WordPress Management

WordPress management: manage 5 to 100+ projects efficiently

Regardless of whether you manage 5, 50 or 500 WordPress projects, and regardless of whether you do this for yourself or on behalf of a client: the administrative processes quickly take up a large part of your working time. We'll show you how you can centralize your WordPress management to speed up your processes considerably.

Administrative work with WordPress not only costs you resources and nerves, it's usually no fun either. What's more, they don't contribute directly to your sales. Think of the following tasks, for example:

  • Plugin and theme updates for WordPress & WooCommerce
  • Creating and restoring backups
  • Setting up SSL
  • The installation and testing of extensions
  • Security and plugin settings etc.

This is just as true for agencies as it is for developers, web designers and other freelancers. And we usually significantly underestimate how much of the problem is caused by mindlessly working through the same tasks over and over again. How urgent is the problem for you? Or in your agency team? Create a simple tally sheet:

  • Manual jobs: How often do you set up WordPress from scratch, including plugins and a suitable theme? How long does it take you each time, despite similar plugin and theme configurations?
  • Recurring work: What about setting the options in these plugins and themes? Especially for complex extensions such as SEO plugins, newsletter tools or WooCommerce? Do you have to start from scratch with every project?
  • Test processes: How much time do you set aside for testing new functions in order to then implement the changes again in the live system? Can you restore backups at any time at the click of a mouse?
  • System changes: How often do you have to switch between different dashboards and configurations, in the worst case with different web hosts? Or how often do you search for errors on the individual servers in order to resolve them?
  • Maintenance: Do you have to maintain each installation separately, for example when updating WordPress or the plugins and themes?

You can pass on some of the costs for this work to your customers, but it's not efficient. Another agency - which has better processes - will quickly outbid you. But even as a freelancer and WP professional, your time is much better spent on other tasks. Regardless of whether you earn money with your own websites or with WordPress-related services.

The math is less complex: the more processes are automated during setup, development and WordPress hosting, the more resources you have for your actual projects. And the more time and/or money you save. SEO expert Dominik Stein puts it like this on his blog GrowthWizard:

As a blogger and self-employed person, I save myself valuable time with WordPress hosting from Raidboxes. I can reach competent support within a few minutes and don't have to sit in a queue forever. I don't have to pre-configure solutions such as caching and backups. And security updates are also taken care of.

What does the classic everyday life of WordPress agencies and freelancers look like? And what optimization options do you have for which business model? Let's start with a brief overview. Before that, a little tip: you can also download the collected knowledge from this article as an e-book here.

You manage websites, for yourself or your customers

Many freelancers have several website projects of their own with which they earn their living. These can be affiliate portals, magazines and blogs or online stores with WooCommerce. Others develop websites with WordPress on behalf of clients and then also manage the hosting. In other words, they take care of selecting the hosting provider and the ongoing maintenance of the web space or server. Or they take over existing packages from their customers. It then happens quite quickly that you have to wade through a jungle of service providers, contracts and dashboards.

As a rule, these services are covered by a maintenance contract - and thus by a lump sum. Billing on a time and material basis is also possible. Regardless of whether you manage your own websites or customer projects: In both cases, you are interested in optimizing the following points:

  • The administration of often identical plugins and themes on different platforms or with different hosters
  • The management of updates and backups
  • Security settings and the "hardening" of critical data or entire websites
  • The development process, such as the transition from the test environment to the live environment
  • Managing different contracts and logins
  • Handling the different support channels for each web host

In larger agencies, several of your employees take care of the points mentioned, so the leverage of possible optimization is particularly large. Imagine a new version of WordPress is released. For many, this happens as follows:

  1. Various employees test this version on different customer projects
  2. Afterwards, they are all busy putting their results live
  3. If the configuration of the individual projects is similar, then half the team is busy with the same tasks

With centralized management, a single person from your agency takes care of this task - with similar setups even semi-automatically at the touch of a button. This goes so far that you end up with an entire preset of predefined websites. More on this later.

WordPress templates
Duplicate existing WP projects with one click

Administration at a central location has another advantage. The better overview means that no more requests are left lying around. At the same time, tasks are no longer duplicated and you can make much better use of the time saved.

Project management for agencies and freelancers

In the WordPress environment, it is particularly important that you plan your projects in a structured way. This makes it much easier for your team. Read our tips in the Project management for WordPress series of articles, which you can also download as an e-book.

You develop customer projects

Most freelancers, web designers and agencies work as follows: They develop websites on their own server. After completion, these are then handed over to the customer, which means that the economic and legal responsibility also changes, which reduces your entrepreneurial risk. There are basically two options with this approach:

  1. A move or migration to the customer's existing server or web hosting.
  2. The site remains with your web hosting provider. Once the development phase is complete, you simply hand over the contract to your customers.

It depends on your clients which approach they prefer. However, they are often happy if you recommend an experienced hoster. Especially if it's a new or first web project, such as an online store for an existing retail store. Or if your clients have hardly any technical know-how, the question of suitable web hosting is often discussed in various forums. Handing over the project to your customers has several advantages:

  • No more screenshots. During the design phase and development, your customers can look at the project very easily and as often as they want to test or approve individual functions.
  • You then transfer the admin role and the contract with just a few mouse clicks.
  • Do you want to take over the maintenance of the package after completion? Then you can remain admin, only the ownership changes.
  • Depending on the contract design, a large part of the liability may be transferred to your customers (website outages, GDPR, hacker attacks, warnings, etc.).

However, be sure to clarify the last point with a suitable law firm for online law. You need to know which obligations apply to you in which cases.

Tip: Develop free of charge

Host your projects for free during the development phase with us, as an agency partner of Raidboxes or with our FREE DEV program. When you hand over your project to your customers, you will also receive a commission of up to 1,500 euros - an attractive additional source of income.
partner program WordPress freelancer
How the free development works

Combining your own and third-party projects

In the rarest of cases, the two models - administering websites yourself or handing them over to clients - can be strictly separated. Everyone who develops and maintains WordPress websites is probably familiar with the situation: your own projects are mixed with those of clients, parts of them are transferred at some point, or they even come back into your responsibility. In the worst-case scenario, you regularly switch back and forth between dozens of servers. In such cases, you manage various

  • Sub-packages
  • Domain, SSL and e-mail providers
  • FTP access & databases
  • Multisites
  • Web host
  • Dashboard languages, if applicable

That costs time and nerves. And you have to ensure security everywhere. Raidboxes takes a different approach here: with us, you manage all your own and third-party projects together from a central interface. All this according to the particularly convenient BOXES principle, more on that in a moment.

You can use it to automate many of your tasks or complete them collectively. You can develop new websites in the same place, including an integrated test environment ("staging") and without changing systems. WordPress templates significantly reduce your development workload. And if you want to hand over the project to your customers at the end, this can also be done with just a few clicks of the mouse. This gives you maximum flexibility: different business models and revenue streams can be managed from one place, eliminating duplicate task packages.

