Benefits of Using Managed WordPress as a Marketing Agency

Marketing agencies face many challenges, from creating a scalable workflow to retaining clients to preventing scope creep.

Most of these challenges are connected. You can’t grow your client base sustainably without a predictable and efficient workflow. Without consistent results, you can’t retain clients, and without a solid base of retainers, you’re in a disadvantaged position to refuse to give away work for free.

There isn’t a turnkey solution to all of an agency’s problems. But improving your tools doesn’t hurt either. And, when it comes to managing your clients’ websites, a small investment can make a world of difference.

In this post, we’ll dive into the benefits of using Managed WordPress as a marketing agency. But first, let’s answer an essential question: Why should you be using WordPress in the first place?

Why You Should Use WordPress With Your Agency Clients
Shared Hosting vs Managed WordPress vs WordPress.com
The Benefits of Using Managed WordPress as a Marketing Agency
Key Takeaways

Why You Should Use WordPress With Your Agency Clients

WordPress is the most used content management platform in the world. And it’s been a marketing favourite for years.

The main reason why marketing companies prefer WordPress is that it gives them the versatility and autonomy that they need to run their clients’ websites, combined with a highly intuitive and easy-to-use dashboard.

On the WordPress dashboard, the client, the design team, SEO specialists, and the content team can collaborate seamlessly, which results in a simplified and easily trackable workflow.

WordPress is 100% open source, and there are thousands of plugins and themes you can use to add functionalities and customize your site. On WordPress, you can create an online store, a blog, or a company page or combine these three types of websites into your unique platform. That makes it possible for marketing teams to use WordPress across a wide variety of projects. It’s not uncommon for companies to use WordPress for every website they create.

By using WordPress as the foundation for all their sites, marketing teams can:

Start their web projects sooner, simplifying planning.
More accurately predict a new project’s timeline and budget.
Reduce training costs, as team members won’t constantly learn new technology.

Another feature that makes WordPress the go-to CMS for marketing companies is that WordPress sites are easy to maintain. And, as we’ll explore later in this article, managed WordPress makes things even more accessible.

However, before analyzing the benefits of Managed WordPress, we should clarify that there are several ways to create a WordPress website, and different methods have different pros and cons. In the next section, we will examine the two most common ways to create a WordPress site.

Shared Hosting vs. Managed WordPress vs. WordPress.com

There are two general approaches to WordPress. You can either buy a hosting plan and install WordPress in it (which is referred to as “self-hosted WordPress”), or you can create your site through WordPress.com.

WordPress.com is a platform that allows users to run their WordPress site from Automattic’s servers. If you set up your website through WordPress.com, you’ll need to buy a monthly or yearly plan. Most of these plans are pretty restrictive when compared to self-hosted WordPress. For instance, even the cheapest shared hosting plans allow you to install whatever themes and plugins you want on your site. But, for WordPress.com, this is an exclusive feature that you can get only with their most expensive plans, which start at $33 per month. The freedom, autonomy, and cost-efficiency you get when self-hosting WordPress is unmatched.

If you decide to self-host your WordPress site, you’ll find two major hosting options: Shared hosting and Managed WordPress.

Shared hosting is the cheapest type of hosting out there, and it provides you with extremely limited resources, just enough to get your site up and running. Shared hosting has two key benefits, besides its low price:

A shared hosting plan is not WordPress-specific, so you can use it for any PHP-based CMS.
Shared hosting plans usually come with custom business email addresses.

The most significant downside of shared hosting plans is that they don’t offer you the server resources you need to scale your online presence. Shared hosting plans are very vulnerable to traffic peaks, and performance will only degrade as your website grows and becomes more complex.

Managed WordPress, on the other hand, is the epitome of WordPress’ convenience and flexibility. This type of hosting plan usually comes packed with time-saving, performance-boosting features, including:

Automatic backups & updates
Access to an enterprise-grade CDN
Free staging sites
Access to extra server resources whenever needed
A free SSL certificate

In the next section, we’ll dive into four key benefits of using Managed WordPress as a marketing agency.

The 4 Benefits of Using Managed WordPress as a Marketing Agency

Using managed WordPress for your client projects comes with four key benefits:

You won’t have to hire someone to update your clients’ websites manually and manage backups, so it keeps your site maintenance costs low.
It automates repetitive tasks, helping you make the most out of every billable hour.
Staging sites and backups reduce the risks of experimenting with your clients’ platforms.
By delivering your website’s heaviest assets through a CDN and assigning server resources generously, managed WordPress facilitates your optimization efforts and guarantees fast loading times.

Managed WordPress Reduces Site Maintenance Costs

Managed WordPress hosting plans are usually more expensive than shared hosting, and the difference in reliability, security, and site speed is worth it. On the other hand, managed WordPress is far cheaper than hiring a team to manage your clients’ sites.

With Managed WordPress, Every Hour Counts

Updates and backups are extremely important. As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, keeping your WordPress site updated prevents common security vulnerabilities and performance pitfalls. On the other hand, backups can be dismissed as a luxury – until they’re needed. Backups can help you revert your site to a previous state after an error, as well as facilitate site migration.

But, regardless of how vital these maintenance tasks are, you shouldn’t invest most of your team’s time in them. And, when you’re manually performing these tasks, not charging for them could negatively impact your bottom line.

When you delegate routine maintenance tasks to your hosting provider, you’re making sure every billable hour is spent doing the work that matters most. Namely, developing and implementing your marketing strategy.

Through Staging Sites, Managed WordPress Helps You Experiment

Best-in-class Managed WordPress plans come with staging websites. “Staging websites” are private versions of your sites, which you can use to test out new changes before fully implementing them. Combined with automated backups, this feature makes Managed WordPress the best hosting plan for those looking to optimize and improve their website continuously.

Managed WordPress Boosts Your Optimization Efforts

You already know the benefits of having a fast-loading site. A website that loads in the blink of an eye is well-positioned to outperform SEO and UX-wise competitors.

You can convert your images to next-gen formats, minimize your CSS code and defer your javascript, but if your hosting doesn’t offer you the resources you need, all your efforts will fall short. Managed WordPress assigns you server resources dynamically. That means that your site is prepared to support traffic spikes and won’t experience any downtime.

Additionally, this type of hosting usually includes access to a global CDN. Therefore, without paying any extras, your clients will be able to deliver a fast and fully functional website to users from all around the globe.

Last but not least, managed WordPress plans usually come with a free SSL certificate. An SSL certificate guarantees that browsers, payment processors, and users perceive your site as secure.

Key Takeaways

In this post, we analyzed the benefits of using managed WordPress as a marketing agency.

Choosing the wrong tech stack can make your web projects unnecessarily complex, and selecting bad hosting can sabotage your optimization efforts. If you’re looking for the best CMS and hosting combo to deliver outstanding results at scale, consider WordPress and Managed WordPress.

The Best Managed WordPress Hosting for Small Businesses

Not all Managed WordPress plans offer the same features. If you’re a results-oriented marketing company working with small businesses, we’ve got something for you.

At HostPapa, we’re the largest independent hosting provider in the world. And we specialize in helping small businesses grow online through cutting-edge hosting solutions. We work with the best infrastructure, offer 24/7 support, and design our plans to match the needs of small businesses and entrepreneurs. The result is excellent hosting at an affordable price.

Grow your company and website with confidence. Managed WordPress provides peace of mind with premium performance and security, without the usual WordPress maintenance.

Managed WordPress comes with the following features and more: