Even the most beautiful website will not get any attention if it can’t be found.  Just like you have a physical address where people know they can find you, a website needs to have the same.  This place is called a server, and the process of maintaining the website files on this server is called hosting.  If you are going to have a website, you need to have hosting, which is why we offer this service to our clients.  We take care of setting everything up for you so you don’t have to know the technical details of how it works and what to do to make it all work.  If you would like to learn more about our hosting options, please visit our hosting page.

You might be asking why you would host with us when you could go directly to a hosting company like GoDaddy and pay less money per month. If you’re simply looking for the best price, then hosting with us may not be right for you, but if you’re looking for the best value, then hosting with us is perfect for you.

If you are left to your own devices to pick a hosting company, you may choose the wrong server for your needs and soon, your website may be too slow for the traffic your website is generating. Or you may stop receiving emails because you’ve misconfigured something (and let’s be honest, most people do not have the technical know-how to set this up correctly). Consider another scenario: you get errors on your website, and you’re left spending an hour on a tech support phone call with a person who might as well be speaking Greek, because you have no idea how to explain the problem much less understand how to fix the problem.

This is why hosting with us is right for you. We ensure the server you host on is right for your website needs, that everything is configured correctly, and if any problems arise, we spend an hour with tech support fixing your problem. Simply put, we take the hassle out of hosting. Our clients love that they can send us an email and within an hour (in most cases) we’ve fixed the problem.

Not convinced? Here are a few other reasons to host with us.

• We personally care for every website we host.  Every WordPress website is backed up weekly and updates to WordPress core files and plugins are done weekly or as needed.
• We maintain a server with a select number of clients.  This means that we personally are responsible for the security of every website on our server, which helps us maintain greater control over the hosting environment.  With GoDaddy, you’ll be put on a server with hundreds of other clients, and you have no idea who they are or what business they are conducting.  If their website gets flagged for inappropriate content, your website could be tagged too.
• Websites on our server often deliver faster speeds.  We’ve moved a number of clients over to our server who were having trouble with website speeds, and just by making that move, their website speeds increased dramatically.  If you host with GoDaddy on a server with hundreds of other websites, all of you share the resources of that one server.  So if there’s only so much processing power to go around and Joe Bob’s Crab Shack has a lot of visitors to their website, your website speed may slow down as a result.  Each website on our server is carefully monitored for resource hogging, and appropriate measures are taken to make sure one website doesn’t negatively impact speeds of another website.
• You get excellent customer service.  You can pick up the phone or email us and within an hour (in most cases), your issue or question will be resolved.  You don’t need to spend long hours on tech support to fix your problem or wade through the Help section of your hosting company to answer your question.  We’re here to make your life easier so you can focus on running your business, spending time with your family or just having a few quiet moments to yourself.

Still not sure?  Please contact us today so we can talk more about hosting with you.

Additional resources: Articles posted in our Security Series

If you already have a WordPress website, absolutely.  We would love to work with you in moving your website over to our servers and setting you up with a managed WordPress hosting plan.  If you aren’t currently using WordPress, we would love to discuss your hosting needs and to determine if our hosting environment is a good fit for your website.  Contact us today.

Websites are susceptible to security breaches. If core and plugin files are not updated regularly, WordPress can be vulnerable as well. Outdated WordPress files can also cause a website to stop functioning. Backups ensure that if a problem occurs while updating these files, a stable copy of the website can be restored with little downtime to the website. Backups are also a great way to recover from a security breach if one is to occur.

Additional resources: Articles posted in our Security Series

Before you read this, please read the previous question titled “Why are backups and updates important?”. Go ahead, we’ll wait for you.

Now that we’ve explained that, let’s get back to the definition of managed WordPress hosting. While most of our clients have great intentions of backing up their website files and updating them on a regular basis, it is often shoved to the back burner until a security breach or a broken website makes it a priority.  To maintain a secure environment on our server for all our clients and to make sure all the websites we host are functioning properly, we offer weekly backups and updates as part of our hosting service.  Now our clients know their website isn’t vulnerable to attack or will stop working due to outdated files, because we are doing this service for them.  We manage WordPress for them – that’s why it’s called “managed WordPress hosting”.  For more information on our hosting service, please visit our hosting page.

Additional resources: Articles posted in our Security Series

In addition to doing regular backups and updates of core WordPress files for our clients, some clients decide they need more of our time.  This is why we offer monthly maintenance plans as well.  You don’t have to sign any long-term contracts – we take it month-to-month.  If you think you may need it for just a few months and then want to scale back, we’re fine with that.  But we’ve found that clients who pay for maintenance stick with it because they find it really convenient.

Each month we offer you an hour of our time to use any way you would like.  Perhaps you want us to do some research for you on some ways to improve your website, or maybe you have questions about your website you want answered.  Maybe you have a staff member you just hired whom you need to add to the website, or an issue on your website just started happening and needs to be fixed.  You simply have to send us an email or give us a call, and we’ll let you know if your plan has enough time in that month to tackle the issue.  If not, we’ll give you some options.  Hours not used in a month do not roll over. However, you’re receiving a 70% discount by paying monthly instead of hourly, so you’ll find it a great value.  This plan does not include major additions or changes to the website including adding new websites to the hosting environment. If major additions or changes to the site are necessary, we will issue an estimate or charge hourly pending client approval. While we’ve found an hour to be sufficient for most of our clients, you may think you require more.  Please let us know if we can customize a maintenance program just for you.

