ًWith the rapid growth of the e-commerce industry over the past few years, web hosting service providers have realized that it is better for them and e-store owners to provide specialized hosting suitable for creating platforms for selling products and services on the Internet. They knew that this would help those aspiring to create successful e-stores, and make it easier for them. Reach their goals.
Because the WooCommerce program, which turns a WordPress site into a full-featured online store with the help of plugins and extensions that work with it, is one of the most popular ways to create an online store, it has become common to have WooCommerce hosting plans among the hosting plans provided by companies that provide web hosting solutions.
But the concept of WooCommerce hosting may not be as common and well-known as other types of hosting such as WordPress hosting, so in this article we will explain in detail what WooCommerce hosting means, and we will also introduce you to its most important advantages that make it more suitable for e-stores. We will also take a look at the best hosting company you can rely on to create an online store.
WooCommerce Hosting
There are many standards based on which web hosting can be divided into types, and the hosting server standard is the most famous among those standards, based on which hosting is divided into four basic types: shared hosting , VPS hosting , cloud hosting , and dedicated hosting. .
However, there are many other types of web hosting that have been known, but they did not appear based on dividing hosting into types depending on the server, but rather based on the advantages provided by the company that provides the hosting plan to make its service more suitable for the website or online store that the customer desires. Create it, and these types include WordPress hosting and WooCommerce hosting.
Meaning that WooCommerce hosting is web hosting that is improved and features are added to it to become more suitable for creating an online store on it based on the WooCommerce program that works within the framework of the WordPress content management system. Among the improvements and advantages of WooCommerce hosting are those related to performance and speed, including those related to the technical functions that It facilitates and speeds up the work of creating and managing online stores.
Is WooCommerce hosting different from WordPress hosting?
Although almost every WordPress hosting is capable of running a WooCommerce online store, WooCommerce hosting is not the same as WordPress hosting, as there are several differences that can be observed between these two types of web hosting.
But WooCommerce hosting does not differ from WordPress hosting in terms of the server. Rather, the difference relates to features and improvements only. Just as WordPress hosting is more configured than regular hosting to create and manage a website through WordPress, WooCommerce hosting is more configured than WordPress hosting to create and manage an online store. Through WooCommerce.
However, although the difference lies only in the technical improvements and advantages, it is not preferable to use WordPress hosting to create an online store (unless you have good experience in managing an online store), as the improvements and advantages that come with WooCommerce hosting do not facilitate store management. Not only online, but it can also increase your sales and profits by improving and enhancing store performance.
It is worth noting that some web hosting companies provide WooCommerce hosting solutions that are completely identical to their WordPress hosting solutions, where WordPress hosting plans are the same as WooCommerce hosting plans without any additional features except simple features such as creating a landing page for the online store, etc., so know the advantages. The WooCommerce hosting plan offered by the company is well worth it before you buy it.
Advantages of WooCommerce Hosting
WooCommerce hosting over various other types of hosting, including WordPress hosting, has many features that make it more suitable for creating successful professional online stores. The most prominent of these features include, for example, the following:
WooCommerce is pre-installed
When you purchase a regular web hosting plan to create and run an online store on it, you will need to install WordPress on the hosting in one of the appropriate ways, and then you will need to install WooCommerce on WordPress and prepare it so that you can start the process of launching your online store.
Purchasing a dedicated WooCommerce hosting plan for online stores shortens many steps, as WordPress and WooCommerce are installed and at least partially configured on your hosting. This saves you time and effort, and this will be very useful if you do not have enough time, or do not have the appropriate experience to set up WordPress and WooCommerce yourself.
Read also: Create a professional online store in 11 easy steps
Features suitable for high performance
Online stores have unique performance requirements. Unlike regular WordPress sites, the global caching feature that speeds up website openings cannot be applied to online stores, and if it did, many of the store’s basic functions, such as the shopping cart, would be broken.
