What is WordPress multisite?
Building a great website with a unique domain name is the most important step you can take towards establishing your presence online. There are lots of web hosting solutions available, but WordPress remains one of the most popular amongst businesses of all sizes… and with good reason.
WordPress hosting streamlines the process of designing, launching and managing websites, with a wide range of versatile tools, complemented with numerous specialist plug-ins (including content management, SEO and analytics). This means it can be utilised as a site builder for everything from blogs to e-commerce, with all sites included in your hosting package managed from a single, centralised interface.
Why consider hosting your multisite on a virtual private server ?
A virtual private server offers the perfect balance of performance, flexibility and value for money, making it the perfect way to launch your own WordPress multisite setup with minimal stress, while retaining full control of your costs. With a virtual private server, all resources are fully dedicated to your multisite, in contrast to many affordable shared web hosting solutions for websites. This way, you can benefit from the control and scalability of a cloud solution, combined with the power of a dedicated hosting solution – with a range of options available to suit any budget.
This makes it an ideal solution for growing businesses in all industries, allowing them to launch attractive, highly-available websites, with plenty of scope to scale as they evolve.
#1 Consider your short- and long-term requirements when evaluating hosting plans
One of the key advantages of a virtual private server is that you only pay for the exact resources you need for your multisite. This is in contrast to bare metal, where you pay for the entirety of the server’s resources, regardless of what you actually use. When planning your multisite, be sure to consider your exact requirements in terms of disk space, storage, etc., as this will help you make effective use of your available budget and retain full control of your costs.
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#2 Where should your virtual private server be hosted?
It’s important to remember that location is an important part of maximising a website’s performance and minimising load time, regardless of whether it is hosted with a physical or virtualised solution. Ideally, your multisite should be hosted as close as possible to where you and your customers are based, in order to achieve the highest possible availability. Furthermore, consider how you plan to grow in the future, and which countries you plan on expanding into. Can your chosen hosting provider offer a choice of datacentres in which to host your VPS, as well as solutions for securely interconnecting multiple datacentres in different counties, if required later ?
#3 What additional tools will you require to manage your multisite?
One of the key factors in the enduring popularity of WordPress multisite is the number of plug-and-play tools it comes with straight out of the box, and the number of professional-quality plug-ins available for it. The OVHcloud VPS range builds on this approach, offering a wide range of pre-installed tools and operating systems, which can be launched in just one click. Consider then, what tool you would prefer to use as your admin panel (cPanel hosting, Joomla, Plesk, or the standard WordPress dashboard, to name a few), and what you will require in terms of content management, blogging, search engine optimisation, and data analytics. You may have a selection of preferred tools you would like to continue using, but if you are in any doubt, consult your hosting provider regarding the available options.
* For VPS hosted in Sydney and Singapore : 1TB traffic/month for the VPS range “Starter” and “Value”, 2TB/month for the VPS range “Essential”, 3TB/month for the VPS range “Comfort” and 4TB/month for the VPS range “Elite” . Bandwidth is reduced to 10Mbps once the monthly quota is exceeded.