The advantages of central administration

By managing multiple WordPress websites, you can scale up your business model. However, this should not lead to your administrative tasks increasing to the same extent. A central dashboard gives you more freedom here. This applies to agencies and freelancers alike - regardless of whether they design company websites, content portals, blogs or stores. Consolidated WordPress management has many advantages, including

  • Work faster: You and your team don't have to familiarize yourself with the different dashboards of the individual web hosts.
  • Template management: Existing projects can be cloned or reused in parts to create a similar website.
  • Website status: You have a quick overview of all your projects at all times. Including monitoring (CPU, RAM, SSD), changes made, pending updates or authorizations.
  • Integrated solutions: Functions such as server-side caching, backups, staging, 1-click SSL certificates or the redirects and more are already integrated without you needing additional plugins. This reduces the maintenance effort and ensures lower license costs.
  • Rights model: Do you work in a team or together with other freelancers? Then you should be able to add additional admins for individual projects at any time.
  • Accounting: You only receive one invoice from one service provider and don't have to regularly deal with provider changes and complicated contract transfers.

Are you using our FREE DEV program? Then manage your commissions - which you receive when you hand them over to your customers or referrals - in a single place. Including statistics on how successful your referrals and affiliate links are on your website.

Add Admin Hosting Dashboard
Add new admins with just a few clicks

WordPress hosting, configuration tool or plugin

There are several ways to centrally manage different WordPress projects and domains. These include:

What is the difference? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? cPanel and Plesk are powerful tools for managing web hosting servers. You can also use them to implement various role concepts, such as for admins, resellers and domain owners. However, some developers find the configuration tools quite complicated to use - at least if you are used to the WordPress backend. Rafael Luge from the agency Kopf & Stift writes in his blog, for example:

It may be a matter of taste, but I find Plesk very confusing as an administration tool for WordPress. Especially beginners have a hard time with Plesk - because the backend is very technically structured.

Then there are the license costs that you have to pay in addition to your hosting. And not all web hosts support administration via cPanel or Plesk. So the tools are of little use to you if your customers' hosting landscape is very "colorful". The big difference with our dashboard: Raidboxes was developed exclusively for WordPress. You can see this in the numerous functions that are specifically geared towards the leading CMS. For example:

  • Updates or to fix your WordPress version
  • Single sign-on, which allows you to log into your WordPress dashboard securely and without a password with just one click
  • Debugging errors and displaying the CPU, RAM and SSD load of your pages
  • WordPress cronjobs
  • Server-side redirects without plugin
  • Features for the security of WordPress and your server
  • Integrated staging

A detailed comparison of the functions of cPanel and Plesk with the features of Raidboxes will follow shortly. WordPress plugins such as ManageWP or InfiniteWP promise the management of multiple WordPress instances from one WP backend. The following areas are covered by most providers as standard and therefore free of charge:

  • Management of WordPress logins
  • Centralized update of the WP version, as well as plugins and themes
  • Installing, activating, deactivating and deleting extensions for WordPress or WooCommerce
  • Assignment of various access and user rights

Depending on the provider, regular backups, a test environment, monitoring or security checks can be implemented via add-ons and cost extra. The tools offer you the advantage of being able to manage your projects across hosters. However, solutions that work according to the principle of ManageWP and InfiniteWP also have some disadvantages:

  • Additional plugin required: You need the extensive plugin to manage WordPress across all sites. In some cases, this means that the extension reduces the performance of your pages - and thus becomes a management problem itself. Security vulnerabilities have become known in the past with individual plugins, as they naturally have a deep impact on your installation. You should therefore make your choice carefully.
  • No automated performance optimization: Specialized managed WordPress hosts such as Raidboxes optimize all components to maximize the performance and loading time of your pages, for example through server-side and WordPress-specific caching. This is not the case with management plugins - you need a separate solution there.
  • No integrated security optimization: Plugins such as ManageWP are primarily limited to evaluating the security of your site and running updates. However, you still have to take care of protecting the login area or shielding it with firewalls yourself. With specialized hosting, the provider takes care of closing such points of attack.
  • No completely automated management: Even with the services mentioned, you are often forced to log in to the individual instances from time to time. For example, to check the status of the pages. Some service providers check daily to see if there are any plugin updates, for example. A semi-automated solution is more elegant here.

You can find out how Raidboxes solves the points mentioned in the following chapters. Here is a graphical comparison between the performance of Raidboxes, cPanel, Plesk, ManageWP and InfiniteWP:

cPanel Plesk ManageWP InfiniteWP Comparison
The comparison of cPanel, Plesk, ManageWP and InfiniteWP

WordPress management with Raidboxes

Centralized management of your projects brings you numerous advantages. But what do you need to look out for in your agency, as a freelancer, professional blogger or in a company if you are responsible for WordPress management? After all, every web host claims to be easy to use.

But not all dashboards are the same. In most cases, you only realize whether the service provider or tool keeps its promises once you have already signed a contract with them and registered several domains and websites. Switching again can cost you a lot of gray hair.

You should therefore choose the management solution carefully and test it well in advance. Below is an initial overview of how we deal with this challenge at Raidboxes. In the later sections, I will introduce you to further functions that will make your processes considerably leaner.

The principle of BOXES

We developed our dashboard specifically for WordPress right from the start, as well as for the simultaneous management of multiple websites with WordPress and WooCommerce. You create a separate area for each of your projects, called BOX. Within this, you can manage each individual website quickly and easily.

In the dashboard, the principle of BOXES allows a quick overview of all your projects - without the hassle of switching between different accesses and accounts. SEO and WordPress expert Finn Hillebrandt writes about this on his blog Blogmojo:

The Raidboxes customer area is the best I have ever seen from a hoster. It impresses with its simplicity, modern design and maximum ease of administration. With just a few clicks you can create BOXES, delete them, switch to SSL or assign them to a contract.

Here are two small examples of the advantages for you: Are you planning a new project that is similar to an existing one? One that has the same plugins, themes or content? With our WordPress templates feature, you can create a copy of your BOX, which is then saved as a new BOX.

You can clone any number of other WordPress websites from this template at the touch of a button. Your plugins, themes and settings are already preconfigured.

WordPress Management create new BOX
Create a new BOX

Do you just want to test a few plugins and themes in a new BOX? Then reset the BOX to its original state with one click, as if you were starting a new project.

Tip: WordPress Demo-BOX

Do you want to create a completely new WordPress website? Or make a free move to Raidboxes with an existing project? Start now for free and without obligation on a demo BOXso you can start developing immediately.

Do you have several WordPress projects and therefore BOXES with us? Then manage them conveniently from one place, in the list view with the following actions:

  • Rename BOX
  • Call up the status of the BOX
  • Switch to the staging environment
  • Manage backups
  • Management of WordPress plugins and themes
  • Settings and options of the BOX
  • Log in to your WordPress backend directly with one click
  • Fix or upgrade WordPress version
  • Manage administrators

Including sorting and filter functions for viewing the BOXES if you manage several WordPress projects at once.

Work more productively - with the Raidboxes Dashboard

An efficient workflow is crucial for working optimally as a WordPress agency or freelancer. After all, you don't want mindless manual tasks to dominate your everyday life while the really important tasks are left undone. With its WordPress hosting, Raidboxes offers you numerous tools for developing and managing your WordPress websites. We use our experience to do this - Raidboxes itself grew out of an agency.

