WordPress Web Hosting: Canada
“Bigger isn’t better; better is better.” Unknown
It’s rare to find a hosting company that doesn’t offer WordPress hosting, because WordPress is the most popular platform in the world. However, there are advantages in using a company that specializes in WordPress, including:
- 1-click WordPress installation
- Automatic WordPress updates for better security
- Knowledgeable support for specific WordPress issues
bigger was Worse
We’ve worked with some of the larger hosting companies. They all left us disappointed, mostly because of poor customer support experiences. In one case, it was a combination of poor support and terrible uptime, which is definitely a big deal breaker for a hosting company.
Our only positive experience with one of the big boys was with SiteGround. Their support was very good and we had no complaints whatsoever, but we left them for the sole reason that we wanted to find a reliable Canadian host for reasons explained below.
In our experience, bigger was the opposite of better. Those companies have millions of customers so losing one isn’t a big deal.
When it comes to web hosting companies, we believe you should choose the one that fits your business best. For example, there’s no reason to use a big national law firm to review a simple business lease, unless you just like to pay more. More importantly, a smaller law firm will likely value your business more.
Web Hosting Factors to consider
Your website’s uptime is important, but any decent hosting company is going to have close to 100% uptime. After all, if their customers’ websites are frequently out of commission, they’ll soon be out of commission too.
Cost isn’t really an issue either. Hosting is dirt cheap, unless you need a dedicated server or managed hosting (we won’t get into that because few local businesses would ever need those services). You can get a year’s service for $0 to about $100 just about anywhere.
We believe the most important consideration is customer support. It’s almost a sure thing that you’ll encounter an issue with your WordPress installation at some point. It happens to everyone. You can’t afford to have your website “break” because it will cost you business. You need to know you’re dealing with someone who will fix that issue, and fix it promptly.
why a canadian hosting company?
The reason we recommend a Canadian company to our clients is that Canada takes personal privacy a lot more seriously than the U.S. does. Web servers located in the U.S. are subject to U.S. laws that make it a lot easier to access personal information. Personally, we’re not really paranoid about that, but we have to think about our clients and their clients, most of whom are not even aware that their personal information may be stored on U.S. soil.
There’s no reason that Canadian hosting companies aren’t every bit as good as others, so why subject your personal information to the laws of a foreign country?
our web hosting Choice
We have only used one Canadian host, so it’s not fair to comment on any of the others. There are surely a number of good choices, but it pays to do a little bit of research.
We recommend Websavers to our clients and have done so for the last three years. Jordan, Allen, and the gang in Halifax are great and have never let us down, even though we’ve sometimes asked some pretty dumb questions. They’re really passionate about what they do, and equally passionate about their customers. We also like the fact that dealing with them is more personal than dealing with larger, impersonal companies.
If you’re not in the market for our custom-designed WordPress sites, they also offer some affordable options using prebuilt themes.
* We do get a small referral fee from Websavers if you choose to use them. Just sayin’.