SiteGround Review. Top-Notch Hosting Service

Hey there and welcome to this SiteGround review! In this article, I’ll be going over everything SiteGround related, so that you get a better idea and understanding of what this hosting service is all about, the pricing, the features, and if it’s worth your time or not.

So let’s not beat around the bush, and let’s get straight into it.

So out of the dozens of web hosting service providers that are available out there…which one should you choose? After all, they are “pretty much the same”, right?

Well SiteGround, does one specific thing (that is super crucial for your website to have the best chance of ranking) a lot better than some of the alternatives out there, which is one of the reasons it’s become one a force to be reckoned with, without being “all that popular”.

SiteGround is one of the leading contenders when it comes to hosting services for your websites, for sure, as far as “value for money and services” are concerned, although it’s a bit less well known.

But is the SiteGround web hosting service really worth it? Let’s go over everything.

Table Of Content

What Is SiteGround?

SiteGround is a web hosting company. This means that instead of you buying your own servers and maintaining them, all you have to do is just to rent one out from the s SiteGround website, and you can have your website running in no time. 

And if you’re new to the game, you might be asking “What does a server do?”

Well, a server stores all your website files—your blog posts, your images, all of your videos, links, and other types of files that you’ve uploaded. It’s sort of like a hard drive or a USB stick, but it does more than that of course.  

And just to get slightly more fancy and a bit more technical, as a storage device, it also needs to actually show your website in the proper order. To make this happen, the server needs what is called a “file transfer protocol” or FTP, as it’s also commonly known. 

So say you would want to build your own site from scratch. Well then you’d need to buy a server, plus you also need to configure your FTP. 

On top of that, there are some other conditions you must keep in mind: 

• Your server must be in an air-conditioned room; like any other computer, a server gets hot and needs optimal temperature to work. Yes?
• The server must be plugged into a power outlet at all times. This is to keep things running, no surprises here. 
• The server must be connected to the internet all the time. 

 

Do you see yourself doing these things on your own?

If you’re like most people…probably not.

For one, servers are costly. Secondly, server management requires some pretty technical skills. As an online entrepreneur, blogger or website owner…it doesn’t make much sense to learn all of these things, because these skills probably aren’t the core of your business. 

If this is something you’re interested in learning, then more power to you, however…why don’t you just rent everything out yourself instead?

That is where SiteGround comes into play. The hosting company already offers services that you need to run your sites, like shared hosting. You rent the server, and they do all the work from the backend so you can focus on creating content, making sales or doing anything else that it is that you do.

Makes sense right?

What Services Are Offered By SiteGround?

SiteGround is a huge company, and it offers a myriad of different services that you will also find in many other rweb hosting companies and organizations, so it’s up to date, competent and competitive.

For this review, we will touch a little bit on the corporate and enterprise services but, we’ll deal mostly on those services that you need if you are a blogger or an online entrepreneur, since that is what most people are interested in getting started with.

• Hosting – this is the company’s main line of service, which is broken down into four categories: Web Hosting, WordPress Hosting, WooCommerce Hosting, and Cloud Hosting. 

The Web Hosting service refers to renting out the servers, and then building your site from scratch, or by using a non-WordPress CMS (short for content management system). 

WordPress Hosting, on the other hand, is the same service with the difference that you can install WordPress with one click, or you can ask the support team to do it for you. 

WordPress is one of the most popular CMS out there (this site is built with WordPress) has been around for a long time, and is pretty much the “go-to” when it comes to website building. This is the option that I’d probably recommend you choose if you want to do WordPress. 

You should be able to install WordPress regardless (with the web hosting service) but it won’t be a 1 click install. If you’re not too tech-savvy, then I’d recommend the WordPress option, since it is 1 click. 

WooCommerce Hosting is best for those who want to build an online store. WooCommerce is actually a WordPress plugin that you can install for free on your site, the hosting service in SiteGround is different, however.

Cloud Hosting is a service that you need once your basic service has reached its peak. The Cloud Hosting service allows you to cater to more than hundreds of thousands of visitors per month, (plus a huge limit on how much data you can store).

• Speed Boosters – these are tools you can use to make your website page load speed faster. These are tools like caching and CDN—tools that can help you serve your website visitors faster for a seamless experience. These are crucial and it’s highly recommended that you get!
  
  
• Security Solutions – all websites need encryption, and SiteGround provides free SSL certificates for each website you launch. The last thing you want is for hackers to intercept and interpret data from your site, and SiteGround has already fixed that. You can get a free SSL through WordPress, but it’s nice to have it here too. 

• Website Tools – this set of tools include collaboration software found in your SiteGround user area; you can add users to your websites, such as virtual assistants and freelancers that you hire to post blogs for you, or web developers who are in charge of designing your website. A nice addition.

