Tag: WP Engine

WP Engine Spring Hosting Sale

We here and SDAC Inc have been using WP Engine for over two years and have enjoyed unparalleled support and satisfaction. Before referring one client to WP Engine, we tested them with our business and personal sites for over a year. After we were completely comfortable with the service/support we began referring our clients to WPEngine and our clients have also been very happy with them.

If you are unhappy with your current host or looking to start a new WordPress site and need a great host?

For a limited time only – WP Engine is running a special on their hosting: 33% Off the first 2 Months of a monthly Personal, Professional, or Business plan.

WPengineSPRINGdraft2

Security Alerts: Another Great Advantage to Hosting with WP Engine

Here at our company – we love WP Engine for many reasons. Sometimes it is hard to convince clients to update WordPress and WordPress plugins. Regardless of the reason, it generally ends up the same: their site gets hacked. Fortunately for those who are hosted with WP Engine – not only do they perform automatic WordPress updates, WP Engine also sends an email notification when a plugin that your site has installed needs to be updated because of security reasons.

Example:

Thank you for being a customer of WP Engine. Part of our commitment to our customers is to ensure their site is as secure as possible. We are contacting you today because we have identified a vulnerability in the xxxx Plugin version you are running. In order to ensure your site is secure, please update the plugin immediately.

That helpful email notification helps anyone hosted with them to be more proactive vs. reactive with security issues. Remember:

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

– Benjamin Franklin

If you are looking for a secure WordPress host – consider WP Engine.

Update Your Outdated WordPress Site

In the last week – I have updated a number of out of date WordPress sites for clients. Some were running WordPress before version 3 (which came out in June 2010 – over 2 years ago). Others were only a point release or two behind. Many clients are nervous about updates, while others want to update every six months. In reality – not keeping up to date should make you more nervous about updating your site and scheduled updates – while they sound nice – do not always work.

Thankfully the reason for all the recent updates were not because of any hacks – the important lesson here is that it is essential to update as soon as possible. Not only will your site be more secure but updating a point release at a time is a lot easier than updating a site from several versions back. Things change, code improves, other code depreciates. Updating your version of WordPress is a lot less painless when you do it often and regularly vs. in an emergency because of a hack.

While updating WordPress is essential – so is keeping up to date with plugins. I recently was brought in to assist with an upgrade which had an outdated version of WordPress along with over 40 plugins that were out of date. (Yes – 40). While most people often “do not want to rock the boat” with plugin updates – these updates are also essential. Plugins also contain security updates which are important.

If you are serious about your web presence – take some time to update WordPress and the plugins as the updates come out. If you are concerned that an update might break some custom functionality – create a backup first and then update. If anything goes wrong – you can always go back to what you had right before the update. If you do not want to worry about updates – consider moving to a WordPress host like WP Engine – who will take care of WordPress updates for you.

WordPress Host Migration > WP Engine

A few years ago one of my colleagues got me in touch with one of the founders of a new and upcoming WordPress hosting companies: WP Engine. The service was still pretty new and after an impressive conversation with them – I found myself recommending clients to using them as a host.

Recently, while at WordCamp Chicago, I signed up for an account and decided to give them a try myself. Today – I migrated all the content, data, and finally the DNS. Everything went smoothly (minus a DNS prorogation issue which is no fault of WP Engine). WP Engine’s documentation is great, they have a staging environment, their tools are easy to use, and they allow you to take snapshots of your site so you have a backup whenever you need it.

If you are looking for a solid WordPress host – you should definitely check them out!