Hosting - Vox

How Premium Hosting is the ‘Blue Tick’ your Business Needs

Posted on 6 February 202517 February 2025 by Vivienne Fouche

Join the club and enjoy the benefits

The issue of how to become part of an elite, exclusive grouping that others urgently want to belong to has been around for centuries and more. An invitation to ‘join the club’ usually speaks to people’s pre-programmed desires to be part of the In-Crowd and enjoy positive outcomes in one way or another.

In the UK and across Europe, we have royalty and rock stars. In America, there’s the huge celebrity that comes with being part of the crème de la crème of Hollywood. (Oh yes, and these days, if you’re a Tech Billionaire you automatically snagged an invitation to the 2025 Presidential Inauguration.) In South Africa, we had our own even-bigger-than-royalty home-grown celebrity with our late, truly great President Mandela, and we admire and revere our sports heroes (preferably when they’re winning, of course).

On social media we have the Blue Tick badge – a verification sign to show that the site is authentic. And when it comes to web hosting, here at Vox we know that Premium Hosting with WordPress is the Blue Tick that your business needs.

(Not to be confused with WhatsApp blue-ticking, which means you’re being ignored or even ghosted.)

So let’s look at why Premium Hosting from WordPress gives you and your target market peace of mind that you’re dealing with the real deal – and why you would want your business to join this club.

Your Web Hosting: The Real Deal

A social media Blue Tick is a recognised stamp of approval that provides ways to separate an account from a duplicate or spam account. The advantages of this badge – which is different for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn – include greater credibility and a reduced fear of impersonation, higher search results, potential increased engagement and increased brand awareness.

Now if only there was a way to apply all those benefits to your website.

Enter WordPress and Premium Hosting.

WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS) that’s used to manage blogs, full-blown websites, online e-commerce stores, news portals and other types of websites. Its mission is to enable the creation and editing of content on a website without needing to be fluent in a programming language. WordPress makes it easy for content producers without any previous coding knowledge to design and manage their entire portal, store or blog, simply and intuitively.

WordPress Premium Hosting goes further by offering a reliable, locally hosted WordPress website without the administrative challenges of managing a server. Your company gains the benefits of a professional site that is secure and able to grow with your business.

But why should you choose WordPress Premium Hosting over some of the other options that are available? And how does Vox assist?

No More Singing the Blues of Shared Web Hosting

With e-commerce enabled functionality, your website is a place of business in its own right. It’s often the first experience customers have of your organisation.

Traditionally, shared web hosting means that more than one website shares the resources of a single virtual or physical server. This makes for a low-cost solution but means that service levels can’t be guaranteed.
Unlike shared web hosting, Vox’s Premium WordPress offering is a solution for customers who require better performance, uptime and scalability.

Vox Premium WordPress hosting offers the following:

Dedicated hosting infrastructure – no more shared web hosting.
High-speed storage, ensuring premium performance.
Built on the Vox Internet network, meaning guaranteed performance with the ability to upgrade when required.
Monthly Website Vulnerability Assessments to identify risks and be proactive with your website’s cybersecurity.
Ongoing backups to ensure you don’t lose your website.
Locally hosted servers with 99.9% uptime guarantee.

Taking Your Business to the Next Level

WordPress hosting is tweaked for high traffic websites, providing excellent performance and faster loading websites. Vox’s Premium WordPress offering delivers performance and scalability to your fingertips, with three different package options depending on your needs: WordPress Starter; WordPress Innovator and WordPress Fanatic.

With all of these benefits, be prepared to turbo-charge your website – and your business – and enjoy greater credibility, rock-solid e-commerce performance, increased engagement and positive brand awareness. Welcome to the Premier Club.

Vox Hosting with the Mosting

Posted on 21 January 2025 by Vivienne Fouche

Providing a solution to meet your business requirements

Customer loyalty today demands digital options. If your business doesn’t have an attractive and well-functioning website, your potential customers will shop elsewhere.