With a flexible and simple WordPress management dashboard, you can save several hours of working time per month, for example when managing and optimizing your WordPress websites. But what exactly does a good dashboard do for you? The following points, among others:

  • Installation: With just a few clicks, you can create or duplicate new websites in no time at all. The installation of the SSL certificate, server-side caching, complete management of your backups and tools for developers such as SSH are already integrated. So you no longer have to set up all these systems separately.
  • Optimization: Server-side data compression, the use of HTTP/2 and the fastest/newest PHP version (including the option to change it manually) are available as standard for all packages. You can also control the PHP execution time, separated into frontend and backend.
  • Update: Have WordPress and extensions updated automatically if required. Manage plugins and themes directly in the hosting dashboard so you don't have to log in to WordPress for every update. You can also deactivate or reactivate plugins and themes in the event of errors without having to edit your file system or database.
  • Templates: Create permanent templates for new websites. This means that your favorite WordPress setup is always preconfigured and ready to use. You simply add the components, images and texts that are required for the specific individual case - a huge time saver.
  • Test environment: Make sure that your hosting includes separate areas for WordPress staging. You should definitely test new plugins and themes before you put them live, as well as new versions of WooCommerce. Otherwise, this can lead to unsightly reciprocal effects and thus to failures, more on this later.
  • Secure login: Log into the WordPress backend of your projects with just one click. This means that you can create secure 64-character passwords and then "forget" them. This gives you additional protection against brute force attacks.

Raidboxes also offers 1-click WordPress installation: as soon as you click on "Create BOX" in our dashboard, a new WordPress website is installed fully automatically in seconds. Together with cloning, your WordPress templates and staging, you have powerful tools at your fingertips that significantly reduce the time you spend on setup, administration and development.

Integrated functions instead of WordPress plugins

There are lots of great extensions for WordPress - if you know your way around. The official WordPress.org directory has over 50,000 plugins. Do you want to make the right choice from this jumble of extensions? It's often like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. See our tips for choosing the right plugin.

The Raidboxes team has decided to integrate indispensable functions - which WordPress does not offer as standard - directly into the dashboard. This has several advantages:

  • Make settings centrally: You don't have to familiarize yourself with the interfaces of different providers and search for detailed options for a long time.
  • Quality & security: The server-side solutions are updated and maintained in the background by Raidboxes, so you don't have to do any work yourself. The absence of additional plugins also reduces the risk of hacker attacks.
  • Performance & compatibility: The integrated modules run much more efficiently than if you use a plugin for the same function. At the same time, you no longer have to worry about whether individual extensions and their updates work together. This saves you numerous conflicts with caching alone.
  • Cost factor: The price for professional WordPress plugins is usually very fair. However, if you manage several projects, the costs can quickly add up to a tidy sum. You can save these costs if you use comprehensive managed WordPress hosting such as that from Raidboxes.
  • Support from a single source: We constantly monitor our solutions, including with regard to changes in WordPress. If a problem should nevertheless occur with your other configuration, you can contact a central support team instead of numerous providers. The solution will also be available much faster.
  • Future-proofing: Not every WordPress plugin is maintained permanently and at the same level; in the past, this has also affected some prominent extensions. A changeover is often quite costly, for example with caching plugins. This business risk is significantly lower with integrated systems. 

All these advantages save your internal resources. Are you and your team regularly occupied with updating central plugins? Raidboxes' dashboard solutions take care of the following areas, among others:

  1. Backup management
  2. A comprehensive test environment / staging
  3. Caching for faster loading times
  4. Performance tools such as the integrated support of Brotli or WebP. If the latter option is activated, the BOX is automatically searched for WebP versions of your images. If such versions are available, we will deliver them transparently.
  5. The setup and management of redirects (server-side and therefore particularly fast) and WordPress cronjobs
  6. Security features such as SSL, login protection, IP blocking, session eraser, single sign-on and more

In the following sections, you can find out in detail how these solutions can help you speed up your work.

WordPress hosting and scalability

It is anything but easy to prepare a website for tens of thousands of visitors or thousands of page views per minute. But such a rush of visitors can happen quite quickly. Are you planning an extensive marketing campaign? Or your company is mentioned in the media? Special high-performance tariffs such as those from Raidboxes are designed so that your projects can withstand a high load from your visitors.

See our tariff calculator. It contains recommendations on which package is suitable for which load (number of visitors per month and page views per minute). Including a list of the integrated services such as storage space/SSD, PHP memory limit, number of hits or optimization for WooCommerce and BuddyPress etc.:

Managed WordPress Hosting Requirements
Our rate calculator for managed WordPress hosting

Do you currently have a manageable number of hits on your website or in your online store? Then you'll start with a small tariff. But your projects - or those of your customers - will grow. Look for a host that allows you to choose a more powerful package at any time with just a few clicks. And back again.

As already mentioned: As a service provider, you can pass on the costs for hosting to your customers. Nevertheless, you must include them in your calculation. At the same time, you should provide your clients with arguments as to why cheap web hosting requires more effort - and why it is ultimately more expensive. Read our article WooCommerce for freelancers and agencies for the right calculation, the points in it also apply to WordPress.

Specialization in WordPress

Thanks to our own agency experience, we know which features you need as a WordPress expert to make your projects a success. Our team lives WordPress 100 percent, and this experience is continuously incorporated into our product development. And because we at Raidboxes have no rigid hierarchies or long communication channels, our product development is flexible and agile.

This allows us to react immediately to external influencing factors, such as extensions in the WordPress core. Thanks to our connection with the community, we also know earlier than others where WordPress is heading.

Managed WordPress Hosting Settings
An excerpt of the WordPress features of Raidboxes

In concrete terms, this means that you don't have to explain the peculiarities and technical terms of WordPress and WooCommerce to our supporters if you need their help. Experience has shown that this can happen with other service providers who don't specialize in WordPress. Our team comes from the WP community itself, so the answers to your questions are targeted and practical.

We have no call center and no waiting loops. Instead, we only offer personal and individual advice from WordPress experts - we are proud of our diverse team. We also have a dashboard with functions that have been specially developed for the leading CMS, instead of being laboriously "bent" for multiple systems. What our customers say:

With Raidboxes, we have finally found a WordPress host that completely covers our needs with multiple and frequently changing websites.

Robbie Bouschery from the startup event PIRATE Summit

Raidboxes delivers exactly the things that WordPress agencies have wanted for years.

Christos Papadopoulos from the AWEOS agency

We don't just provide you with first-class WordPress support. Numerous guides, e-books and best-practice examples ensure that you can read up on our knowledge at any time.

Tip: Knowledge about WordPress

Raidboxes explains WordPress in an understandable way - for professionals and beginners alike. Use our WordPress magazine for this wp unboxedour help center, our e-books or our newsletter. Or subscribe to us on Twitter or Facebook.

More performance for WordPress

Fast loading times not only improve the user experience of your visitors, but also your conversions and ranking. With Raidboxes' integrated functions, your site runs up to 400 percent faster than with other hosts - without additional optimization measures.

Review Signal - one of the most recognized international test portals for hosting benchmarks - took a closer look at our web hosting, both in the entry-leveland enterprise segments. The result:

It's always nice to see a first time entrant just do flawlessly. With a whopping 0 total errors on their load tests and 99.999% and 100% on their uptime monitors, it's hard to ask for a better performance. Welcome to the show Raidboxes and congratulations on earning your first Top Tier honor, may you earn many more in the years to come.

