Category: Speed

Next Generation Cloud Hosting

Written on . Posted in Hosting, Monitoring, News, Services, Speed, Wordpress.

Have you ever considered the thought of cloud hosting? Maybe you have been thinking about shared cloud hosting but you’re not quite sure if it is a viable option for you? Either way, it is a great way to make sure that your site is protected and when you do host your company website on a cloud, you will be putting it on an extensive network instead of a single server.

The (old) limitations of shared hosting

When people discuss shared hosting platforms they are usually talking about a number of websites (hundreds or even thousands) sharing the same resources on a single server. This means that the performance of your website depends greatly on it’s co-websites and if one of those is particularly hungry, then it can draw resources away from your website.

A better, cloud solution

Cloud hosting works using clusters of servers in unison to distribute your website across the network so that if requirements fluctuate across different websites, the system can compensate accordingly calling on additional clusters to deliver power when it is needed ensuring that both the hungry website and your website run quickly and efficiently. This network solution also increases the reliability of the system, so that if a single server goes down, your website still stays online. Whilst reliability and uptime are still greater on our managed VPS or Dedicated servers we are so confident with our cloud hosting that it comes with a 99.9% SLA.

In short, because cloud servers don’t rely on individual server power, databases or other websites to power yours, you can get faster loading speeds as well as an increased level of reliability.

WordPress Hosting

Cloud hosting is great for WordPress websites, however, it does reply on the WordPress developer/website designer knowing what they are doing. The website configuration itself can be the difference of loading in a split second or four seconds. As Google now ranks sites based on the performance, fast loading times are essential for both SEO and for user experience.

So as you can see, cloud hosting has certainly advanced over the last couple of years and you might be surprised at how much it could benefit you (and how little it can cost).

Levelling Up

For the next level of performance, we also have VPS, Hybrid and Dedicated servers available for websites that have particularly heavy traffic or bespoke on-site processing requirements.

To find out more about any of our hosting plans just get in touch and we can help you find the perfect package to meet your needs

Hope for the best, plan for the worst! Backup and Security

Written on . Posted in Monitoring, News, Security, Services, Speed, Updates, Webmaster.

You have probably heard a lot of people talk about how important it is to have good backup and security for your hard drive and computer in case something goes wrong, but at the end of the day, the same concept applies to your site as well and there are plenty of things that you need to look out for.

Bad things can happen

Unfortunately, bad things can happen. Websites are attacked every single day and although measures can be taken to help prevent these whether it’s that your site is attacked by a malicious script, spammed or even directly attacked for its data or to commit fraud.

It is not just hackers and spammers you need to worry about. Hosting companies can experience outages, floods, electrical problems and more. If your only backup is located within the same data centre, any major incident that occurs there could mean that your website and the backup of your website are lost. This effectively drops the value of your website to zero.

And let us not forget about human error 😉

Hackers

Hackers are all over the web. They usually use their skills to try and steal credit card information but a lot of people choose to hack sites because it proves how good they are, and it may even cause a bit of trouble as well. It doesn’t matter how big you are or how much security you have, things can happen at any time and by having a website backup in place, you can be sure to make a difference.

Minimising Damages – Backup and Security

If you log into your site one day and you are greeted with an error, time again then you will probably get a sinking feeling in your stomach. The feeling that tells you that something is wrong, and before you know it, you come to terms with what has just happened. If you don’t have a website backup in place then this could mean serious problems for you later down the line and for this reason, it is always important to make sure that this is the case.

One way to keep your website more secure would be to keep up to date with all the latest WordPress updates, but at the end of the day, this can only do so much for your security and if something catastrophic should happen then you might not be able to protect yourself against it. All of our Webmaster packages come with daily snapshot backups but If you don’t have a website backup in place then it might be a good idea to contact your agency to get one sorted.

For more information about backup and security or to see how we can help keep your website fast, backed up, secure and up-to-date please don’t hesitate to get in touch today

Speed Up WordPress | Google’s Battle on Slow Websites

Written on . Posted in Monitoring, News, SEO, Speed.

The time it takes for your website to load can be very important, if a website takes more than a couple seconds to load then customers will get frustrated navigating the website and if it creeps over three seconds users will leave the site entirely. We live in a world where people expect things instantly.

This loss in conversions is magnified when visitors currently on your site tell friends and colleagues as well.

How can I test this?

It’s not always easy to test the speed of a website yourself, it could be slow because Dave is streaming Netflix, or because there is work going on by your internet company.

A good test is to use a website such as http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/ which will independently test the website from your preferred location.

A Case Study from Google

Google did an interesting experiment with regard to load times. Google Vice President Marissa Mayer asked web surfers – would you rather see 10 or 30 results for your Google search? The users agreed that 30 results per page sounded like a good idea. So Google implemented it on some results pages.

Then the shock came.

Pages that displayed 30 results each had traffic to them drop an astounding 20%. Google tested the loading difference between the 10 and 30 results pages and found that it was just half of a second. If half of a second made that much of a difference in how long users were willing to wait, how much of a difference could it make to your site if you carved a second or two off of load time?

For this reason, Google also rates the speed of your website against its SEO ranking, with quicker websites more likely to snatch the top spots.

How do I speed up WordPress?

There are many techniques you can employ to speed up WordPress and make your website load faster.

Techniques range from installing and configuring caching plugins to optimising individual images so that they are compressed and a reasonable size for the website. You can also go into the core files of the website and server to force compression and increase the level of local caching (how long and what files a computer will ‘remember’ so that it doesn’t have to re-download it next time).

Spotlight Speed

We use clean, fast workflows with speed in mind, compressing data where possible and minimising the number of requests. We also have a Lighting Speed Package available to vastly increase the loading time of your website.

For more information about how we can speed up your new or existing website please get in touch.

Manchester

Beehive Lofts
Beehive Mill
Manchester
M4 6JG

Bradford

re:Center
Richmond Road
Bradford
BD7 1DP

Bristol

Coworking Spaces
Coffee Shops
Bristol
Br1 1AA

Request an Information Pack

Raise a support ticket

Request a call-back

Just leave your name and number and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.

Contact us

How can we help?

Copyright © Spotlight Studios
Powered By Spotlight Servers

Spotlight Studios Ltd, Beehive Lofts, Beehive Mill, Jersey Street, Manchester, M4 6JG
Registered in England and Wales.
Company Number: 07829328
VAT Number: GB131434942