If you’re a creative or artist of any sort then you’re alive in an age where it’s never been easier to put your creativity or artwork on display for all to see. That’s entirely attributable to the World Wide Web, and it’s why nearly every independent artist will have their own website. They’ll fully grasp the necessity of having one, and they’ll know that it’s best if their site is optimized for maximum visibility with the audience they’re looking to capture. This is very much true for burgeoning musicians too, and so many of artists of all types will like the simplicity and affordability of putting together a WordPress website. Pairing it with managed WordPress hosting in Canada is likely the best choice if they want to be assured of that optimization.
That’s because with managed hosting everything that you need for optimizing a site and having it working at its best is taken care of for you. That becomes the responsibility of the Canadian web hosting provider, and the creative can then expect to get what they pay for with WordPress hosting for artists. Ongoing SEO audits of the site is going to be a big part of the appeal here, and that will be especially true if the artist, creative, photographer or musician is aiming to become more well known and / or have better visibility with the right type of people. If they’re aiming to ‘get noticed’ - as the expression goes - then having good website SEO is important.
Another consideration will be be having high-speed hosting, and this will be even more of a need if the artist’s website features dynamic multimedia content. Musicians will be the best example here, as they’ll probably have snippets of songs that can be played for site visitors and they will not want to have any chance of that snippet not streaming properly for anyone wishing to listen to it. That one listener who has their stream interrupted because of slow connectivity on a shared hosting plan may be the one who has the ability to open doors for you, and that’s why it may be best to move up to VPS hosting for the site.
The good news there is that most web hosting providers in Canada will have reliably fast web hosting and the chances of the site not being able to accommodate user requests tends to be increasingly low. That’s certainly true for us here at 4GoodHosting, and so what we’re going to do with this week’s entry here is look at why Canadian creatives like artists and photographers will be better served with high-speed webs hosting and how providers like us are best for WordPress hosting for photographers in Canada.
Match Your Image Quality
Plenty of photographers will have images that are gallery-worthy, but if their website is hindered by inferior web hosting then those shortcomings are what people will remember. If they have an opportunity to see your photography displayed in person then that may be be the fix and the coveted 2nd-opportunity to make a first impression, but often times that’s not possible and the only time they’re going to have the chance to see your work is via your website. This makes it a real need to have your website backed by reliably speedy web hosting.
All of this is framed by the reality that photography is a visual art, but a lot more is going to be needed when presenting it online asides from just uploading JPGs and then waiting for viewers to start raving about your photos. This can be true for everyone from a wedding photographer to a nature lover with a lens, to a professional selling high-res prints or anyone else who can benefits from Canadian hosting for portfolio websites. If your website is going to the be the focal point where you make your art visible to others then your hosting choice could make or break your brand online.
So it may well be that your hosting is nearly as important as your filter presets, or more generally the overall quality of your creative work - whatever that may be. If your website is going to the focal point from which you aim to introduce people to your talents then it may be best to not have it on shared web hosting. Too many times gorgeous images have been spoiled by slow-loading pages, broken links, or pixelated thumbnails.
Your probably don’t need to be told this, but high-res images eat up a good bit of space and if you have a lot of them you’re going to need to have generous amounts of storage at your disposal. It’s going to best if the entirety of your online portfolio loads in a blink, and it will usually be best if you’re using a CDN (content delivery network) too. Keep in mind that content delivery networks always tend to function more efficiently when the site is on managed WordPress hosting Canada.
Be aware as well that search engines like Google will see slow-loading and sluggish sites unfavourably, and will detract from SEO rankings when this is the case. You also want your site to be safe from bots, spam, and any hackers that are aiming to get up to no good. These are all considerations when evaluating the WordPress hosting for photographers Canada.
Core Features Needed for Every Photographer
Let’s move right to discussing the specifics of what you will want to have from your web hosting package.
- High Storage & Bandwidth
Many photos will have a digital heaviness to them, and especially if they’re high-res, and existing in RAW format. Not every hosting plan will be set up to accommodate that with WordPress hosting for artists. What you can be looking for is one that has at least 10–20 GB storage for budding portfolios. Unlimited or scalable bandwidth is also best so your site doesn’t crash during any traffic spikes. And SSD storage tends to be better for faster access and performance.
- Fast Load Times
For most people being patient and willing to wait isn’t something they’re inclined to do. This is often going to be true for the visitors at an artist’s website too, and so their hosting should support CDN integration for faster global access. Ask a provider you’re considering whether or not their hosting is geared to minimize Time To First Byte (TTFB).