These are the four main areas of service you can get from SiteGround. Just like other web hosting companies, you can also buy your domain name and email from SiteGround. So if you’re looking to get your first website, you can get one there AND have it hosted at the same time.

Why Should You Use SiteGround?

If you are just starting out in your journey online, you may not be too sure as to why you need a good hosting provider or service and why you should even use SiteGround to begin with. 

Here are some of the reasons why.

• Cost – You pay a fraction of server costs with SiteGround, compared to other hosting services,like the “generally regarded as number 1” hosting platform out there (Bluehost). That’s just a fact. 
• Customer support – 24/7 customer support via ticketing system, chat, and email. This is pretty standard, and SiteGround doesn’t necessarily “get an edye” for having this, but it’s basically a must (although not every company has this). 
• Tools – They offer lots of tools to make your website perform like a pro such as caching, CDN, email accounts, domain management, and evens statistics.
• Speed – SiteGround has a plug-in called SG Optimizer, which helps you determine how fast your website is and what to do to fix speed issues.

I want to briefly mention speed and SiteGround here…Because the best part about SiteGound hosting, in my opinion, is that the websites load, super fast.

This is really important, because one of the Google ranking factors, is website loading speed. If your website loads faster than your competitors (apart from also having the best content and being overall the best resource out there) then you have an edge! 

I don’t know what it is that they’re doing, but they systematically rank in the top of the hosting platforms, that allow for speed website speed optimization, it’s ridiculous.

I’ve read and heard of countless people, that, after they switched their hosting over to SiteGround, saw whole SECONDS take off their website loading speeds which pretty much put them on the map (in the search engines) overnight.

From page 2 to top of page 1 like that. Tons of testimonials and polls of people choosing SiteGround over others, it really is crazy.

This, coupled with the fact that the pricing is very reasonable…makes SiteGround go from an “okay service”, to one of top options out there. 

So SiteGround is a web host that does not only store your files and serve your websites—it has everything you need to be able to run a professional store or blog from the ground up and with a huge heads up over the competition.  Check out some of the images below, to see what I mean.

SiteGround Pricing: How Much Will It Cost?         

For this SiteGround review, I will just be focusing on the hosting plan. The hosting, WordPress Hosting, and WooCommerce Hosting all have the same plans and prices throughout, regardless (the only difference is what the hosting is best fore, which we mentioned before).

 The plans found at the SiteGround sign-up page are: 

• StartUp – costs $3.95 per month and then $11.95 per month once promo expires
• GrowBig – costs $5.95 per month and then $19.95 per month once promo expires
• GrowGeek – costs $11.95 per month and then $34.95 per month once promo expires

The SiteGround special price is what you pay if you are buying the service for the first time. You can choose between 1, 2, and 3 years. SiteGround charges annually, so this means that you’ll want to multiply each price by 12.

Once that period of time that you’ve chosen to host your sites with, is up, you’ll then need to pay the regular price (also charged yearly). 

If you are in it for the long term, you should get the 3-year GrowBig plan for three years. You will pay only $214, and only after three years will you start paying $19.95 per month. 

The benefits of the StartUp plan, though, are as follows:

One website with 10GB of storage space

• Bandwidth capacity of 10,000 monthly visitors
• Unmetered traffic with automatic WordPress installation and updates
• Free daily backup plus free SSL, along with free email and CDN

So that is the basic plan, still fine. But for the GrowBig and GrowBig plans, you get an unlimited number of websites plus all the benefits of the StartUp plan. On top of that, you can enjoy between 25,000 to 100,000 site visits per month. 

The reason you should probably choose the GrowBig plan, over the StartUp plan, is the websites you can host. You might think that you’ll need only one website…but you’ll be surprised just how many websites you’ll probably end up with. It can get addicting!  

Currently, I’m using Namecheap to host my website, but if I were to change my hosting at any given moment in time (which I might very easily do, very soon) I’d go with SiteGround over any other option out there for sure.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, SiteGround is one of the best web hosting providers out there, and the one that I personally recommend the most.

What makes it really great is the SG Optimizer, and the insane speed optimization process. If your website is slow and you are not aware, you’ll lose a lot of traffic since Google will not rank your page if it is too slow because it provides users with a bad experience. 

SiteGround is a premier choice for a web host. I highly recommend the platform, and on top of that, have to say that its customer support is one of the best for sure. 

Also, if you’re still unsure about this hosting service, and might be interested in checking out another different solution, I suggest that you also read my Bluehost review here.

These are my top 2 recommended hosting services (although I think SiteGround is the better of the two) and by reading through it, you can compare the two, to see which one is better.