Hosting Your website on Siteground can skyrocket your website performance!
This review is like no other
It’s written by someone who, hosted his website elsewhere, then moved it to Siteground. It is not the sugar coated stuff by an affiliate whose sole motivation is to sell. It is a honest review. It shows how ANYONE can benefit with website speed performance, traffic increase, and rankings, just by choosing the RIGHT website hosting company.
I run this website on the Siteground’s startup hosting plan. So if you are thinking of choosing this Siteground startup hosting plan, you are reading a review of someone who is actually using it. Therefore, “You can rely on this recommendations to choose Siteground.”
Here is proof:
The basic plan happens to be the most popular plan on Siteground. Many people have found online success when they started on this plan!
Second, I am not in this… just for the affiliate dollars. My greatest desire is to help you choose the right host. So even if you don’t buy the hosting through my affiliate links, I’ll be perfectly satisfied that, “I helped you make the right decision.”
After searching for a long time for the best hosting plan, I finally settled on the Siteground Startup plan. Its glowing reviews… the positive testimonials by users…. and Siteground’s excellent sales material impressed me.
To say the truth, at first, I was a little doubtful of this plan. It all looked too good to be true.
And I had too many unanswered questions. Questions like: “Could this be all hype? Will the hosting plan disappoint me?” Will I achieve a super fast website loading speeds as promised by Siteground? These questions tormented me as they would torment you if you are unfamiliar with Siteground hosting.
I guess the only way to answer them, was to try Siteground hosting. Reluctantly, I decided to try it anyway.
When I tried it, the OUTCOME blew me away!
My website’s performance Pingdom tool grade skyrocketed. It rose from a dismal 70% to 97%. Its loading speed also increased significantly. It now took 1.44 seconds instead of the 8.6 seconds it took with the previous host. I know this may sound unbelievable. But, it is all true.
“The simple act of moving my WordPress website to Siteground, improved website performance significantly?” I enjoyed more traffic, more speed and of course more happiness because everything was working my way!
Armed with these impressive results, I could not keep silent. Therefore, I decided to write this review. In it, I share with you, how My traffic increased, my rankings improved, and my bounce rates dropped significantly– simply by moving my website to Siteground’s cheapest hosting plan.
If this is what Siteground’s customers enjoy, then everyone who owns a website–or anyone who wishes to own one– should host with them.
Siteground basic Hosting Plan is suitable for small websites and those that are just starting
Why Bother With Siteground startup hosting plan?
To answer you, let me give you a little story…
When it comes to issues of coding, HTML, PHP, CSS,
It is from this background that I decided to hire an expert.
His job:
“To help me install a WordPress website.”
After a few days, of giving the order, my website was up and running. I was so excited. I shared its link with my friends on Facebook. Told all my workmates about it, reprinted my business cards and included its URL on them. “At last, I was going to have a tool to market my skills and products.” I thought.
I quickly started working hard and filling the website with lots of content… After some time, I realized the website was unusually slow. To speed it up, I Googled, and I found, that some plugins could help speed it up. Dutifully, I installed them and, there was a minimal improvement of website speed.
As I kept adding more content, the website speed dropped and dropped. It dropped to a point where it would take as much as 25 seconds to load. For long I agonized over this website slow speed. I did not know what to do.
The low website speed was not only frustrating to me but also my readers.
“If I was to maximize my website’s potential, something must be done,” I thought
Luckily, I bumped into Siteground startup hosting plan.
I had read several reviews of the Hosting plain. 95% of those reviews gave a thumbs up for the loading speed of websites hosted on Siteground…the security and customer support from S
Despite all the glowing reviews, reluctantly, I decided to give Siteground basic hosting a try.
Guess what… The outcome of that decision was impressive:
My page load times skyrocketed, my traffic increased, and my page rankings improved. I want to assure you, If you host a website with another host then you move to Siteground, you will get similar results.
