Blog

Q) Is it necessary to have website maintenance, vulnerability scanning, remediation
monthly, including vulnerability assessment that fixes the issues that have been raised making changes to the site when required. I mean are these security issues not taken care by WP Engine hosting itself?

A) WP Engine would handle some aspects of the security of your site but the content of your site is controlled on your end. This includes plugins and when you update plugins, WordPress versions etc.

There are different security headers that can be added as well, that need to be requested or provided by your development team as these can impact the site.

WP Engine manages the hardware and keeps the infrastructure secure and they do run periodic security scans. If a site becomes infected with malware, they can also run scans and get infection removed.

Relevant content:

WP Engine’s Security Environment

WP Engine and PCI Compliance

Web Rules Engine

WPE Security Checklist and Guidelines

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, meaning that if you choose to click through and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission at no cost to you. I was also compensated to create this post, though all opinions are my own.

For those providing content writing, web development, and internet marketing services, hosting and managing websites on behalf of the clients are too often part of the business. If a small business has hired you to launch a website for their firm, chances are that you will also be taking care of their content creation, SEO, and social media endeavors. So your business is also centered around hosting websites.

Since you will be taking care of the SEO, you will want fast page load speed. For that, you need a hosting service provider that uses the latest technologies. Instead of shared hosting (out-of-memory errors, 500 errors, the site cannot be found type of things related to low server resources), you will want managed hosting in which Flywheel specializes in the case you are using the most popular CMS today WordPress (28+ million live websites against second Wix with 4.5+ million as per this report Popular CMS & Market Share).

Growth Suite by Flywheel is a newly-launched product that aims to take care of managing WordPress websites of your clients from the perspective of you as an agency owner. Otherwise, what happens is that you search for a good hosting service provider. On top of that, you need to add a billing system, email management system. You need to put in place an infrastructure for kinds of stuff like client reports. With Growth Suite, such things are unified, professional, and automated under one dashboard.

Flywheel’s Growth Suite comes with additional tools for client management along with managed WordPress hosting

1. Resell managed WordPress hosting of Flywheel under your brand.
2. With Stripe, you can accept one time or recurring payments in multiple currencies.
3. You can manage unlimited number of clients with any of the Growth Suite plans even if their sites not hosted on Flywheel.
4. Fully white labeled with a reference to your brand in client portal, client reports, and client emails.
5. Intuitive dashboard for tracking, planning, and forecasting revenues.

Managed WordPress Hosting or Growth Suite Plan should I choose?

Freelance plan under Growth Suite costs 135$ monthly (two months free with the yearly plan) wherein you can host up to 10 sites against 115$ monthly under Managed WordPress Hosting. A rough way to see it is you are paying extra 2$ per site (keeping in mind both have similar web hosting specifications of 10 sites maximum, cap of 100,000 monthly visits, 20 GB storage, 200GB bandwidth).

My preference would be to go for Flywheel’s Growth Suite since some of the features like Client Reports can be relevant even for an in-house team. Also important is the fact that even if you are focused on hosting in-house WordPress sites, it makes sense to leverage the potential revenue that can be generated by reselling. So suppose you are maintaining 7 WordPress sites for your in-house needs, you can resell 3. Since you will be already managing 7 WordPress sites of yours, the income generated through 3 sites can be a bonus without needing much effort. Just to reiterate, from billing to monthly client reports, all are deeply automated with Flywheel’s Growth Suite. With Agency plan under Managed WordPress Hosting (priced 290$ per month) as well Growth Suite (330$ per month), you get 30 sites, 400,000 monthly visits, and 500 GB bandwidth. So with an additional 40$ (330$ – 290$) per month or 1.33$ per site (40$/30 sites), you get the features of Growth Suite on top of the same managed WordPress hosting.

How Growth Suite can open new doors for those flipping websites

If you occasionally flip websites, say on marketplace Flippa, Growth Suite can open a fresh model of doing business. Your buyer will have the option to continue with your hosting, in which case you will have a billing system in place. You can enter into an understanding with the buyer of some kind of additional partnerships like you will take care of fresh blog posts, SEO. In fact, each buyer will need a different approach. Some will just transfer domain name and hosting to their existing hosting accounts. Others will want your assistance in applying for them a fresh AdSense account and affiliate marketing programs. In any case, Growth Suite will systematize your services/partnerships with the new buyer and accelerate your business model of flipping websites. Here is our experience of selling starter websites on Flippa: Planning your online business centered around developing saleable starter websites and affiliate marketing.