Therefore, good WooCommerce hosting plans usually include a caching feature suitable for WooCommerce stores, where all pages and elements to which caching cannot be applied are excluded, while the feature is applied to pages and elements on which its application does not affect the user’s ability to interact with the store and make purchases. .
Also, the databases of WooCommerce stores are usually significantly larger than the databases of a regular WordPress site, and this can severely impact the performance of the store and is reflected in the form of slow loading times or downtime on the site, especially when performing heavy queries such as when the search engine is used in Website to find products.
To solve this problem and other performance-related problems, hosting service providers include features in their WooCommerce hosting plans that help reduce the load on the online store’s database tables, such as activating the ability to search for products via a search index, and creating special spreadsheets to completely improve the online store’s performance. .
Backup
Backup is important for all websites, but it is even more important for online stores, because store data changes constantly. Every time a product or service is requested from the store by a customer, more information is added to the database, so if anything goes wrong in the store. You may lose all of your store’s data and buyers’ information, which may sometimes cause you a lot of financial losses.
The backup feature that is provided with WooCommerce hosting usually provides the ability to keep an updated copy of your store’s data in a safe place to restore it when needed. Some hosting companies not only offer daily backups as part of the benefits of the WooCommerce hosting plan, but also provide hourly backups, which will enable you to almost avoid… Losing any data if your store encounters an error.
Read also: An explanation of making a backup copy of your site to secure it from any damage
High uptime
Many hosting companies guarantee certain percentages of uptime, as the hosting should not stop working for a longer time than what is determined by the uptime percentage. If the uptime percentage for web hosting, for example, is equal to 99%, this means that your hosting (and thus your site or store ) You will not stop more than about 400 minutes per month.
A 99% uptime guarantee may be sufficient for some websites, but it is not at all suitable for online stores, as a minute of downtime can sometimes mean hundreds of dollars in lost profits, and a loss of shoppers and customers’ trust in the store, so instead of a 99% uptime percentage WooCommerce hosting has an uptime of up to 99.9% in normal condition.
It is necessary to pay great attention to the percentage of uptime that the hosting company guarantees when purchasing a WooCommerce hosting plan, and to prefer hosting service providers that guarantee higher uptime over others. It is also necessary to take into account what the hosting provider will offer if it does not fulfill its promise regarding uptime. Compensation must be detailed in the service level agreement (SLA).
High security level
High security is an important feature that a web hosting plan should provide. With nearly 30,000 new websites being hacked every day, you must ensure that your project will not be one of them, especially if it is an online store that exchanges sensitive data with customers related to their bank accounts and information. Personal.
Therefore, WooCommerce hosting generally comes with security features that exceed the security features included in a regular web hosting plan or those designated for WordPress sites and not e-stores. The WooCommerce hosting security features offered by different companies vary, but almost all companies offer an SSL certificate that encrypts and protects the information exchanged between customers and the online store.
Read also: A guide to securing your WooCommerce store from security vulnerabilities and the most common scams
Specialized technical support
Although WooCommerce and WordPress are generally easy to use and have plenty of tutorials online, online store owners can sometimes need expert help when faced with problems they can’t solve on their own.
Fortunately, WooCommerce hosting plans suitable for online stores usually include specialized technical support provided by a team of software experts, and the necessary support is usually provided quickly, as the technical support team understands that any glitch or problem in the store must be fixed in the shortest possible time, because More downtime means more losses for you.
Interim sites
Staging tools offered under some web hosting plans allow website and online store owners to test and try out changes on a version of the site or store that is different from but identical to the published version that visitors are browsing.
For example, if you wanted to make changes to the design of your online store, you could create a staging store (a copy of the store that is identical to the moment it was created), then make and test modifications to the design in that staging store, where those modifications are visible only to you, and then when It replaces the staging store with the original store that appears to visitors and customers.