The Siteground Startup Plan: if you are just starting your website, i highly recomend this plan
If you are starting a brand new website, this may be the best option for you. I am saying this, because… like every new website, your new website will receive few visitors. My guess is, this plan will sufficiently to handle all your traffic, for the first few months, considering since it is designed to handle up to 10,000 monthly visitors.
Purchasing a more expensive hosting plan, designed for high traffic websites, would be unwise. You’ll be wasting precious resources. It would be better to grow your traffic first, then move to a higher plan.
Second, if your website is yet to generate income, it makes no sense to burn your bank on expensive hosting. Let it traffic grow. Hosting—yes even on the basic hosting plan can get damn expensive.
Here’s how:
If you purchase the many add on services—of the basic hosting plan, you’ll end up paying an additional $ 100 yearly, on top of the $ 9.5 monthly fee + the $14.5 yearly domain fee.
Why I chose Siteground startup hosting plan
First, it was the persuasion from their sales material. From the meta description, to the homepage to the customer support response times. These material gave me a promise that was difficult to ignore. Here it is…
Siteground’s homepage meta description.
From the meta description, it was perfectly clear to me, “If I wanted to have a fast, secure website, i should consider starting my website on the Siteground startup hosting plan.” Another thing that actually tilted the tables against other hosts was Siteground’s unparalleled customer support. Being a WordPress beginner, I wanted a host who would respond as soon as I got stuck.
With all these qualities, Siteground happened to fit my needs. That made me to have no option but to try their service. Guess what—I was not disappointed.
So in this review of the basic hosting plan, I am going to take Siteground hosting on these three promises: Website speed, website security, and customer support.
Second I am going to outline a full feature review—of the startup plan. I am going to explain how each feature, of this basic hosting plan, is going to affect the performance of your website. I would have loved to review all the plans, but that would make the review too long. For now, Let us consider the…
Website speed of the sites hosted on the starter basic hosting plan
To say the truth, website speed is not only a function of the server speed. It also has to do, with the individual customization of a website. This means to maximize website speed on the Siteground basic hosting plan, you must also consider:
- Your website’s theme and how you customize it,
- The number of plugins on the website
Let us start by tackling the issue of theme.
When it comes to website speed on Siteground basic hosting plan, the choice of theme is very important. You have to make a choice between a theme that is coded for speed, or a theme that is coded for customer experience.
You can’t have both.
A theme coded for speed has fewer features, and customization abilities. The few features, makes it light and fast. So a website running on this theme will be definitely be fast.
On the other hand, a theme coded for customer experience, has lots of customizations and individual design possibilities. That makes it heavy, and a little slower.
From the above, we can conclude, the website speeds possible, for two websites running on the two types of themes will be very different; even if both of them are hosted on the same server, and on the same hosting plan.
At the end of the day, the overall website speed also depends on your actions and choices. Therefore, depending on what your readers want, choose the theme that will give them the best experience.
For this website, I am using the Extra theme from elegant themes. This theme being a builder theme—a theme coded for customer experience, is quite heavy. It comes with over 45 in built features, all geared to providing the front user with awesome customer experience.
From the screenshot, you can see that the performance grade is quite high— 94% . But in terms of speed it is 1.88 seconds. I think this speed is satisfactory considering that it is below the recommended 2 second threshold.
But does that means you sacrifice speed attractive theme? Not at all…
Why speed matters so much, even for websites on the basic hosting plan.
A few seconds… is all you have to grab and retain visitor’s attention. If your website is a tortoise, visitors will get angry of waiting it to load, and will eventually click away.
A slow website will increase the bounce rates, and plummet your page rankings. So if you desire to retain all customers, who land on your pages, don’t look elsewhere. Think only of Siteground because even websites running on bloated themes, load within the tolerable threshold of 2 seconds!
Siteground is not only reputed for speed. It is also known for its superb security. No wonder webmasters are transferring their websites from other hosts to Siteground in droves!
The security of the websites hosted Siteground’s basic hosting plan
Siteground cares so much about the security of ALL the websites hosted on it servers. Security is their top priority, and top selling point—thus this iron clad commitment.