There is research that indicates that users start to bounce out if your site takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Web page loading speeds are important for keeping potential clients engaged long enough to appreciate your work, and continue to look it over and see more of the value in it at all times. And then ideally seeing it so favourably that they’re inclined to recommend it to others or be in touch with you to discuss further opportunities for you as a visual artist.
- Easy Image Compression & Display Tools
Photographers who are experienced with this will probably know the pitfalls with uploading full-resolution images straight to your site. It’s fairly common that doesn’t work too well, and it almost certainly won’t if you have inferior webs hosting. What’s needed instead is hosting that supports automatic image compression, and some hosts integrate tools like cPanel plugins or CMS extensions for image handling.
It’s also good if you can enable automatic image optimization and serve modern formats like Webp to maintain the visually-appealing quality of the site while significantly improving load times as well.
- Website Builders Tailored for Visuals
Most artists are not web developers to any real extent, and as such building a website DIY isn’t something they’re going to be capable of doing. That’s fine, because with a website builder you’re able to put together a basic website fairly simply and without great expense. The best scenario is that you find a hosting provider that offers drag-and-drop website builders. Don’t overlook the need for a mobile-friendly website for your portfolio too and it should have support for galleries, slideshows, lightboxes, and fullscreen views.
- Improved Site Security
Better site security moves right alongside local hosting for SEO benefits in Canada, and that’s because with managed hosting you get regular security checks and updates performed on your site too. Most creatives tend to be busy folks and not having to concern themselves with the security of their artist’s website is going to be desirable in a big way. You may find a hosting package that has SSL certificates available to you and they’re necessary if you’re selling your art through your website. Automatic daily backups are a must-have and DDoS protection, malware scanning, and firewall support are standard fare too.
- Scalability As You Grow
Small and simple portfolios will inevitably grow over time if the artist is like most and they continue to immerse themselves in their art and get better at creating it. For photographers it may be that they’re selling prints, doing bookings, and maybe even starting to blog about photography. It may be that you need to have your website scaled, and this is something that’s handled for you when you are on Managed WordPress hosting in Canada. VPS hosting tends to be better for website scalability too. It’s powerful, flexible, and built for growth.
- Quality and Consistent Customer Support
It may be that an artist encounters a tech issues that’s hampering their site and they don’t have the slightest clue how to remedy that problem. This is why it’s good to choose a host with 24/7 customer support via chat, phone, or ticket. Even better if they have photography-specific FAQs or WordPress expertise. Some of your options with Canadian hosting for portfolio websites may also make staging environments available where you can test site changes before going live if you are a DIY webmaster, but again most visual creatives won’t be.
Other good to haves here:
- CDN with image caching - ideal for international clients
- Email hosting - create a branded email like yourname@yourdomain.com
- Domain privacy - keep your info off public WHOIS records
Make sure you choose cost-effective domain registration with free add-ons like DNS management and email forwarding. This is helpful when building your photography brand.
Best Hosting Types for Photographers & Other Creatives
VPS hosting tends to be best for creative professionals with high traffic or client bookings, and for photographers the nature of their website with large and rich visual images will benefit from having the exclusive resources you get with a virtual private server. Along with it being more controllable, easily scalable, and featuring faster performance. And as we always stress for people here it is often the case that VPS hosting is only a reasonable amount more per-month that shared hosting.
VPS may in fact be a better choice than managed WordPress hosting for photographers in Canada because of the way the site will be overly image-oriented and some pages may also present the opportunity for stream video or images that display sequentially, slowly pain from one to another. The ultra-fast, reliable, distributed performance of a VPS is going to be much better for handling this format.
The one thing we can say definitively is that a photographer or other type of creative professional should always steer clear of any free web hosting package. It may come with no cost, but visitors to your site are almost certainly going to grow tired of seeing the ads and limited features. So much so that it may lead them to bounce from your site, and that may be a costly lost opportunity depending on who they are.
What’s recommended is choosing a provider that handles the heavy lifting so you can focus on your lens, not your hosting panel. Ideally your photography will have a site that serves as a stage that’s as polished and professional as the work itself. The best photography web hosting makes sure your visuals load fast, remain secure, and look equally good across every digital device. Get in touch with us if you want to know more about WordPress hosting for artists.
