A high traffic blog must have ample capacity for storage and storage and bandwidth. As the number of visitors increases, the host environment should be able to accommodate many more requests, database operations, PHP scripts, etc., without being a bottleneck.
It is for this reason that deciding on the hosting service for a heavily trafficked blog should not be decided by how many people a provider says the plan supports. It is entirely possible for two blogs with similar monthly traffic needs to have vastly different requirements for their servers.
A good hosting environment should be able to accommodate your present capacity, but at the same time, it should give you the means to scale in scale in future.
Table of Contents
High Traffic Blog Criteria
It cannot be said how many visitors will make your blog a high traffic blog.
A blog getting 100,000 hits per month may consume less bandwidth than a blog that gets 30,000 hits per month if its pages are well-cached and small. What is important is the amount of processing the server does per hit.
For instance, a cached article can be served up without needing to repeatedly run PHP code from WordPress as well as database queries. On the other hand, a request which has not been cached will need WordPress to go through all these processes.
Traffic increases are also important. If a blog normally gets 2,000 hits per day but, because one post has become viral, gets 20,000 hits, it will require sufficient infrastructure to manage the influx.
How You Can Select Web Hosts for High-Traffic Blog.
1. Consider CPU and RAM Usage
The CPU and RAM usage of the web host are amongst the most crucial resources that should be checked before hosting your highly visited WordPress blogs.
The CPU processes all the work that needs to be done when running PHP code, databases, plugins, etc. RAM works as the memory for performing these processes. In case the available CPU or memory runs out, the users might face slow loading of pages, failure of requests, etc.
It is important not to consider only the disk space available in different packages. A web hosting plan with 100 GB of storage does not mean that it is superior to another plan with 30 GB of storage in terms of capacity to manage traffic.
In case of the shared hosting, pay attention to the limitations on the use of such resources as CPU, memory, number of entry processes, input/output, and others.
2. Pay Attention to Server Location
Where your hosting server is located physically might have an impact on the network latency. If you have readers in Nigeria, for instance, then the network route between these users and your server will be of importance.
In case your readership is global, a CDN would come in handy. Server location must never be thought of separately from server quality, since a local but congested server will perform worse than a properly configured server located far away.
3. Choose Fast Storage
Your choice of storage is not only related to how many files your server can store.
WordPress websites that generate high traffic will have to read databases, files, logs, cache, and other items. Faster storage will decrease the time needed to do these tasks.
SSD and NVMe storages may perform I/O much better compared to regular hard drives, but storage alone shouldn’t be seen in isolation.
In case you have a lot of articles, pictures, back-ups, and other documents on your blog, think about how rapidly your storage space is going to increase.
4. Consider PHP Workers and Concurrent Requests
This is one of the crucial technical aspects to consider when talking about WordPress sites.
If the site does not use caching, and the visitor makes a request for a page, then WordPress might have to run PHP processes. The number of concurrent PHP requests that can be handled is determined by the PHP workers.
In the case of a sudden traffic burst, this could further slow down the responses even if the hosting package is considered to offer adequate storage and bandwidth.
This is why high traffic blogs need to consider more than just the number of visitors and need to know how their hosting environment manages concurrent PHP requests.
5. Opt for Scalable Hosting
The type of hosting you require now may not remain constant six months from now.
For example, your blog might go through a phase of fast expansion once it achieves search visibility, publishes viral posts, or becomes popular on social networks.
Search for a hosting company which enables you to make an easy transition from:
Shared Hosting → Managed
WordPress/VPS Hosting → Cloud/Dedicated Hosting
It all depends on your particular website.
An optimized blog can continue to stay on shared or managed WordPress hosting for quite a while. But other websites which have a lot of concurrent users, lots of plugins or require heavy database queries may need a VPS.
The important point here is that there needs to be an upgrade plan and not one that waits for the server to fail.
6. Use a CDN When Your Blog Has a Large or Worldwide Audience
A Content Delivery Network enables caching of content from a nearby location.
It becomes really handy when you have users from various countries visiting your blog. Rather than having every user access static content from your server, a CDN caches images, CSS, JavaScript, and any other type of content that may be eligible for this kind of caching.
Cloudflare also states that the cache is able to store frequently accessed material within different geographically dispersed data centers, thus limiting the number of requests to the origin server.
A CDN doesn’t remove the need for proper hosting. The requests that cannot be cached will still go to the origin server. Nevertheless, good caching will reduce origin traffic and increase scalability.
7. Emphasize on Caching
Caching will make a huge difference in the workload that the server has to do.
If you do not use caching properly, then every single time there is a request for a certain page, your WordPress website might have to process all PHP codes and retrieve the data from the database.
Page caching enables the retrieval of frequently requested web pages from a cached version instead of creating one every time.
According to WordPress’s guidelines, server caching is often applied on highly trafficked sites, whereas opcode caching can help optimize the performance of PHP.
For a busy blog, look for a host that is compatible with things like:
- Full page cache
- CDN support
- OPcache
- Redis/Memcached where needed
- Object cache
- Browser caching
The idea here is to minimize unneeded processing on the origin server.