While other hosts offer stripped down security services, for websites on lower tier hosting plans, that’s not with Siteground. All websites enjoy advanced level security. Those are not my words:
They are the very words of Siteground’s security experts. In a blog published by Hristo, Siteground makes use of artificial intelligence to ward off brute attacks from malicious bots. Here is a screenshot of that post. [ I suggest that you read it]
Too good to be true? Not at all—Siteground cares for the security of websites hosted on the basic hosting plan. When I signed up for basic hosting of this website, I was given a free SSL certificate. What this means is, “My website is running on the secure HTTPS, instead of the vulnerable Http.
The only issue I have about this free SSL certificate is, “It is free for 3 months, instead of the 12 months they advertise on their sales page.” Anyway—I don’t care much about that because it is still a bargain.
Secondly, all the websites running on Siteground are on the very latest technology. By default, Siteground hosting has set all its servers to use the latest PHP 7 version with the latest security features.
Siteground also runs Apache in a chrooted environment with suExec. That’s not all. They have invested in sophisticated IDS/IPS systems which block malicious bots and attackers—in real time. ModSecurity is installed on all shared servers and they update security rules weekly. All these measures protect ALL customers—including those on the basic hosting plan from the most common attacks.
If you are not comfortable with these security assurances, and you want to take your website’s security a little further, with only $1.65/month for the first year of signup and $2 henceforth, you can get siteground SG site scanner protection for your website.
Siteground amazing customer support service.
Once in a while even experts in WordPress and other CMS systems get stuck. When this happens, they would need quick help from their hosts. Siteground happens to have the quickest support response time in the market.
When you raise a concern, within 8 minutes, you’ll have a solution to your problem. Other hosts take as long as 42 minutes to answer your problem. Quick response time is important for customer experience.
Full feature review of the Siteground startup hosting plan:
1. Price
Cost of hosting is one factor that you can’t ignore when considering the Siteground startup hosting plan. If you want to a run a sustainable website, you have to afford to host it. Siteground startup hosting plan happens to be very competitive. With $ 3.95/month for the first year and $ 9.95 after that, plus $ 14.95 domain renewal fee, this is competitive pricing.
There is also some add-on services, that can increase the cost of the basic plan. If you decide to have an SSL certificate, during your first year, it will be free. The subsequent years, it will cost you $82/ year.
You can also choose to make your who is who information private. If you prefer, this feature, you’ll part with an additional $ 12 per year.
There is also some add-in security settings. During the first 1 year of sign up, you’ll pay $ 1/month then, $ 2/month in the subsequent years.
2. 10 GB disc space
Many people find this storage space low compared to what is offered by other website hosts. I find this space
3. Free Cloudflare integration
From your c panel, with one click of a button, you can integrate free Cloudflare advanced security services for your website. Cloudflare also helps to speed your site, because it serves your cached website pages to users depending on their location.
4. One domain installation
When you are on this plan, you can only install one website. Other hosting-plans like grow big and go geek allow you to connect multiple websites.
5. Free email accounts
With the basic plan, you can get unlimited free email accounts with your domain name. For the startup plan, however, you cannot exceed the current limit per account of 2000 Mb per email account.
6. Free Siteground daily back up
Every website-including those on the basic Siteground hosting plan are backed up daily!
Backing your website is very important in this era of online insecurity. This hosting account gives you an opportunity to back up your site every day, and use the backup should it fail. Siteground will keep the backup to your website for 30 days. You can back up your entire account using the C panel’s built-in tool called Backup/Create backup. To create the full backup, the size of your hosting account should be less than 5000 MB (5 GB). This backup will include all data on your account—files, databases, emails, etc.
7. Unlimited MySQL DB
If you are planning to have a MySQL-based website, Siteground is the best host for you. Through their long experience, they offer technical support for such websites, and their servers are perfectly optimized such websites. Siteground provides all the hosting plans including start-up plan with unlimited MySQL databases!
