The SiteGround Blog

SiteGround for WordPress in 2018

Our commitment to helping WordPress grow has been consistently strong throughout the years. About 80% of our 2 million domains are associated with sites built on WordPress and we have been helping more and more people get introduced to the possibilities of WordPress.

Traditionally, through sponsorships, we help a huge number of WordCamps and meetups happen all around the world. But what we consider even more important, is our personal involvement. In addition to encouraging our most talented people to attend, speak at and organize WordPress events worldwide, we also help independent experts share their expertise with an even wider audience through our WordPress Ambassador program.

Here is a brief roundup of our contribution in 2018. Stay tuned for more in 2019!

Web Design Tips To Build a Website Your Customers Will Love

Building a strong online presence is key to growing your small or medium-sized business. It all starts with launching your website but goes on with managing it effectively, generating traffic, and growing your audience and customer base. Whichever stage of the online journey you’re in, we have tons of tried-and-true practical tips on how to set up your online presence for greatness this year - both from our team and from guest authors.

We’re kicking off our Successful Online Presence for Small Businesses series with a guest post by Michelle Schulp, a graphic designer and frontend developer with a passion for user experience design. She also happens to be one of SiteGround’s WordPress Ambassadors. She has lined up some smart tips on how to build a website your customers will love that you can learn and start applying right away, even if you’re not a designer yourself. Dive in!

Meet Our Top Customer Care Rep for February

For Ivaylo, our February Customer Rep of the Month, the most fulfilling part of his work is the happy feedback from clients after he’s helped them. He definitely received plenty of positive responses last month, which he ended with the remarkable 99.27% Happy Client Rating for over 1000 support chats! If that’s not fulfilling work, we don’t know what is.

¡Vamos España! Taking Part In The Growth Of An Amazing Local WordPress Community

In 2018, Spain was the second most active country for local WordCamps, bested only by the US. Taking into consideration the population of the two countries, Spain actually had almost twice as many events per capita last year. When SiteGround launched its Spanish operations in 2015, there were only 3 WordCamps in Spain, including WCEU, and 9 meetup groups with 10,017 members in total (according to WordCamp Central registration). Fast forward to 2018 and we count 10 local WordCamps and 52 meetup groups with 24,862 members. This is an amazing 150% increase in membership and over triple the number of events!

So what’s the story behind this incredible growth? Of course it all starts with the quality of the WordPress platform itself and the fact that its adoptions rates are globally on the rise. However, from where we stand we see three additional factors that have influenced the local Spanish growth and we are proud of SiteGround’s role in all of them. By sharing our insider’s take on this development, we hope to help other local WordPress communities accelerate their growth too.

Google Starts Serious Security Talks with the CMS Community

Last week, Chicago was the coldest place on earth! This was all over the news. The temperatures dropped to -30 degrees Celsius (-22 Fahrenheit) with a wind chill of -50. I consider myself lucky to have been there to witness this rare polar vortex. However, I was in Chicago for a different event, one that didn’t make the news but was just as exciting -- the Google CMS Security Summit.

Close to thirty top security experts from Google, different CMS platforms, and hosting companies came together to discuss how to make the internet a safer place for everyone. I consider myself even luckier to have been a part of this discussion as a representative of SiteGround.

For two days, we talked with the representatives of WordPress, Drupal, Joomla!, PrestaShop, TYPO3, Squarespace, Symfony, Sucuri, Wordfence, and more. It was inspiring to see how organizations that are competitors when it comes to attracting the end user to their platforms, can actually be unified for the higher aim of making the internet safer.
Read More

Meet Our Top Customer Care Rep for January

We are excited to start our Customer Care of the Month series in 2019 with an updated format. It allows us to add broader answers of our teammates. The winner this month is Veronika - one of our most cheerful colleagues. She joined the team less than a year ago but she already managed to achieve the amazing 99,73% Happy Clients Rating. In our talk, Veronika shares her thoughts on what it is like to be a Customer Care representative, what did she wish people knew about her work, and one useful must-have tool she recommends to WordPress users. Find out more in the interview!
Read More

Best of 2018: More Site Speed, Better Security, Plenty of New Tools, and 98% Client Satisfaction

This year was quite busy and eventful for us at SiteGround. We worked hard on multiple projects that extend and improve the tools we offer, enhance the performance of all websites on our platform, and block millions of security threats daily so that they never reach your sites. It’s been a remarkable year, but what matters most for us is what difference did it all make for you. Judging by the outstanding 98% client satisfaction in our end-of-year survey, our efforts did not go unnoticed. Here are some of our highlights of the things we launched that helped us get your high mark.

Our Top Technical Support Rep in December

At the end of 2018, we are excited to introduce to you one of our devoted Tech Support team members. Nikolay is extremely hardworking, and he truly enjoys helping users solve their hosting issues. He is a top performer in December with the amazing 99.18% happy clients rating.
Read More