Our integrated solutions make your everyday life as an agency or freelancer much more relaxed, because you don't have to constantly worry about the latest trends and plugins for performance optimization. Or their optimal settings. And this is how it all works:

  • Managed vServer instead of shared hosting: Here you don't have to share your computing power with any other websites. This means that you always get the performance you pay for.
  • Our server-side cache becomes active before WordPress takes over. This makes it more performant and resource-efficient than plugin caching.
  • Our Nginx servers are fully tuned for optimal WordPress performance, with always the latest PHP versions and HTTP/2.
  • We use the Brotli algorithm to compress the data transmission.
  • Your site runs 100 percent on blazing-fast NVMe SSD hard disks.
  • Our servers in Germany allow particularly fast response times. Even if your visitor numbers should rise sharply.

Proper caching in particular is essential if you want to optimize the loading speed of your website. If you don't use caching, you may miss out on halving the loading times. This in turn has a direct impact on your Google ranking. Here are just a few details about our Raidboxes cache:

  • Significant speed advantage compared to plugins thanks to server-side integration.
  • You can define exceptions at any time using caching rules. We also support you with predefined rules, for example for the WooCommerce shopping cart.
  • Expand your rules using regular expressions (regex).
  • Change the order of the caching rules, e.g. for a staggered or logical structure.
  • Clear the cache with one click. At the same time, determine the time period after which the server cache of your page is refilled.
  • Specify whether there should be a shared cache for all end devices or not. Otherwise, a separate cache is used for each end device (PC/Mac, tablet, smartphone). This is important, for example, if there is a separate mobile version of your website ("m.xyz.de").
  • Ignore No-Cache or Set-Cookie header (optional).

Use the performance boost from Raidboxes. No matter how much you tune your project for SEO, if the basic performance of the server is not right, all your optimizations will only have a very limited effect.

Tip: Online store with WooCommerce

Do you want to implement an online store with WooCommerce? Then you should consider additional factors. Read our e-book on this WooCommerce for professionals for professionals. It contains numerous tips for agencies, freelancers and WP professionals.

At the same time, an optimized caching speed determines whether your visitors stay on the website and thus convert, or whether they abandon it. And not just for online stores. There are a large number of caching plugins for WordPress. However, depending on the plugin, you usually have to buy them separately and then maintain them regularly. This is what our customer Malte Helmhold from the agency DIE BERATER says about our performance:

The speed of Raidboxes is outstanding, even with complex WordPress websites ... I recently brought a landing page built with Visual Composer (new name: WPBakery Page Builder) with a lot of content to less than 500 ms (1/2 second) total load time - with the caching of Raidboxes.

Do you want to compare the performance of different hosters? Then start a real test run. And don't be confused by numbers that look fancy but have little meaning for WordPress hosting. Here are two examples:

Don't worry too much about disk space and the number of databases supplied. You need 50 MB to install WordPress. Very often, 2 GB is completely sufficient for a WordPress installation, even larger blogs with sometimes 1,500 posts only require 1.5 GB. Only three percent of Raidboxes' customers require storage space in excess of 5 GB. WordPress itself has exactly one database. Only in exceptional cases may you need an additional database, for example for another application in addition to WordPress.

The PHP memory limit available to you is much more relevant for the comparison - in addition to well-functioning caching and sensible compression. In any case, 128 MB PHP memory limit is required here, for WooCommerce installations it should be 256 MB.

The PHP memory limit describes the maximum usable memory per PHP process on the server. The more WordPress plugins you use and the more memory they consume, the more the PHP memory limit needs to be adjusted upwards. But be careful: simply increasing the value does not guarantee a stable site.

Tip: Compare hosting offers

Also read our blog post on this WordPress hosting comparison with over 250 test results from Web PageSpeed Insights. It shows you which factors actually make your projects faster.

What PageSpeed says

Other values also sometimes mislead rather than enlighten. For example, don't let the Google PageSpeed score drive you too crazy. Instead, focus on the actual loading time for your users in seconds. In general, you should aim for a loading time of two seconds or less.

One of the best evaluation criteria for the performance of your hosting is the so-called Time To First Byte (TTFB). This measures the time in milliseconds that elapses from the user's request to the server's first response. Other important factors, such as the efficient programming of your WordPress theme, are initially ignored. You should measure and optimize these separately.

Important: The number, quality and size of your plugins can also drive up the TTFB. You can only compare one server with another if you are running the same website with exactly the same setup. However, although the TTFB is important for the evaluation of your server, visitors to your website are only interested in it to a limited extent.

They often pay much more attention to when they can interact with the website - or when it is visible to a reasonable extent. In the best case scenario, the website is displayed in its entirety as your visitors perceive it, in less than a second. There are two values that are important here:

  1. Loading time - First View: This value determines the loading time of a person visiting your site for the first time.
  2. Loading time - second view: This parameter represents the loading time of those who visit your site for the second time.

The values sometimes differ significantly, as the browser, server-side caching or plugins cache your website. The website is then loaded directly from this memory. See also our WordPress hosting comparison, which contains tips on how to test performance correctly and recommendations for the right setup for each WordPress project.

Admittedly, some of the criteria that ensure the best possible website performance are difficult to grasp. In addition, how fast your project is in the end depends on a wide variety of factors. These include the following:

  • What does your configuration look like (WordPress theme, plugins, other extensions)
  • Running resource-intensive modules such as WooCommerce or bbPress or BuddyPress
  • Which external elements are loaded (scripts, tracking, fonts, integration of social networks, etc.)
  • How extensive are the graphic elements, how well are they compressed, how extensive is the content of the individual subpages
  • How performant are the server and the web hosting
  • How many accesses are there at the same time
  • In which country is the site or server located and from where do most of the hits come from?

The final result - how fast your project will run with which setup and scenario - cannot be reliably predicted. But you can start a test run.

Test the speed of your website

How are your websites positioned so far? What improvement is possible? And what do good performance metrics for WordPress actually look like? We'd be happy to test this for you. Sign up for a free and non-binding performance test: https://b3193xx5.myraidbox.de/kontakt/.

Simple management of multiple websites

For a long time, the hosting market for professional WordPress users looked pretty bleak - a few years ago, special WP hosting was only available in the USA. And so developers spent many hours a month installing and maintaining their projects. A waiting game.

Raidboxes' mission was clear when we achieved our breakthrough in 2016. After two years of intensive development, we all knew that we wanted to launch an easy-to-use WordPress management system with better performance and more security. And to deliberately set ourselves apart from the generic web space hosters. Since then, we have been continuously working on features that make your everyday life with WordPress even more efficient. Here is a small selection:

Single sign-on

With our WordPress single sign-on (SSO for short), you can log in to your WordPress admin panels directly from the dashboard with just one click. The single sign-on prevents you from constantly locking yourself out of your website or having to reset your password. That means for you:

  • More security: You will never lose access to your WordPress sites again, because all you need is a central access to the Raidboxes account. Forgetting passwords, using insecure passwords or filling in logins incorrectly are now a thing of the past. Of course, this also applies to your customers.
  • Faster administration: With single sign-on, you can log in to WordPress directly from our dashboard. This saves you time and stress when managing your sites. This option is particularly practical if you need to switch back and forth between several projects during the development process or during maintenance.
  • More control: By linking the WordPress accounts to the Raidboxes accounts, you can precisely define which of your employees, colleagues or customers are allowed to log in with which account. This gives you control: who has made which changes? Based on this, access rights can be precisely limited.

