually into your stuff.

Great! That means I don’t have to understand Twitter and can just let the software manage things.

Questionable sales tactics

Ok, the sales page looks like it’s one of those sleazy get rich quick schemes, and the false scarcity does nothing to boost their credibility, but once you look beyond the adrenaline fueled hype-fest, underneath all that, there’s actually a really solid piece of software on offer.

And that’s a shame. They don’t need to use dodgy sales tactics.

fake-scarcity

You see, like I do with all products I buy that use a countdown timer, after purchase I wait for the timer to hit zero and return later on that day, or the next day so I can see if I’m dealing with an honest company.

In this instance, even days after the timer hit zero, the price stayed the same.

Had I known they used this tactic before I purchased, then I wouldn’t have supported a company that uses unethical sales techniques. However, I hold my hand up… yes, I fell for it.

And yes, I do feel deceived – let’s call it what it is, it’s an outright lie.

But since I did purchase, and this isn’t a review of their sales techniques, let’s get down and have a look at the actual plugin.

Solid plugin, awesome support

Setting it up took a bit of time and effort.. it’s slightly technical too. But if you’re not comfortable setting up cron jobs and making Twitter apps, then thankfully there are plenty of step by step videos available.

Once you’ve done the technical stuff and connected the plugin to your Twitter account, everything from then on, including creating a campaign is a cinch.

At its core, you can have the software post a wide range of relevant content to your followers, including stuff from YouTube and website RSS feeds.

This means you’re always providing interesting content, and you can add your own comments and use spintax.

It will also retweet the most popular tweets in your niche, follow people for you, and add them to lists for you.

It’s literally like having someone else manage your Twitter account and build a following.

The customer support is (mostly) fantastic too, they are a little slow to respond but also willing to go the extra mile to help you.

Using the plugin I grew an experimental account to almost 2,000 genuine followers, in a couple of months.

Impressive stuff really.

Value for money?

If you can overlook the amount of sleaze and deception on the sales page, I’d recommend this plugin to everyone who can’t be bothered with or doesn’t have the time to invest in getting to grips with Twitter.

The sales page unfortunately drags what is an absolutely killer plugin into the realm of desperate bottom-of-the-barrel Internet marketing sludge, and doesn’t do the product justice.

With that said, this is still one of the best value for money plugins I’ve ever used.

‘Designrr’ Review

Disclaimer: This Designrr review does not contain any affiliate links, nor do I profit from this in any way. This review is an honest one and entirely for your benefit.   Last updated 2020 Like a lot of people who run online businesses, I create PDF reports on an almost …

Read more‘Designrr’ Review

‘Clickin Technologies’ Review

Disclaimer: I gladly receive absolutely zero compensation for my reviews; there are no affiliate links nor do I profit in any way. This is an unbiased review and is completely for your benefit. 

When it comes to my websites.. including Profit Copilot, I do most of the design work myself – having a background in graphic design and web development sometimes pays off.

But over the last few years I’ve found it increasingly more productive to just hand that work over to someone else, so I can focus on running the business.

Obviously I’m proud of Profit Copilot and the customizations I’ve made to it… but, like most projects, you always see room for improvement.

That’s why I went out hunting for someone I could work with on a regular basis, so they could manage the technical side of things.

During my search, I saw that Clickin Technologies were receiving good reviews on the Warrior Forum. So I sent them a quick message containing my design brief, with mock up.

I requested that they:

Shorten the length of the website header, overlay the logo on top of the navigation bar and add a second menu to the right hand side. 

Simple stuff for a web development company, right?

I also needed to know how long it would take them to complete the project. This is important because I need to stick to a schedule.

Logo_color

Within a few minutes they responded with a quote, they were the quickest of all three companies I contacted, but did not provide a time scale until I asked a second time.

8 – 24 hours was the response.

Now, the speed at which they provided the quote struck me as slightly odd because the didn’t make any inquiry about the theme I was using nor requested any technical information about the website.

Ok, they’re professionals. They know what they’re doing.

Payment was made and the next day they told me that the work I requested was ‘done’. But it wasn’t, the second menu hadn’t been added.

A series of back and forth emails carried on for almost a week before Clickin Technologies informed me that my WordPress theme (Newspaper) prevented them from adding the menu.

This was very disappointing, especially considering the amount of times I had to nudge them for an update, or to check that things were progressing as their deadline had severely overrun.

They also created a resizing problem with the logo and failed to correct it, even after requests were made.

So that’s what went wrong.

Here’s what went right; the quality of the work that they did produce looked good and was almost what I envisaged. It only took a couple of emails to tweak it and get it spot on.

While at times communicating with them felt like pulling teeth, they were polite and courteous.

And they didn’t quibble when I requested a 50% refund.

In the interest of balance and fairness, at the beginning of the project I let them know that I would be reviewing their services on this website. Their response:

“I will be highly obliged if you write something good about my services which will generate more leads.”

I told them my review would be honest.

So, in all would I work with Clickin Technologies again? Probably not.

But at the same time I have no desire to harm their business, so I think if you just require very basic work and don’t mind having to explain yourself a few times, then I can’t see any problems with hiring them.

The quality of work is ok, if a little sloppy.