Web host recommendations

[robknight]

Hi there,

We need to move web host and I wondered if anyone could recommend a web host please?

We are running a highly cusotmised, ecommerce transactional wordpress site. It doesn't get huge numbers of visitors, but sometimes we have really big spikes in traffic, so the host needs to be capable of dealing with that.

Looking for a UK based host and preferably a smaller company as we prefer the personal touch if possible.

Any suggestions to consider please?

Many thanks!

 

[jacobc]

Hi Rob,

Whilst I am biased Feel free to look at us, we are always very happy to help and have been providing hosting for 15 years. Lots of reviews about us online etc.

Feel free to email me / PM with any queries.

Regards,

Jacob

 

[ryedale]

Hi

There's quite a few of us on here who specialize in small business web hosting.

Take your time to read reviews on independent sites as well.

It's worth looking to see if a host offers a free trial to give you a chance to evaluate the service/support

Are you likely to need WP support as well or do you have an existing team to handle that?

 

[Ian J]

I recommend you to go with "ehost.com".

And what part of the UK are their servers?

 

[Ian J]

Looking for a UK based host and preferably a smaller company as we prefer the personal touch if possible.

This is a question that comes up regularly and a search through the threads will bring up the previous questions and answers.

I like to support those members who support UK Business Forums and it makes life easy when there are a few full members who offer hosting and have a number of satisfied customers on this forum willing to testify to their service levels.

I have sites with both Open Mind Hosting and Hi Hosting both of whom are excellent and Ryedale of VTS is also highly recommended by others here

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

@Ian J Thanks very much Ian, much appreciated.

@robknight As Ian said if you do a search you should find this covered plenty of times, with plenty of recommendations. We've been regularly recommended for our web hosting as well.

We've actually migrated a website just like yours for another member, @Leather Briefcase Company recently.

Specialised eCommerce hosting or a VPS would probably be best for a site such as yours.

If you have any questions feel free to get in touch, we'd be happy to help.

Kind regards,

Dan

 

[Trisha&ChrisPlant]

I can highly recommend Mark at VTS - over the past few weeks he's given my site a complete makeover and I've switched to their hosting - which was smooth and seamless. They really are brilliant - nothing's too much trouble.

 

[webhostuk]

Are you looking for shared hosting or VPS Hosting package?

 

[ryedale]

I can highly recommend Mark at VTS - over the past few weeks he's given my site a complete makeover and I've switched to their hosting - which was smooth and seamless. They really are brilliant - nothing's too much trouble.

Thanks Trisha, really appreciate that and glad to hear the site is working well for you now.

 

[Breaking Good]

I'm sure there many great web hosts on this forum but speaking from personal experience, I have only used one and would recommend @Dan_HiHosting

I just moved our site over to them this week and am impressed. Worth considering

 

[Deleted member 252819]

We swear by Future Hosting. They have servers located in Manchester. We moved away from them briefly, but will be moving back next week.

I can also recommend A2Hosting, a US firm with servers in Iceland.

You'll find lots of impartial reviews at www.whoishostingthis.com
(Disclaimer: I wrote some of the 'expert' reviews)

 

[makeusvisible]

IT may be that you need a web developer rather than a host.

If you want someone to assist you on the end of the phone, for Wordpress issues, email setup questions, WooCommerce questions, updates to your site etc....then you need a developer....not a host.

You can expect to pay a developer a little more than you would a host directly, as you are effective adding a middle man.... but that middle man should bring with them some added value.

 

[ryedale]

There's quite a few companies that offer both hosting and development services combined.

This is often a real help for a hosting client who might not need full development services but just a bit of help every now and then with something a little more complicated.

We've always found that our support team are more likely to understand a hosting client's site and how it should be performing or where any issues may lie because of their development skills

 

[Leather Briefcase Company]

Just to confirm Dan at Hi Hosting has done an excellent job for us taking on our first website. Fast responses to all our queries, and extremely patient with us! He's now working on our second website.

 

[LowPrices.uk]

Clook have been good for me.

 

[Sam Richards]

Try Webfusion, They are a big company but they are UK based.

