Gaming Guide We do the math
Hosting might be one of the most profitable Internet related businesses today. The 4.2 billion pages that are currently on the Web are spread across 8.2 million web servers. The need for hosting space increases daily as more and more activities are transferred to the Internet.
Since people rarely change their hosting (can be a bit of a headache for beginners) the choice of a hosting company can be one of the most important choices for a business start-up or a mature company going online for the first time.
I have probably gone through at least a dozen different hosting solutions in the past, but this time I had a serious project on the agenda and we needed a serious hosting solution. Building a web store and making it successful on the long run is not a simple task. We cannot just depend on paid ads for visitors and knew beforehand that SEO will play a significant part in the business.
Keeping SEO in mind, one of the major factors for Google in 2021 is site speed. I have already had some free hosting (albeit with limited functionality and monetization) with WP Engine and I knew they were fast. Some quick hosting reviews on the Web confirmed that they are still one of the top hosting solutions speed wise. I also have a friend who transferred to WP Engine’s hosting and immediately experienced some 20 percent higher organic traffic.
Having all this on our minds, and knowing that I want to build our store around WooCommerce, we decided to go for a WP Engine’s eCommerce hosting solution. I’ve had WP Engine in my sights in the past too, but hadn’t had a project yet that could justify the cost. Until now.
Looking at the eCommerce hosting plans, the Startup seemed perfect since I was building a single store and 25k visitors per month was more than enough for us. With the annual discount applied, the cost for a year of hosting came to $360, or $30 per month. Sure, there are cheaper solutions around, but I was not willing to sacrifice SEO, traffic and ultimately sales for a $100 per year cheaper hosting. I wanted to give my store every chance to succeed.
Building and Running the Store
I was skeptical at first about their One-click store creation, but it really is that easy. You’ll have on hand a store creation wizard that will guide you through the process and other guides about using some 30+ premium WordPress themes you get for free with the hosting. The themes are optimized for online stores and include WooCommerce templates. I can see a beginner building their first store without any hiccups. And just in case there are any, you have a free 24/7 support which is polite and helpful.
Selecting a ready-to-use store eCommerce theme and then using drag-and-drop tools to add content and products to the store was a breeze. Zero coding required. Our store was ready in one day! In fact, most of my time was spent configuring WooCommerce and connecting our payment options. Make sure you have PayPal set up for your store before building your store.
So, three months in and I am very happy with how our store looks and more importantly, how it performs. Our SEO metrics are exceeding my expectations and I think a big part of that is our choice of hosting. In theory it shouldn’t really make a huge difference as long as the hosting is good enough, but in practice it does. This is currently our fastest growing store.
Here are some of the PROs of using the eCommerce Startup plan:
- Starter store quick-install (zero coding required);
- Automatic plugin & WordPress updates;
- DIY store creation & designs;
- Curated list of tested & recommended eCommerce plugins;
- Automatic WordPress & PHP updates;
- Free SSL certificates;
- WordPress-optimized caching;
- Site content in the cloud (CDN);
- 30+ premium StudioPress themes;
- The Genesis Framework;
- eCommerce optimized block-building tools.
Bottom Line: If you are looking to start an online gaming store and want to give it every chance to succeed, I would recommend WP Engine eCommerce hosting plans. It’s idiot friendly, you can build a store in one click and customize it to your liking, all while having one of the fastest hosting around.
WP Engine is currently running a limited time 10% save on your first payment plus 2 months free hosting when you signup for a annual hosting plan.
If you are interested and want to support our website, please use the link below when signing up. If you do, we get a small fee and you get our 10 percent off + 2 months free coupon. Win for all!
WP Engine – Get 3 months free on WP Engine’s new eCommerce plans with coupon code ecommwpe10