You can set the WordPress single sign-on at BOX level. This way, the SSO ensures a tidy atmosphere when you are working on a project with a team. As the BOX owner, you can assign your colleagues exactly those BOXES that you want them to manage and support - no more and no less. This increases your team's focus, prevents unwanted access and ensures a structured way of working.

SSH environment & SSL

With Raidboxes, you can access a free SSH environment (Secure Shell) in all tariffs. Tools such as WP-CLI - to carry out operations in WordPress conveniently via the command line - and Git are already pre-installed. You can use SSH to establish a secure network connection with our servers and your WordPress websites.

SSH uses unique encryption in the form of a key, which you can store securely with us in the dashboard at the click of a mouse. The advantage: By using SSH, your passwords, usernames etc. do not fall into the hands of hackers. At the same time, the preconfigured SSH environment speeds up the development of your WordPress projects.

SSL encryption ("https://") of your websites is just as important. More and more browsers are classifying portals that do not use SSL as "not secure". Search engines such as Google also display a warning in the search results for websites without SSL encryption. SSL therefore not only protects your website from dangers. You also ensure that the majority of your visitors don't bounce right away. These are the advantages of integrated SSL encryption with Raidboxes:

  • Let's Encrypt SSL certificates, free of charge and with 1-click installation
  • These are supported by all common Internet browsers such as Chrome, Safari or Firefox
  • The optimized HTTP/2 ensures that your WordPress pages load significantly faster thanks to compression, improved data transfer and server push
  • You can activate or deactivate SSL at any time at the touch of a button
  • Certification ensures greater trust among your customers and therefore also more sales

It is also necessary to set up internal forwarding and carry out a search and replace on the website. With Raidboxes, this is fully automated with just one click, with estimated time savings per project ranging from 20 minutes for professionals to three hours for beginners.

Integrated backup system

How often should backups be made of which project? Where do I store them and is there still enough storage space available? How do I create a manual backup as quickly as possible? And above all: How do I restore a backup in an emergency, and as quickly as possible? Anyone who has experience with free backup plugins for WordPress knows how much time can be spent setting up and securing backups.

And who among us hasn't cursed when restoring a backup has taken up to an hour or more instead of just a few seconds. This is particularly problematic if your website or online store is down for this long or throws errors - for example, after a failed update of WordPress or a third-party plugin. Although there are now good professional backup plugins for WordPress, even these do not always integrate seamlessly into your processes.

This is precisely why the developers at Raidboxes have invested a lot of time and effort in realizing a complete backup system in the dashboard. The key points of our solution:

  • Fully automated backups - every night and without an error-prone plugin - let you sleep soundly.
  • A major update or redesign is pending? With a manual backup, you can create additional backups of your site at any time. These are not deleted and are also ideal as a template for new projects.
  • In addition to the database, your entire website is saved for between seven and 30 days, depending on the tariff. You have full access to all your backup points at all times.
  • Backups require a lot of storage space. With us, your backups are stored on our own servers in Germany - and not on the file system of your WordPress installation.
  • The data is stored on secure servers in compliance with the GDPR.
  • Do you want to start a new WordPress project? Or simply try out other things with the current version of your BOX? Then clone a new BOX from a backup and continue working without losing any data.

Some backup plugins are stingy with storage space and features in the free versions. With us, backups and all functions are always free. Want to play it safe and save a version of your WP website locally? From the STARTER plan, you can also download every backup you create free of charge.

Managed WordPress backup
Management of backups in one place

Should something go wrong with your maintenance or development, you can restore your website to a previous state with just one click. And it's free of charge, takes just seconds and doesn't require you to contact support - who will of course still help you if necessary.

Even if a WordPress login is no longer possible, your website can be restored immediately without having to search for the backup. Anyone who has ever had to restore an emergency backup very suddenly, or who cannot fall back on automatic backups, will never want to do without our system again.

Automatic updates of plugins and themes

Your Raidboxes dashboard provides you with an overview of the plugins and themes for which an update is available. You will see the pending updates, the version number of the extension and the date of the last change.

You can also update plugins and themes directly in the dashboard without having to log in to the WordPress dashboards on each website. The following additional actions are possible, either individually or collectively in bulk mode:

  • Activate or deactivate plugins
  • Delete plugins
  • Update or delete themes

With the FULLY MANAGED plan, we take care of all plugin and theme updates for you. You can specify exactly which of your extensions should be updated by us and which should not. This is because some plugins - such as WooCommerce - are known for the fact that new versions should be tested thoroughly before they go live.

Another use case: Have you already had problems updating a single plugin or theme in the past? Then it is also a good idea to deactivate the auto-updates for this extension.

Hosting Dashboard Plugin Update
Update several or all plugins at once

The fully automatic update works for all extensions, except for the following cases:

  • In-house developments
  • Plugins that are integrated into themes (the theme manufacturers usually provide the updates here)
  • Plugins or themes without a valid license key

If you wish, we can inform you by email about the results of the updates. You can activate or deactivate these notifications individually for each plugin or theme. For example, if you fully trust a particular provider with its updates.

WPML multidomain and server-side redirects

Do you need WordPress multilingual, for your own project or for your customers? There are different ways to implement this. In the form of a path within the URL(example.de/en), as a subdomain(en.example.de) or as a multidomain. Each language has its own domain (e.g. example.de and example.es). From a search engine optimization (SEO) perspective, the latter is usually the best option for multilingualism with WordPress and WooCommerce. Raidboxes supports the setup of WPML Multidomain with its own features.

When switching to WPML Multidomain, experience has shown that the correct redirects are neglected. Yet these are essential for your SEO. How else are search engines supposed to know where the new content can be found? All the backlinks that your websites have previously built up naturally will otherwise point nowhere and lose their value. Raidboxes offers the option of creating your own redirects in the dashboard of your BOX.

Tip: Faster via server-side redirects

This is also a server-side solution. This is significantly faster than using an (SEO) plugin. Experience has shown that this has a direct positive impact on your Google ranking. You can also expand our redirects using regular expressions (regex), including an individual sequence for implementing a graduated rule logic.

Setting up WPML Multidomain is not easy. The optimized options in our dashboard will also help you here, see our instructions. Our multidomain feature also works with Polylang, a WordPress tool for multilingual websites. However, this only works if you have activated the WPML compatibility mode in Polylang. Do you have any questions about this? Or about setting up WPML Multidomain in general? Our support team will be happy to help you.

Fast and free migration for your WordPress hosting

You want to switch to Raidboxes with one website? Or with all your projects? It's very easy. We'll do the work for you and move your sites for you. It all happens within two working days with our Raidboxes migration service. No matter which WordPress projects you transfer from your current host to Raidboxes: Your move to us is 100 percent free of charge and without obligation.

Anyone who has ever moved WordPress or changed web host knows that things can go wrong. Not so with us: your old site remains fully accessible during the migration.

Tip: Smooth migration from WordPress

If you use the Raidboxes migration service, we will install a copy of your active WordPress site. Only when you are satisfied with the result do you need to take the next step: Finally, just choose a tariff, activate it and link a domain - done.

Our support team will not only carry out the move for you, but will also be on hand to answer any questions you may have. Test our offer free of charge for the first few days, there is no automatic contract renewal. Managed WordPress hosting can be that easy.