8. Database Performance Assessment
WordPress depends greatly on its database. Information such as posts, pages, settings, users, plugins data, comments, etc., may be saved in the database. The more a blog expands, the larger the database becomes, and more queries will need to be made.
A busy blog should therefore take into account the following:
- Database server performance
- Efficiency of queries
- Database load created by plugins
- Caching of objects
- Amount of memory available
- Size of the database
- Performance of backups and restores
A slow database may be a bottleneck even if there is sufficient storage on the server.
Which Hosting is Appropriate for a Traffic-Bound Blog?
| Hosting services |  Proper Utilization of Hosting Services | Reasons |
| Shared hosting | Growing blogs which can cache well | Constraints on resources |
| Managed WordPress Hosting | High traffic WordPress blogs which need to be managed easily | Limitations and benefits provided by the provider |
| VPS Hosting | Blogs which require more resources and control | Technical control required |
| Cloud Hosting | Fluctuating traffic which requires scalability | Configuration and Costs |
| Dedicated Server hosting | Large amounts of workload with more resources | More expensive and technical control required |
No particular hosting service becomes relevant based on the number of visitors.
The real question should be: How many resources does the blog use and how much capacity is required when the maximum number of people visit?
The number of visitors alone is inadequate to ascertain the capacity requirements of the hosting environment.
How Much Hosting Is Required for a Highly Traffic Blog?
Do not pick the hosting option purely on the basis of monthly visitors.
Consider the following instead:
- Concurrent visitors
- Average daily traffic
- Hourly peak traffic
- CPU usage
- Average page size
- Traffic spikes
- PHP requests
- Cache hit ratio
- Pageviews
- RAM usage
- Database load
- Disk space
For instance, a blog that gets 120,000 visits mainly via caching will differ significantly in its needs from a WordPress blog making 120,000 requests without caching.
It is for this reason that resource monitoring is more helpful than using an estimate by the provider.
Signs That Your Hosting is Outdated
These are the signs your blog is nearing your hosting capacity, if you notice them consistently:
- Slow server loading time
- Memory issues
- Server Errors 500 or 503
- Increase in TTFB time
- Worker processes of PHP saturated
- Pages running slow during traffic peaks
- Down time of website
- Connection problems with database
- Usage of CPU at max capacity
- Resource limit exceeded messages on hosting account
Do not automatically upgrade just because you have more visitors. You first need to determine where the true problem lies.
Things to Consider Before Making Your Purchase
When you go in search of hosting services for your popular blog, consider the following questions from the service provider:
- How much CPU and RAM will your package contain?
- Will there be any restrictions on PHP workers/entry processes?
- What kind of I/O limits do they impose?
- Is NVMe or SSD disk employed?
- Do server side cache mechanisms exist?
- Does Redis or some other object cache service exist?
- Can I employ a CDN?
- What is the geographical location of the servers?
- How does upgrading work?
- What is done during traffic surges?
- Can I see my resource usage stats?
HarmonWeb’s broader website hosting checklist also covers resources, storage, security, backups, server location, and scalability.
Mistakes Often Made While Hosting a High-Volume Blog
1. Overusing CPU-Intensive Plugins
Plugins can cause increased PHP and MySQL load. Uninstall those which are not required and check how important plugins affect the speed.
2. Confusion With “Unlimited”
While hosting services that claim to offer unlimited storage or bandwidth, there are restrictions on CPU, RAM, process usage, and acceptable use.
3. Selection Depending Only on Storage Space
High storage space doesn’t imply high processing capability.
4. Traffic Spike Neglect
Average monthly traffic doesn’t reflect what occurs when thousands of people visit your site in a short while.
5. Waiting Until the Website Crashes
You need to make an upgrade plan prior to when your current resources become a bottleneck.
Final List for a High Traffic Blog
Before you buy your host, ensure that it will give you:
- SSD/NVMe drive
- Proper CPU and RAM
- Good database
- Caching
- Enough PHP
- Compatibility with CDN
- Monitoring of resources
- Automated backups
- Robust security features
- Right location for the server
- An upgrade path that’s obvious
Conclusion
The selection of a hosting service for a heavily-trafficked blog is not as much about finding the one with the largest amount of space allocated to you, but knowing how your site utilizes the server’s resources.
Performance, RAM, PHP abilities, databases, caching, storage, networking, and scalability are among the factors that affect a blog’s ability to manage traffic. Consider traffic spikes rather than basing your choice of servers solely on the number of visitors per month.
Your hosting will have to be able to accommodate your current traffic and provide ample opportunity for expansion of your blog, without requiring you to make any panic migrations.
Choosing Hosting Which Can Accommodate Your Blog
When your blog traffic increases, you might require different types of hosting compared to those you had when your traffic was small.
HarmonWeb offers website hosting services for varied website needs ranging from shared to WordPress and VPS hosting. Select a hosting environment that suits your website’s current needs in terms of resources and performance.
