Why We Choose Pagely for WordPress Hosting

Towards the end of the 2014/early 2015 we migrated all of our internal sites and managed host clients sites to Pagely’s servers. While we knew this was a huge undertaking we feel that our job at WP Valet is to stay as true as possible to our mission of providing the BEST service possible for our clients. We’ve been making changes all over our internal systems to reflect this and finally took a serious look at our hosting setups.

There are a several companies offering WordPress hosting out there and they all have unique benefits.  Once we sat down and figured out what we needed to feel like we were giving our clients 100% the choice was clear. We needed to move to Pagely. While there were alot of factors involved here are a few of the bigger reasons we felt the need to make the jump:

We needed:

1. Increased server access

2. Access to timely and expert support

3. Ability to offer reseller hosting plans

The migration process itself was a great experience. The server access to the VPS through SSH was a vital feature allowing us to work more quickly and efficiently. We were able to use simple wp-cli commands to prepare the install, import all of the content, and then review each site before launch.

The increased server access not only makes the migration process painless, it actually gives us more room to do what we do for our clients on a daily basis.  We’ve already utilized the increased interface dozens of times to research issues, fix problems, and tweak things to make our clients happier and their sites healthier.

Throughout the transfer, we had one main point of contact for support at Pagely. Having one agent who was familiar with the goals of the project and the progress/timetable we had set up was invaluable. Whether it was implementing an SSL cert or setting up a new SFTP user, opening a ticket and outlining the needed task was easy, especially knowing that we’d be getting a prompt and pleasant reply. Shoutout: Thanks for all the help, Kris!

Part of what we provide for our clients is a voice of knowledge and advocacy in light of hosting questions or issues. Being able to communicate quickly and effectively with a team that is so helpful and knowledgable allows us to put stellar support times on the clock for our clients. Who could ask for more?

Finally, a great feature Pagely offers that we’ve made good use of so far is their reseller plans/accounts. We have a couple clients using custom hosting plans and we’re in the process of adding more. Setting up a new custom hosting plan and account is a simple process, and the billing and ongoing support has been extremely convenient for both us and our customers. Again, with this feature Pagely allows us to add another layer of personalized service to our clients, a major thing we identify ourselves by. Definitely a win-win!

Since launching the final site on our personal install a little over a month ago, we’ve heard nothing but positive reports from our clients! It’s certainly something when your non-techy clients remark that they notice a change in their sites!

We’ve seen positive numbers across the board from our speed tests as well. One such example is TheDailyLove, a high traffic lifestyle blog. Each week we monitor site speeds of our clients. Their speed tests in the weeks leading up to the migration were registering at 2.75s & 2.54s, but since the migration they have seen a marked improvement in page load time. How improved? After launching on Pagely’s servers, we’re now between 1.49s and 1.23s each week! That’s over 1+ seconds shaved of the home page speed! Just by changing hosts.

We are so lucky to have many wonderful relationships in the WordPress community. We could tout the virtues of any managed host out there, honestly. They all have their merits and are perfect for lots of reasons. At the end of the day Pagely was what we needed to fulfill our promise of excellence to our clients in a way that aligned with our mission.

Shoutout to Josh and his team: you all are incredible! We’re really excited to be on board and proud to be among the distinguished list of Pagely Ambassadors.