Handover to your customers

Have you developed your project with us for free? Then give your customers one-click access to the pages to test and approve them. But what happens afterwards? Save yourself the hassle of administration, terminations, cumbersome contract transfers or even switching to a new server or web host.

With Raidboxes, you can transfer a website or WooCommerce store to other Raidboxes users at any time, also with a simple mouse click. Is one of your customers new to us? Then you will even receive a commission for this - sign up for our Raidboxes affiliate program or our FREE DEV program.

Transfer WordPress Website Box
Transfer a BOX to another owner

That's how uncomplicated the handover is:

  • The new owner will receive an e-mail with a confirmation link. The change of ownership can then be completed.
  • If the target person does not yet have a Raidboxes account, a new account will be created as part of the change of ownership.
  • If the person already has a Raidboxes account, all you have to do is enter the e-mail address with which he or she is registered in our system.

After each change of ownership, you will automatically remain the site admin for as long as your customer wishes. This means that you still have access to the BOX server settings, but no longer have any influence on the contract details. The new owners take over all responsibilities and obligations relating to the contract, as well as the invoices. This takes additional workload off you or your agency.

Tip: Our partner program

You take part in our affiliate program or are a FREE DEV partner? Then the change of ownership is automatically tracked as commission-relevant. We pay you up to 1,500 euros in commission for every new customer project. The more customers you refer to us, the higher your commission will be.

BOX status for WordPress management

Our BOX status gives you an overview of the processes currently running on your WordPress website. For example, you can see if your server is overloaded or if memory consumption is too high. The BOX Status contains a whole range of important information about your server:

  • CPU load: This shows you whether your site is currently overloaded. With the help of your BOX logs, you can then determine exactly what the reason for a possible overload is. You can then take appropriate countermeasures and our support team will help you if necessary.
  • RAM utilization: Here you can determine the current memory usage of your server. This value is also an important indicator for the utilization of the BOX.
  • SSD occupancy: Shows you how much storage space your BOX is using. Including a breakdown into system components, your website and staging. Do you need an even more detailed list of directories or files? Then the Raidboxes Disk Usage plugin will help you.
  • Cronjobs: Here you will find an overview of the cronjobs of your BOX. With Raidboxes, you can switch the execution of WordPress cronjobs by website visitors on or off. You can also run wp-cron.php automatically and set the interval yourself. Or you can temporarily delete individual WP cron jobs if they have hung up.
  • BOX history: The BOX history shows all changes to the BOX settings that have been made on the BOX page to date.
  • Log files: The BOX status gives you access to all of your site's logs: the error log, the debug log and the access log. This allows you to properly debug errors and problems on your site or monitor spamming. WP Debug can be switched on or off with just one click. The debug logs are not publicly visible on Raidboxes - another plus for your security.

Using CPU utilization as an example: The orange and red lines mark the load ranges in which your BOX is at risk of overloading. We explain exactly what the "CPU utilization" value means and how to interpret it correctly in our background article on CPU utilization.

BOX WordPress Status Sample Dashboard
An excerpt from our BOX status

The CPU graph consists of minute-by-minute information on your server load. The measuring points are therefore arranged at one-minute intervals. If you want to know exactly how high the CPU load was at a specific time, you can track this for each individual measuring point.

Tip: Status in a certain period of time

Do you want to take a closer look at a specific time period? This is also very easy to do. To do this, draw a frame within the graph and zoom into the selected time interval.

More security for WordPress

WordPress has a reputation for being insecure - because as the leading content management system, it is a worthwhile target for hackers. Many of your customers will already have heard of these reservations. Some IT departments even forbid projects to be realized with WordPress. Or they require them to run on an independent server, i.e. without any connection to the rest of the website.

What few people know: Every WordPress instance can be secured in such a way that the risk of an attack is minimized. Raidboxes helps you with this complex issue, which reduces your business risk. Among other things, we have integrated the following security features into our managed WordPress hosting and our dashboard:

  • Monitoring: We actively scan for security vulnerabilities in WordPress and its extensions. If you are using a corresponding plugin, we will inform you about it.
  • Updates: Thanks to managed updates for WordPress, the plugins and themes (in the FULLY MANAGED plan), all known security vulnerabilities are closed immediately as soon as the plugin or theme provider has published a fix. WP Core updates are carried out automatically in all plans as long as you do not exclude this in your options. We install security updates for the respective versions after 24 hours.
  • Login Protector: The integrated RB Login Protector offers effective, server-side protection against brute force attacks and unauthorized login attempts. Including IP allowlist, unlocking of blocked addresses, resetting of attempts and notification by e-mail when a new lockout occurs.
  • Strong passwords: We also enforce a strong password when creating a BOX. This has also led to a significant reduction in successful attacks for our customers.
  • IP blocking: Exclude individual IPs or even entire IP ranges from access (blocklist mode). Or allow them on a dedicated basis (Allowlist mode), for example to set up an intranet.
  • Server-side password protection: There is also optional server-side password protection (Basic Auth).
  • Simple SSL: You can activate the free SSL certificates from Let's Encrypt with just one click.
  • XML-RPC interface: The XML-RPC interface is blocked by default - it is often used by hackers and bots as a gateway. However, you can enable it again if required.
  • CORS headers: Decide for yourself which services are allowed to use your site's resources.
  • NGINX Security Header: You can also customize this if required.
  • Protected WP-Config: This file is write-protected by default. Additional special entries or changes to the table prefix can be made directly via the dashboard. This makes it almost impossible to completely paralyze your site in the event of an attack.
  • Prevent file changes: Enable this option with one click to block the editing of files within the WordPress dashboard. This prevents user accounts created by hackers from changing the theme and plugin files on your site.

An example: Brute force attacks are by far the most common type of attack on WordPress sites. Bots try to automatically log into your WordPress dashboard. They usually use hundreds or thousands of stolen login details and passwords. At best, these login attempts generate a very high load on your site; at worst, hackers gain access to your WordPress system.

The RB Login Protector prevents these attacks. In doing so, it switches to your WordPress login area and "blocklists" IP addresses that repeatedly try to log in with false login data. In the settings of your BOX, you can define exactly after how many login attempts this block should take effect and how long the IPs in question should be blocked.

In contrast to comparable plugins, our Login Protector is already integrated on the server side for even more security. It also comes with advanced options, such as a practical Allowlist. IP addresses on this list are not excluded.

Tip: GDPR and WordPress sessions

Do you want to implement the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in full? Then use our WP Session Eraser function. This deletes the session data of all WordPress users of your BOX after an interval defined by you.

Integrated protection

There are three main reasons why you should generally secure your WordPress projects against external access. Ideally with integrated solutions, as is the case with Raidboxes.

Point 1: Your WordPress website can become unusable

Agencies and freelancers are familiar with the problem: customers call in desperation because their website has been hacked - due to inadequate security. In the worst case scenario, untrustworthy content is displayed or customer data is lost. In addition, it usually involves considerable effort to get all pages "clean" again. Not to mention that valuable hours or even days are lost in the process and a hacked website affects your reputation (and/or that of your customers).

Someone who installs malware on your site usually has no interest in destroying it completely. After all, the attacker may want to use it to send spam, direct traffic to spam pages, integrate advertisements or backlinks or generate cryptocurrency. Malware can therefore also lead to considerable performance problems - in addition to generally limiting the functionality of your website.