In fact, staging sites are not a specific feature of WooCommerce hosting, as most WordPress hosting plans offered by various hosting companies include them, but because the data of the online store changes within a short time, the feature of traditional staging sites may lead to the loss of some data. When you create a staging store Then you modify it, and after several days you approve it as a primary store. Orders added during the period between creating the interim store and its approval will be lost.
Therefore, the staging stores tool that comes with WooCommerce hosting plans provides options that allow you to avoid data loss. These options may vary from one company to another, but the store owner is usually given the ability to choose between replacing the entire original store with the staging store or replacing files and spreadsheets that he specifies. Keep the rest of the data as it is on the original site and not replace it.
Disadvantages of WooCommerce Hosting
Despite the many important advantages provided by WooCommerce hosting plans, this type of hosting, like any other type, suffers from some disadvantages. The most prominent disadvantages of WooCommerce hosting that you should probably take into consideration before purchasing this type of hosting include:
- High cost , as WooCommerce hosting is usually more expensive than regular hosting, and this can prevent you from purchasing this hosting if you want to keep your project budget within a specific low range.
- Pre-setting up WooCommerce can cause inconvenience , as software, plugins, and designs you don’t need can be installed by the hosting company while it sets up WordPress and WooCommerce for you.
- Not all WooCommerce hosting plans include automatic software updates and upgrades , which means that it will be your responsibility to do the various updating processes, and this may be stressful for some users.
Certain types of WooCommerce hosting plans may also suffer from other disadvantages, such as losing many capabilities and options related to hosting control, but despite this, you can still build a professional online store on most WooCommerce hosting plans provided by most famous hosting companies.
The best web hosting provider suitable for online stores
There are many companies that provide web hosting plans suitable for building e-stores on them through WordPress and WooCommerce, and the plans of these companies differ from each other, and each company usually provides more than one hosting plan suitable for e-stores, as the plans differ in resources and features so that customers can choose what It suits them.
We would like to point out first, before we recommend a specific company to purchase suitable hosting for WooCommerce e-stores, that high performance and reliability are the most important things to take into consideration. Therefore, if you are confused between two companies, one of them provides high performance and reliability without special advantages for e-stores, and the other provides many advantages, but The performance and reliability of its hosting is lower, so it is preferable to choose hosting with high performance and reliability.
In terms of performance and reliability, Digital Ocean is one of the best providers of web hosting suitable for online stores that will be operated through WooCommerce. Although the company does not provide special WooCommerce hosting, it does offer high-quality cloud hosting plans that are fully compatible with WordPress and WooCommerce, and are characterized by the advantages Many of the most important of which are:
- The company guarantees a very high uptime rate of 99.99%, which is almost ideal for online stores and websites.
- Excellent hosting provides speed, and this helps the online store to be at the top of the search results, because speed is an important factor in ranking.
- A web hosting plan can be customized to exactly what you want, as you can specify the amounts of different resources, and purchase a more suitable plan.
- Backups of the online store are created daily, and the copy is kept for 7 days, during which it can be restored.
- The company secures and encrypts the data stored on the hosting, traffic data is also secured, and an additional layer of security can also be added.
- Popular applications (including WordPress) can be installed on the hosting with one or a few clicks, as hosting plans include a dedicated tool for this.
As a result of these advantages that we mentioned, and many other advantages that Digital Ocean hosting enjoys, and taking into account the great importance of the e-store hosting’s running time rate being high, its page loading speeds being high, and its security being very secure, we advise you – despite the lack of advantages Especially for WooCommerce, which the company offers with hosting plans – you can rely on it if you want to create a successful online store that visitors and customers will be satisfied with browsing and purchasing from.
We talked before about how to choose the best reliable hosting company and 12 criteria for choosing the best hosting
Thus, we have finished introducing you to the concept of WooCommerce hosting dedicated to creating e-stores based on the WordPress content management system, its features, and the best web hosting that can be relied upon to create an e-store. We stress in conclusion that web hosting must be of high quality, as this is an advantage. Necessary for success in creating a professional online store.
