10 Critical Hosting Factors to Ensure Your E-commerce Store’s Success

E-commerce has exploded in popularity over the last few years. If you want to launch an online store, you need the right web hosting solution to support it.

Choosing the best ecommerce hosting can be tricky with so many options to consider. In this post, we’ll explore the 10 most important features to look for when picking an ecommerce web host.

What Type of Hosting Should You Use for E-commerce?

The most popular hosting types used for ecommerce websites are:

• Shared hosting: Offers the basics like SSD storage, cPanel dashboard and email accounts. Easy to setup and budget-friendly, but limited resources.
• Managed WordPress hosting: Optimized for WordPress stores with auto-updates, caching, CDNs and security features. More reliable performance.
• VPS hosting: Gets you guaranteed CPU cores, RAM and storage for better traffic capacity. Needs more technical skill to manage.
• Dedicated hosting: Top-tier servers fully dedicated just to your site. Ideal for enterprise-level stores. Most expensive option.

For small to mid-sized online stores, managed WordPress hosting is often the best fit in terms of features versus cost.

Popular picks like Kinsta and WPEngine optimize the hosting environment specifically for WooCommerce sites. This ensures you get excellent page speeds, uptime and security out of the box.

1. Choose an Ecommerce-Optimized Hosting Plan

Rather than a generic shared hosting account, go with a plan designed for online stores. Key things to look for include:

• CDN for faster load times: A content delivery network serves site files from distributed global servers to boost speeds. Vital for ecommerce sites.
• Staging environments: Test changes or new features without affecting your live site.
• SSL certificate included: Essential for securing customer data and transactions.
• WooCommerce auto-updates: Takes care of plugin/theme updates for better security.
• Caching and optimization: Creates static HTML copies of pages to minimize server strain.
• DDoS protection: Mitigates malicious traffic floods trying to take your site offline.
• Backups: Provides restore points in case anything happens to your site.

The best ecommerce hosting providers optimize WordPress specifically to enhance the performance and security of online stores.

2. Ensure Excellent Uptime and Page Speed

No matter what else a host offers, two non-negotiable requirements are excellent uptime and fast page load speeds.

Uptime refers to the percentage of total time your site remains online. Anything under 99.95% risks revenue and credibility. Server issues or excessive downtime will quickly drive customers elsewhere.

Most managed WP hosts offer guarantees of 99.9%+ uptime, along with financial credits if they fail to meet this threshold.

Page speed determines how quickly your product pages and checkout process load for visitors. Google recommends sub-3 second load times.

Optimized hosts leverage caching, CDNs and auto-scaling to achieve consistent 1-2 second speeds. Quickly loading pages convert more sales, so speed is a profitability factor.

Pingdom, GTMetrix or WebPageTest can help benchmark your hosting provider’s page speeds.

3. Scale Seamlessly With Your Traffic

One major benefit of cloud hosting over old-school dedicated servers is seamless scalability.

The best platform handles all the dirty work of scaling up server resources to match your traffic spikes. No more worrying about maxing out capacity during sales.

Auto-scalability eliminates friction as your project grows over time. No need to manually upgrade plans or migrate between hosts.

For newer stores unsure of long-term resource needs, pay-as-you-go cloud infrastructure handles unexpected viral moments while allowing you to start lean.

4. Make Sure Support Options Are Readily Available

Even with optimized hosting, issues can occasionally still pop up. From server configuration problems to platform bugs, quick fixes matter.

Easy access to human support can make or break your brand image during incidents. Frantically Googling error codes while sales drop is no fun.

Prioritize hosts like Kinsta who offer 24/7 live chat, phone and ticket support options. Knowing help is available immediately offers peace of mind.

Many critical issues simply can’t wait overnight for a next-business-day response. Slow, outsourced or DIY-focused support risks harming your business during time-sensitive emergencies.

5. Regularly Back Up Your Site

No one likes thinking about disasters, but sites can randomly go poof. Whether from hacks, platform glitches or botched updates, intact backups make or break recoveries.

Choose a provider automatically generating daily or real-time cloud backups of your entire site. Quick one-click restores minimize any lost revenue or progress from issues.

You should also download your own manual backups regularly in case anything happens to your hosting company or their backup storage. Cover all bases to avoid needless setbacks.

6. Add DDoS Protection Against Traffic Floods

DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks inundate sites with junk traffic to overwhelm servers and take them offline. They’ve grown into a serious threat in recent years.

Malicious actors often target commerce sites around busy sales days for maximum disruption. The impact from extended outages adds up fast.

Choose a provider or add-on service bundling DDoS protection with hosting. Tools like Cloudflare or Sucuri firewall block anomalous surges automatically before they become an issue.

7. Make Sure Familiar Tools Like cPanel Are Available

Transitioning between hosting setups often means learning new platforms. For developers used to certain dashboard environments, this causes headaches re-learning basics.

Many managed WP hosts provide optional cPanel access despite abstracting servers away from users. This offers a familiar interface to ease making theme/plugin tweaks.

cPanel also unlocks integrating advanced functionality like custom SSLs or Zapier automations. Developer-friendly conveniences smooth work for site owners comfortable with self-management.

8. Don’t Overlook Security protections

Ecommerce sites handle valuable customer data like emails, names, addresses and payment info. Lax security opens the door to serious legal and financial consequences from breaches.

Here are table-stakes protections every reputable host provides:

• Secure socket layer (SSL) encryption
• Two-factor authentication (2FA)
• Automated WordPress core/plugin updates
• Spam filtering tools
• Blocking known malicious IPs
• Server-level firewalls

Additional smart options include login CAPTCHAs, file monitoring, and integrations with services like Cloudflare for enhanced threat detection.

9. Make Sure Technical Requirements Are Met

Ecommerce platforms like WooCommerce and Shopify technically work even on low-budget shared hosting…to an extent. Performance eventually bogs down at scale.

As product catalogs and traffic grow, inadequate servers struggle. Slow page speeds and intermittent crashes erode conversions over time.

Here are two key requirements for optimally running WooCommerce:

• PHP 7.4+ – The latest PHP versio`n enables faster processing and better security. Outdated versions often lack vulnerability patches too.
• MySQL 5.6+ – Modern database software improves query speeds as stores amass more data from orders etc.

Additionally, commercial platforms like Magento 2 have far steeper server recommendations due to their enterprise-geared scope.

Selecting advanced infrastructure tailored specifically for ecommerce prevents growing pains down the road. Don’t paint your business into a corner unnecessarily.

10. Make Sure There’s Room to Grow

Ecommerce hosting needs to scale in two ways:

• Vertically – Adding more resources like RAM, CPU cores etc to servers as catalog sizes or traffic increases.
• Horizontally – Expanding onto new servers easily as you outgrow individual units.

Ideally, your chosen provider makes both upgrades nearly frictionless. Transitioning between accounts or hosts risks downtime, whereas flexible infrastructure keeps pace.

Pay-as-you-go cloud platforms offer the easiest scaling potential in either direction. Only pay for exactly the resources you need monthly.

Don’t Underestimate Hosting Importance

The hosting decisions made when first launching inevitably impact all aspects of future ecommerce growth. Technical limitations become roadblocks, while flexible infrastructure offers headroom enabling better performance and revenue.

Do your homework before picking any old budget host or package. Prioritizing key criteria like optimized WordPress environments, security protections and flexible scaling sets up smoother long-term success running an online business.

Neil Beckett

Neil is an accomplished web, designer and developer with over 15 years of experience in creating and optimizing websites for small businesses and online entrepreneurs. Read full bio

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