Point 2: Blocklisting and drop in Google ranking

Another serious issue is the blocklisting of your domain, especially by Google or by providers of spam filters, security solutions and plugins. If Google puts your website on its blocklist, then in the worst case this means that it will be removed from the search results. This also applies to other search engines. If spam emails are sent from your hacked project, this can also cause you permanent damage.

It is possible to resubmit a scan of your site after a malware attack. However, this does not guarantee that you will get your previous rankings back. Especially with important money keywords or high organic traffic, this often has serious economic consequences. Not to mention the loss of trust you experience with your customers or in your community.

Tip: Minimize risk as an agency

As an agency or freelancer, is one of your client projects hacked? Then you may also be held responsible. At the very least, the damage to your image will be severe. That's why you should choose hosting that offers you maximum support when it comes to security right from the start.

Point 3: Loss of data

Unauthorized persons have access to your customers' and users' data? And you don't know what they are doing with this data at first? An absolute nightmare for anyone who runs their business online. Especially in times of the General Data ProtectionRegulation (GDPR), the issue has taken on a new dimension. This is because (potential) customers, your partners and the authorities are now much more sensitive when it comes to data protection.

It is therefore important to protect your users' data in the best possible way. What is already hugely important for a normal company website is even more vital for an online store. Especially if payment or order information is not sufficiently protected.

WordPress plugins for security

Most of the security features mentioned at the beginning can also be solved with the help of WordPress plugins, or with a paid security suite for WordPress. However, the effort involved in setting these up can be considerable. You also need to be a WP Expert:in for many settings in order to be able to assess the consequences. Otherwise, individual options will disable each other, security is not guaranteed or your website is no longer accessible - partially or even completely.

This quickly becomes clear using the example of a very popular free plugin for WordPress security. This uses the .htaccess file to a very large extent. However, the extension does not recognize if there is an NGINX server in the background. Such a server does not support the concept of .htaccess - and is nevertheless popular in the WordPress environment due to its flexibility.

In addition, the plugin's security measures are divided into difficulty levels, which certainly provides clarity. Nevertheless, many of the measures offered are less useful. In order to adequately assess the necessity of the various measures, you inevitably need to be very familiar with WordPress security. Many WordPress plugins inform their users about potential problems, usually via email. However, you will often be notified of things that pose no security risk at all. In the end, you feel more insecure than before, while at the same time you have to check every message and its potential causes, which costs time and money.

Last but not least, security plugins can slow down your pages. Either by default, or if you choose the wrong settings. The plugins usually offer a malware or security scan. Some do not run this scan depending on the situation, but automatically every hour. This means that in case of doubt, a scan of the entire site is run every hour by a script via cronjob. Anyone who has ever installed antivirus software on their computer knows that this can lead to a massive loss of speed.

Server-side features for more speed

The server-side security features of Raidboxes are developed in such a way that they result in hardly any - or no measurable - restrictions. Do you need more information? Then contact our support team at any time.

Help with malware

If you use all of the measures we listed at the beginning of this chapter, then it is likely that WordPress is almost 100% secure. No one can guarantee you absolute protection. However, if malware does creep onto your site, it is important that it is removed promptly and professionally. Even established tools, such as Sucuri or SiteLock, sometimes reach their limits here.

Finally, one aspect that should be of particular interest to your data protection officers, but also to your customers: Raidboxes hosting complies with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It guarantees server locations exclusively in Germany, including ISO 27001 certification. And, of course, particularly sustainable green WordPress hosting.

Optimize the process of your development

An exemplary process - as you can set it up with the help of the Raidboxes dashboard and the central WordPress management - looks like this:

  1. Analysis and preparation: After you have recorded the requirements for a project, select the template you have created from your WordPress templates that comes closest to the desired website (plugins, theme or child theme, preset options).
  2. Extend project: Then simply set up the extensions that are specifically required for this project.
  3. Risk-free testing: If the website is already scheduled to go live, you can test new plugins, design adjustments and your individual development in the integrated staging environment. You can then transfer the changes to the live system with a single click.
  4. Collaboration: Invite your team members or other freelancers to work on your project. Then you no longer have to manage and keep an eye on access to WordPress, the databases or via FTP. More on this in a moment.
  5. Project acceptance: Offer your customers the opportunity to view new versions and changes directly online by giving them one-click access to your WordPress websites. This works even if they are not yet publicly visible.
  6. Contract management: Decide individually at the end: Do you want to manage the contract yourself or transfer it to the client? Do you stay admin or do you hand over this role too?

Tip: Advice and free demo

If you are new to Raidboxes, the very first step is to start your project with us - no lead time, uncomplicated and with a free demo website. Or take advantage of our free relocation service. Do you have any questions in advance? We will will be happy to advise you.

Here are a few more tips on working in a team: You can activate additional administrators for your WordPress projects at any time in order to allocate more resources to a project or to make collaboration more efficient. Added persons have their own account with us, both for the Raidboxes dashboard and for SFTP access. The tedious management of various user accounts is therefore a thing of the past.

Installation per click

Setting up WordPress manually can - depending on the setup - become an annoying game of patience. One solution is the 1-click installation of WordPress, which is now standard with many web hosts. And yet they are sometimes frowned upon in the WordPress scene. This is because not all providers support a clean and up-to-date installation. The issue of security is also neglected by some hosts.

You should pay particular attention to these two things with 1-click installations:

  1. Is the latest WordPress version always installed automatically?
  2. Is a secure password enforced?

WordPress itself now ensures that users assign strong passwords. This is also absolutely necessary and must also apply to 1-click offers. Passwords that are too simple are a very negligent security vulnerability, even if the login area is protected by measures such as IP blocking. This is because attackers can still infiltrate your website with insecure passwords. We ourselves have recorded significantly fewer unauthorized accesses since we started requiring secure passwords from our customers.

Sonia Rieder from the WordPress agency Webtimiser writes on her blog:

Many hosters offer a 1-click installation of WordPress. This is usually quite quick. But with Raidboxes it is not only faster, but also much more convenient.

And further:

With one click, you can create a so-called BOX. This then contains a fresh WordPress installation that you can use to start your project. You don't have to manually set up a database or FTP access. In terms of user-friendliness, the Raidboxes administration interface is top notch!

Only if you fully trust your web host - and know that they are 100% familiar with WordPress - will you use convenient features such as 1-click installation on a permanent basis.

WordPress cloning and WordPress templates

With Raidboxes you can easily clone your pages. Or create a permanent template. This saves you a lot of effort if:

  • Some of your projects for WordPress or WooCommerce are similar
  • A website is duplicated because only the content is different, for example in affiliate marketing
  • If you want to develop your website further or test new areas live without losing the previous status

All you need for cloning is a backup of your site. If you don't have a suitable one yet, create a complete manual backup of your project with one click. Then click on the small box symbol on the right under "Actions":

Managed WordPress backup
Create a new BOX directly from a backup

Now you can choose whether you want to create the clone as a new, free DEMO BOX to test the project without obligation. Or whether you want to activate the clone directly in one of your existing contracts.

During the demo phase, you have full access to all our features and tools, such as staging, backups and the template function. The BOX only becomes chargeable upon activation, i.e. if you decide to continue hosting it with Raidboxes. However, the content and IP of the site will not change. So you can continue working seamlessly at any time.

Note on the visibility of the demo

DEMO BOXES are always password-protected. They cannot be accessed by search engines or users - so you are undisturbed during your test runs.