So if you’re one of those people who can’t be bothered by your website and you want someone to handle it for you, a monthly maintenance plan is perfect for you.  For more information on our hosting service, please visit the hosting page.

We make every effort to make your website as secure as possible, but no website is 100% invulnerable to attack.  That’s where Sucuri comes in.

Sucuri offers an exciting product that we have been using for a few years for a select number of clients.  We offer the optional add-on service of a Protection Platform that is a custom web-based defensive solution built on multiple defensive layers and technologies. These solutions include (Warning: geek speak ahead) Intrusion Detection System (just like you may have on your house to alert the authorities there is an intruder in your house), Intrusion Prevention System (the system anticipates where vulnerabilities are and who might try to get into the server and stops them from getting in), and a Website Application Firewall (stops traffic to your site from undesirable sources and actually speeds up the user experience).

Sucuri also monitors the site and gives us almost real-time feedback on the security state of the website, so if there’s a problem, we’ll know about it quickly.

Our policy is that if a security breach occurs, the first cleanup is free. If a client declines Sucuri protection, additional cleanups will cost $125 per incident. If you accept this service, additional cleanups will continue to be free up to 3 per year. If more than 3 per year are happening, we have something very unusual and serious going on with a site that will need special attention. 100% of our clients have experienced no intrusions after moving to this Sucuri service.

Only you can decide if you want to use this service, but we highly recommend it as a great insurance policy for your website.

Additional resources: Articles posted in our Security Series

A domain name is like the address you use to find someone’s home or a local business.  You plug the address in to your phone, and it directs you exactly to the location you want to go.  So it is with a domain name.  It is a unique address that sends a website user to the correct website.  Without it, people wouldn’t be able to find your website.  For example, the domain name for the website you are on right now is thed3.com.  The URL is https://www.thed3.com.  Most people use domain name and URL interchangeably, but the domain name is the portion after the www.

Chances are pretty good you already have a domain name, but if you don’t, we’re happy to help with that.  Some people choose to use GoDaddy or Network Solutions to register their domain name.  We offer one free domain name per hosting plan.  If you plan to host with us, we are happy to help you choose a domain name and register it for you.

If you have a domain name already, but have no clue how to log in to the company that you registered that domain name with, you can figure out that information fairly easily.

First, go to https://www.whois.net and type in your domain name.  For example, we would type in thed3.com if we were trying to find our domain name registrar.  After you hit return, you’ll see some information at the top that identifies your registrar.  On the following screen shot, you’ll notice our registrar is Enom.

Second, with your registrar company name in hand, you can either Google the registrar business name or use the Referral URL if there is one listed.  In the above example, we would go to http://www.enom.com.  At the top of most domain registrar businesses, there will be a Login link titled “Login” or “My Account” or something similar.  Click on that link.  From there, you can click on Forgot Login? or Forgot Password? and you’ll receive instructions on retrieving that information. If that doesn’t work for you, you can call customer service for the registrar and explain that you’ve lost your login information and let them know your domain name.  They’ll be happy to help you retrieve that information.  Once you have a username and password for your domain registrar, keep that information safe so you can retrieve it easily and securely.  It’s important information to maintain.

Absolutely – all of our hosting packages come with unlimited free email addresses.  Most of our clients use our servers to process email, but some have chosen to use Google apps, Microsoft Outlook.com or another way of processing email.  So how do you know if you should use our server for email or if you should pay for another service such as Google apps?  If you really need every email to get to where it should go every time without being caught in spam filters, you probably want to go with a more reliable service such as Google apps or Microsoft Outlook.com.  Google and Microsoft servers are well-known throughout the world, and email coming from those servers are higher priority than email coming from our servers.  This means that email coming from Google or Microsoft is less likely to be marked as spam or get lost in cyberspace.  Another thing to consider is how annoyed you get by spam coming into your inbox.  While we have good spam filtering, Google’s spam filtering is far superior, ensuring your inbox doesn’t get flooded daily by unwanted email.  Finally, some clients are familiar with using Google’s webmail client or Outlook and don’t want to learn something new.  If these issues do not bother you and you would rather get free email through us as part of hosting versus paying for a premium service such as Google apps or Microsoft Outlook.com, we are happy to help you set up email addresses.

Regardless of what method you choose, we will make sure your records are set up correctly so that email gets to where it needs to go and provide you with assistance in setting up your email.

An SSL certificate allows a website to start a URL with https instead of http.  Adding the “s” on the end is very important to securing the information that is being sent between the user of the website and the server.  When an SSL certificate is purchased, you have to verify certain information about your company and your website.  The certificate then tells the user of your website that you are a legitimate business and you are who you say you are.  It gives the user confidence that they can put their personal information into your website, and it won’t be hijacked by shady characters along the way.

SSL certificates expire and must be renewed.  You can purchase certificates that are good for a year, 2 years, 3 years all the way up to 5 years.  Each time you renew the certificate, it must be reinstalled on the server, and the new expiration date will show on the certificate.  Next time you’re on a website that asks for personal information or you are purchasing something, look for the https in the URL and for the padlock symbol next to the URL as in the image below.  If it’s not there, don’t enter your personal details or purchase anything from that website.

Click on the padlock and view the certificate to view important information about it.  See the screen shot below for an example.

Yes!  We are happy to register and install the certificate for you.  Our hosting options include purchasing and installing an SSL certificate for no additional fee.