I love Managed WordPress Hosting
When people ask me about hosting providers, particularly for WordPress, I often talk about managed WordPress hosting. It's a relatively young space that didn't exist a couple years ago – but since then has really taken off.
Managed WordPress hosting works like you might imagine – they do most of the heavy lifting for you (backups, upgrades, plugin updates, and protection). Beyond hosting, they offer expert WordPress support – and that's awesome.
The problem with managed hosting is that it's not cheap. Now mind you, for what it's doing I think it's worth every penny. I currently use WP Engine, but have accounts with ZippyKid, Page.ly, and WooThemes as well.They're all great and have slightly different takes on how to best serve the community.
But like I said, it's not cheap if you're used to paying $3-9/month for WordPress hosting.
What if you could get Managed Support instead?
After several years of providing support to WordPress folks, the idea of managed support hit my friend Shayne. Shayne Sanderson started a company called Maintainn to provide expert WordPress support to everyday people, using everyday hosting providers.
Maintainn solves a real problem – not just for customers who aren't using Managed WordPress hosting. They also provide a unique value to developers who don't want to create support contracts for their customers.
Maintainn offers services that you'd normally not find when hosting at the $3-9/month hosting providers – from backups to cleaning up your site from web malware to updating the core and key plugins. If you need expert WordPress support, these are the guys you've been looking for.
“I know enough to be dangerous…”
I hear a lot of folks who should be focused on their core business say the same thing about WordPress all the time. “I'm not a programmer, but I know just enough to be dangerous.” I don't know about you, but I've never wanted to be dangerous at anything – mostly because it means there's an element of danger involved.
When you spend all that money getting a custom site developed, doesn't it make sense to spend a bit to make sure you can keep it updated, safe, fast, and even enhance it every now and then?
The challenge is that the developer you used to create your site may not be the same kind of person you want fixing and fine tuning it. It's silly to think that they're always the same. And that's where Shayne and his team at Maintainn come in.
A little about Shayne
I've told you before that my approach to success is strongly based on working with others and assembling teams to help me succeed. I'd heard about Shayne long before I connected with him online or met him in person. But the one thing that I heard and noted myself is that this guy “gets it” when it comes to teams.
As Shayne and I spoke, I heard this, “early on I realized I could not do this alone. Knowing I could not be a one-man solution, I started recruiting developers/designers to be part of our network.”
Think of Maintainn as a network of expert WordPress support folks just waiting to delight you. Doesn't that sound like someone (and a team) that you'd like to have in your back pocket? Yeah, me too.
Here's my public service announcement for the day
If you are a developer who wants to go solve another problem once a site is live, introduce your clients to Maintainn.
If you're a business person who isn't using managed WordPress hosting, go meet the folks over at Maintainn.
When you do, and they help you out, come back over here and let me know.