WordPress hosting with integrated staging

Do you develop websites professionally on behalf of clients? Or do you market them yourself? Then you often have to make changes to the individual projects. Here are a few examples:

  • You want to try out a new WordPress plugin, for example for sending a newsletter
  • Your SEO plugin requires new settings, which has numerous effects on the structure and metadata of the live page
  • New extensive landing pages or a complete online store with WooCommerce are added
  • Your theme or child theme changes
  • You change the tracking or cookie solution
  • Your project is converted to multilingualism because you want to reach target groups from other countries

You know how it is: all these changes can lead to unwanted side effects and incompatibilities. Updating your plugins or your theme can be a bit of a nail-biter - some extensions are notorious for this.

If your change fails or is not fully checked by you, the following unpleasant errors may occur:

  • Individual functions suddenly no longer work properly
  • Extensions throw out errors
  • The content is displayed incompletely
  • In some cases, this will lower your ranking on Google
  • Google Search Console alerts you to discrepancies
  • In the worst case, your project is no longer accessible at all

Sometimes it doesn't even help to undo the new change - the error in other components remains, or Google continues to rank you lower. That's why it's risky - and in the case of your customers also negligent - to make major changes to the live site.

But even small plugin updates or an inconspicuous newly selected option can cause strange side effects. Don't want to jeopardize your live project and lose revenue? Then you should first test all changes whose effect you cannot predict 100 percent in a development environment for WordPress. The following procedure is available for this:

  1. You copy your website to another hosting or server area
  2. You make your changes there
  3. You then test these in detail
  4. You then try to transfer the changes to the main page - with as few complications as possible

This process is quite complex. Hand on heart: we all like to avoid it because it creates extra work. And we usually only test when it is as simple as possible.

You usually need additional plugins for this. Raidboxes takes a different approach: with a special staging environment for WordPress that is fully integrated into our dashboard. This allows you to test changes on a copy of your site in a realistic server environment. And without any risk of causing damage to your active WordPress website.

You can transfer your BOX to staging with a single click. When you are satisfied with the result, you can transfer the adjustments back to your live page - also with a click of the mouse:

Raidboxes Staging
Simply restoring the changes

Depending on the scope and interaction of the changes, this can save up to several hours. Here are the key points of convenient staging with Raidboxes:

  • With the test environment, you no longer have to laboriously copy important design or function changes from one WordPress website to another.
  • The push from the test website to the live website and vice versa takes place without any additional tools.
  • You just want to test a new plugin and not change the entire website right away? No problem. You decide which parts of your project are copied to the live environment (plugin directory and/or theme directory, upload directory, database).
  • With the database, you can optionally transfer only selected tables. This allows you to customize the staging process to your needs.
  • Integrate new functions and updates into your website without any uncertainty or downtime. Perfect your WordPress projects step by step.

We also support your test processes outside of the staging environment. This gives you direct access to the MySQL database in your BOX overview. Of course, you can also manage all boxes via SFTP or SSH. Use the ACCESS log, PHP ERROR log and the WP_DEBUG_LOG at the same time.

How to move 100+ WordPress websites

Our daily mission is to have your back when it comes to WordPress hosting and WordPress management for your projects. Do you want to move several websites to us because you were impressed by the test run and our performance? Or because your previous host doesn't offer you the expertise and flexibility of WordPress hosting worthy of the name?

No problem! There's no limit to what you can move to us. Whether you want to migrate one or 100 WordPress websites to us: We'll advise you, provide you with the right infrastructure, help you with the move or take care of it completely for you. The whole process runs as smoothly as possible. For example, our migration process automatically detects potential incompatibilities and informs you about them. If you still have questions about installed plugins on your current website, our support team is always there for you. We are familiar with countless WordPress and WooCommerce setups.

Another question that comes up again and again: Are your site's access data secure during the migration? Without exception, the migration of your projects takes place on servers in Germany, which are fully encrypted. We take your trust in Raidboxes very seriously. Your data is in good hands with us. Do you have further questions? Or are you unsure how your move will actually work? Get in touch and we'll plan your move for you in advance. This is also non-binding and free of charge. 

It doesn't matter whether you are responsible for one or hundreds of websites - our WordPress experts will always take care of you with the same reliability. Test our knowledge and find out why more than 14,000 customers from over 55 countries already rely on WordPress hosting from Raidboxes. Bring your websites, your WooCommerce stores, your development projects and your administration together efficiently in just one place: with our dashboard and our special tools for WordPress.

Support and help

Is something not working with your hosting? Is it affecting your website? Or is it even paralyzed? Probably all of us are familiar with this situation. Your pulse is then more than 180, and without proper support within minutes, you're screwed in such cases. This becomes particularly unpleasant when your customers are breathing down your neck.

Inexpensive shared hosting for WordPress usually deliberately saves on support. It's a simple math problem: if your web space only costs a double-digit amount per year, how is the web host supposed to pay good support staff? They calculate that, in the best-case scenario, you won't get in touch at all. Or that the answer to your question can be put together from existing text modules.

If you want to sleep soundly, then look for a special host for WordPress that has a proven track record of providing top support. Personally, in your language, in your country, during your working hours. And not just by anonymous email, but via multiple channels.

Hans Mengler from the digital agency 360VIER says:

We are extremely satisfied with Raidboxes. The support is just as first-class as the servers! We will host all our customers with Raidboxes in the future.

There is another important point. Your site is not accessible? In over 80 percent of cases, this is not due to the server, but to a problem with your WordPress installation, the WordPress theme or the plugins. In such cases, it is fatal if your hosting support has no idea about WordPress & WooCommerce. Or if they can't use the appropriate tools, such as WP Debug Mode, to temporarily deactivate a faulty plugin in the worst case scenario.

Web host Trusted Shops
An excerpt from our reviews at Trusted Shops

The result would be an unavailable website, in the worst case for several days. Even though the server is running in the background the whole time - nobody can or wants to afford that. The extended support offered by high-quality WordPress managed hosting often goes hand in hand with free additional services. For example with:

  • Help with WordPress migration
  • Personal explanation of the functions in the dashboard
  • Support with performance and page optimization
  • Plugin recommendations for your personal system configuration

A specialized managed host like Raidboxes is able to respond flexibly to your needs. With an anonymous giant hoster, on the other hand, it is usually impossible to find the right contact person at all. Or you'll be stuck in a holding pattern while you urgently wait for a solution to your WordPress problem.

Test the Raidboxes dashboard without obligation. As well as all the functions described in this article. Do you still have questions about this? Or about what performance is possible with special WordPress hosting? Are you unsure whether all of this will work for your personal use case? We can advise you: via raidboxes.io/contact/.

Our team will show you what modern website management for agencies, freelancers and WordPress professionals looks like - live and based on your projects. Including a free demo of our dashboard and features. Based on your websites, we will find out whether and which managed WordPress hosting is right for you. And how much faster we can make your projects.

Did you like this article? Would you like to read through all the content on WordPress management at your leisure? Or would you like to pass the knowledge on to your team? Then download"Managing 5 to 100+ WordPress projects" as an e-book here.

Your questions about efficient WordPress management

What questions do you have? Which tools help you with your process? Feel free to use the comment function. Want more tips on WordPress and WooCommerce? Then follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or via our newsletter.

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