South Africa’s online retail sector showed a significant increase in the past few years, growing by almost 30 percent (29 percent) between 2022 and 2023. Having reached the R71 billion mark in 2023, online sales are now anticipated to break the R100 billion barrier by 2026 – which is just around the corner.

And so, with South Africa’s online sales soaring, there’s never been a better time to make sure your business has a functioning website. Even with a bricks-and-mortar operation, it’s essential to back it up with an online option as well.

If you’re keen to upgrade your company’s online presence quickly and effectively – or even kickstart one if you haven’t got a website already – Vox offers several different hosting experiences with solutions to meet your business’s unique requirements, no matter your budget.

Domain and Web Hosting: The Right Address and Functioning Operations

In the physical world, you need an address so your customers can find you, and you need premises from which to operate. These two terms represent different things in terms of getting your website infrastructure up and running.

Start with an address: Domain hosting is a service that allows you to choose and register a unique online name for your website and brand, in other words your web address.
Make sure your premises are fit for purpose: Behind the address lies the property from which your business operates. Web hosting is essentially what stores all your site’s information and files. It’s usually a server, or space on a server.
Let your customers come inside: When someone uses your domain to access your website, signals are sent to the server, which then opens up your live site for the customer – the online version of ‘going into your shop’.

With Vox Web Hosting, you rent space on our server and host your website contents through us. We offer multiple platforms to choose from, including WordPress, Linux and Windows. Vox Web Hosting includes a free .co.za domain.

Backed by Vox Expertise

As well as being able to choose from multiple platforms and have a free domain, Vox Web Hosting also offers the following benefits:

Extensive network coverage: Vox Web Hosting has an established national and international backbone with over 13 local PoPs (Point of Purchase outlets) and footprints in all the Teraco Data Centre environments.
Security Team: All servers sit behind Vox’s state-of-the-art firewall infrastructure, with virus management and security updates.
24/7 Expert Support: Our servers are locally hosted and managed around the clock by our engineering team for peace of mind.
Includes a Free SSL Certificate: If you’re going to run a prosperous website that is secure for your users and browsers, SSL certificates are an essential. Vox SSL Certificates keep your customers’ confidence by ensuring the safety of their data while they visit your website.

WordPress, Linux and Windows are some of the world’s most popular website hosting platforms today, and Vox Web Hosting is proud to bring you different options across each brand.

Shared Web Hosting: Linux and Windows

Shared hosting makes getting started online simpler and easier, saving you money, as well as taking the headache out of hosting.

With Vox shared Web Hosting, our customers experience a form of web hosting in which more than one website shares the resources of a single virtual or physical server, which means a stable but also low-cost solution.

Choose from Linux options as follows:

Linux Basic: 1GB of storage, 25 email addresses;
Linux Standard: 4GB of storage, 75 email addresses;
Linux Advanced: 20 GB of storage, 200 email addresses; and
Linux Ultimate: 30 GB of storage, 250 email addresses.

Alternatively, Vox Web Hosting also offers Windows options, as follows:

Windows Standard: 2GB of storage, 100 email addresses;
Windows Advanced: 4GB of storage, 200 email addresses; and
Windows Ultimate: 20GB of storage, 250 email addresses.

Premium WordPress Hosting

If you want to kick your website functionality up a notch, consider WordPress. Over the last two decades, WordPress has grown from being a simple blogging website to one of the world’s most used hosting platforms today.

Our premium WordPress offering delivers performance and scalability to your fingertips. It’s an excellent solution for customers who require better performance, uptime and scalability – although please note: it doesn’t come with email addresses built into the offering.

WordPress Starter is ideal for startups that require a professional WordPress website, offering 50GB storage and able to cater to up to 30,000 visitors monthly.
WordPress Innovator is perfect for growing businesses that need to scale and require speed and reliability, with 100 GB storage and ideal for up to 120,000 monthly visitors.
WordPress Fanatic is excellent for running an e-commerce website, with 150GB storage. It’s capable of catering to an unlimited number of visitors monthly.

