When starting a website, especially on a budget, many individuals seek best managed wordpress hosting to get started. Although the idea of cutting costs in the early weeks is a good idea, it’s important to remember that not all hosting plans are the same. Especially when it comes to things like email deliverability and the reputation of your domain, you need to give more emphasis on hosting. If you plan on sending emails from your website, whether those be responses to a contact form, newsletters, or order confirmations, it’s good to understand how your hosting provider plays a key role in whether that email is delivered to your users’ inboxes.
Most businesses run multiple businesses and hence seek WordPress hosting for multiple sites. This is particularly true of freelancers, agencies, or entrepreneurs with multiple projects. While hosting more than one WordPress website from one account may be both convenient and cost-effective, it poses challenges related to how mail servers and email clients perceive your domain. In this article, we will explain how your email success and domain reputation can be enhanced or hindered depending on the WordPress hosting plan.
Significance of Email Deliverability
When we talk about email deliverability, we are referring to whether or not your emails land in your recipients’ inboxes, as opposed to being flagged as spam or being rejected entirely. Poor email deliverability can lead to missed customer inquiries, customers being unable to reset passwords, or lower sales because your promotional emails never get seen.
Most people don’t realize that the server hosting their website may also handle their email traffic. So if you are utilizing a cheap hosting provider, often the hosting provider is cutting corners, meaning they are using shared IP addresses, not securing the email header properly, or have not set up DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) or SPF(SenderPolicy Framework), you risk being blacklisted when sending emails.
This is particularly true if your hosting provider is running the server with hundreds of other websites, because if any of them are flagged for spam, it affects the reputation of the entire server’s IP address. Even your email may be sent to the spam folder interoception’s inbox.
Balanced Perspective for WordPress Hosting for Multiple Sites
If you are running multiple sites, using WordPress hosting may seem like second nature. However, hosting multiple sites on one account does increase the risks related to email deliverability.
Let’s say you have three separate websites, all hosted on one account. If one of the sites is infected with malware, or if one of your plugins gets compromised and starts sending spam, the entire account could get negatively impacted in terms of email reputation. All of the sites are using the same mail IP and server. As a result, other good sites may face email deliverability issues due to one site performing badly.
However, high-quality hosting providers (the same ones that handle multisite) also tendo offer better security and improved configuration and management tools for email. These sites may also allow you to have isolated resources, including IP addresses, foreach site.
Strategies for Healthy Domain Reputation
Just like your credit score reflects your credit worthiness, your domain’s reputation is like credit score for email. If you abuse it, or it has been abused and flagged for abuse by someone else, it only makes it harder for you to send an email from that domain successfully. Here are three hosting considerations:
● Spam Reports: If you send bulk emails without opt-in permission, or if your mail server gets hacked or compromised, inevitably, someone will click the annoying and unnecessary “mark as spam” button.
● Bounce Rates: Very primitive, but poorly configured mail servers can have high bounce rates, and ISPs interpret that as spammy behavior.
● Blacklisting: One lousy neighbor on a shared host can get an entire IP blacklisted, even if you’ve done nothing wrong.
The best way to minimize this risk is to work with a hosting company that takes an active role in monitoring and mitigating abusive behavior, even if it isn’t the cheapest alternative.
Maximizing Deliverability on a Budget
Instead of relying on the mail function provided by your hosting service provider, opt fora third-party SMTP service. These services are dedicated email SMTPservices,
designed to maximize deliverability and provide reporting to allow you to track opens, bounces, and failures.
These DNS records authenticate your emails and protect against spoofing. Your email service provider will have a guide to assist you with setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC with your domain registrar or service provider.
An outdated or vulnerable plugin can be exploited to send spam emails out from your domain. Make it a habit to regularly update and run security scans on your plugins, especially if you are using WordPress hosting that allows you to host multiple sites.
Choosing the Right Hosting for Better Email and Domain Health
If email holds a significant value for your business, you should realize that investing in the right hosting is as important as investing in the right domain names or email marketing application. When seeking out a hosting company, be sure to look for dedicated IP options, built-in email tools, solid support for SMTP, and customer support reviews on uptime and email reliability.
Discuss with you that some of your managed WordPress hosting providers may completely block the ability for you to send emails directly from their server and require you to set up SMTP. This may seem like a limitation to you, but it can actually help improve your email deliverability.
Lastly, if you are developing multiple sites, you may want to consider WordPress hosting for multiple sites. It allows for isolated resources or account-level security to avoid one site causing problems with other sites.
Conclusion
Low-cost WordPress hosting may get you off the ground quickly, but it can battened serious issues down the line, especially related to deliverability and domain trust. Websites that share an IP, poorly managed servers, and a lack of authentication support are all plausible outcomes.
Furthermore, if you are using WordPress hosting for multiple sites, you need to follow a more careful approach to how your entire hosting environment is set up and monitored, because one bad configuration or an infected plugin could affect all of your sites, including your entire domain reputation.