 

[terry54661]

We have hosted our website with a company called Vidahost for a couple of years and they have been excellent. We started with these basic shared hosting and then moved on to our own servers so that we could become PCI compliment for card payments. Tech support is always very fast via email and very helpful this has provided very good for me as a cannot hear I'd say check out reviews for any hosting service that you are thinking of joining before you part with any cash because some are a rip off. Best of luck

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

I'm sure there many great web hosts on this forum but speaking from personal experience, I have only used one and would recommend @Dan_HiHosting

I just moved our site over to them this week and am impressed. Worth considering

Thanks for the recommendation @Breaking Good. We've migrated a lot of members recently, really rewarding moving a UK business and member onto proper UK web hosting.

A lot of people still use the very large names, due to their advertising clout, but on top of generally being massively oversold, the servers and support often aren't even in the UK.

Best of luck with your websites

Dan

 

[Ian J]

We have hosted our website with a company called Vidahost for a couple of years and they have been excellent.

I've just moved away from them to Dan at Hi Hosting as I was having quite a few problems with slow speeds etc

 

[contracthireacar.com]

Clook have been good for me.

I've used Clook for years too and their support is amazing.

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Just to confirm Dan at Hi Hosting has done an excellent job for us taking on our first website. Fast responses to all our queries, and extremely patient with us! He's now working on our second website.

Thanks for the kind words @Leather Briefcase Company. Looking forward to moving your remaining websites and making sure they'll all secure and up to date.

Good quality web hosting really is the foundation of a successful online presence.

Best of luck for the Christmas period. Not long now!

Dan

 

[ecenica]

Are you still seeking a UK web hosting company for your business?

If so, (and apologies if this has been asked already) but do you have a preference as to the type of web hosting you're seeking? eg Linux/Windows OS? Shared-hosting, premium hosting (SSD/nginx) VPS or dedicated? Do you have a min/max budget in mind?

Any specific support requirements? With your website being built around WordPress it's worth opting for a web hosting company which specialises in WordPress Hosting and WordPress Support (eg more than just a one-click installer).

You mentioned the occasional spike in web traffic. I'm guessing this is due to a successful ad campaign or similar?

Cheers

Rich

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

I should have said that @robknight signed up with us a week ago, and we manually migrated his website the same day.



Thanks for choosing us Rob. Best of luck with business

Dan

 

[kulture]

I think there has been enough self promotion on this thread. So I have edited one post and removed another. The original question has been answered.

 

[antp__]

It's quite strange really as when I first started out I always wanted the best, biggest name. Thought they would be the most reliable and offer the best customer service. I always thought to myself that the smaller companies would disappear with all my files overnight.

As I have developed my knowledge over the years I realise that this isn't the case. Of course you have the odd hosting company that is a bedroom business and do disappear. However moving to a reputable company such as @ryedale, as mentioned in my previous post was the best I did.

It seems when migrating to a smaller company they genuinely want to help and if there are any queries I can speak to Mark pretty instantly. Without having to go through a call centre or waiting for this person or that person to call me back.

 

[rodion]

I had some experience with wiredtree
And I can say they are not bad
It's a small company with more personal aproach

 

[NorthernNewbie]

Looking into free web hosting myself at the minute as a temporary means. Any ideas of the better ones?

 

[Jolt.co.uk]

Looking into free web hosting myself at the minute as a temporary means. Any ideas of the better ones?

Free will be slow and loaded with ads.

Just go with something low-cost and you'll get a much better experience.

 

[NorthernNewbie]

Free will be slow and loaded with ads.

Just go with something low-cost and you'll get a much better experience.

I think I will, I never realised how cheap domains/hosting is until I researched them

 

[webhostuk]

I think I will, I never realised how cheap domains/hosting is until I researched them

Very true if you search you can surely get few hosting service that satisfies your budget.

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Looking into free web hosting myself at the minute as a temporary means. Any ideas of the better ones?

Yeah it's definitely worth even getting a starter web hosting package, as as long as you pick a good web host, the service and performance will be much better than anything you can get from a free service.

In the end you get what you pay for.

If you do a search on the forums you should find plenty of recommendations, hopefully including us!

If you're UK based/targeting UK visitors then I'd definitely recommend choosing a UK hosting company. Your visitors will likely get better performance, and this has SEO benefit as well.

If you have any questions feel free to get in touch.

Best of luck,

Dan