Which Option to Choose?

Whether your business is already established or a startup about to take off, you need a strong online presence. From your website address to the online ‘premises’ behind it, Vox has the right option to help you with your online sales.

Shared hosting shares a single physical server with hundreds (if not thousands) of other websites, giving you a low-cost service. WordPress hosting is tweaked for high traffic websites, providing excellent performance and faster loading websites.

Contact us for more information and we can assist you with working out the option that’s best for your business. We can help you establish a business identity, give your organisation a professional look and feel, and build credibility on the web.

Join the sales revolution and be part of the drive to reach the one billion Rand online sales mark next year!

6 Reasons Why the Right Web Hosting Service Matters

Posted on 13 March 20241 August 2024 by Bhavin Mistry

Successful businesses, both big and small, need to have an online presence 24/7. That’s where Web Hosting comes in.

So, What Is Web Hosting?

Web Hosting involves storing your website files and content on servers connected to the Internet to ensure the website is always available and accessible on any browser. Essentially, Web Hosting acts as a bridge between a website’s content and its users, allowing for a seamless exchange of information between both parties for goods and services. There’s no point in having an incredible website if it loads too slowly – or worse – not at all.

Sounds Important, Right? That’s Because It Is

Here are a few more reasons Web Hosting is essential for business:

It Creates Online Presence: This is essential for businesses to expand their reach and find new customers.
It Enables Accessibility: Thanks to Web Hosting, sites are accessible 24/7 from anywhere in the world, allowing businesses to share their products with a global audience in any time zone.
It Offers Reliability: A good provider ensures the website is up and running with minimal downtime, providing a positive user experience, and preventing loss of traffic and revenue.
It Enhances Security: This includes everything from backups to firewalls and anti-virus protection to ensure websites are secure and protected from cyber threats.
It Provides Scalability: As businesses grow and evolve, they need more resources online to meet demand. A good provider offers scalable options to accommodate the changing needs of the website.
It’s Cost-Effective: When compared to setting up and maintaining an in-house server, Web Hosting is the easily accessible, scalable, and budget-friendly choice. One that also comes with built-in support.

When it Comes to Web Hosting, You’ve Got Options

Shared Hosting is a cost-effective web hosting solution where multiple websites share the same server resources such as disk space, bandwidth, and processing power. This makes it an ideal option for small businesses and personal websites with low traffic and limited resource needs. However, Shared Hosting can lead to slower website speeds and increased downtime if one of the websites on the server experiences a surge in traffic.
VPS (Virtual Private Server) Hosting provides a higher level of resource allocation compared to shared hosting. Each website has its own virtual server with dedicated resources, providing more control and flexibility, as well as improved website performance and security. VPS Hosting is ideal for growing businesses and websites with moderate to high traffic and resource needs.
Dedicated Hosting is a premium solution where a single client leases an entire physical server, with all its resources dedicated solely to their website. This offers the highest level of performance, security, and control, making it ideal for large businesses, e-commerce sites, and websites with high traffic and resource demands.
Cloud Hosting uses a network of remote servers connected to the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than relying on a single physical server. This offers scalability, reliability, and cost-effectiveness as websites can draw resources from the cloud as needed. Cloud Hosting is ideal for businesses and websites with fluctuating traffic and resource needs, as well as those requiring high availability and performance.

There Are a Few More Things to Keep in Mind

Let’s start with cost. Web Hosting can range from no fees at all to hundreds of rands per month, depending on the level of resources, performance, and support offered. It’s important to consider your budget and the cost of the service in relation to the resources and performance needed for your site to function optimally.

Then comes storage and bandwidth. Storage refers to the amount of disk space available for your website, while bandwidth refers to the amount of data that can be transmitted from your website to its visitors. When choosing a service, take your storage and bandwidth needs into consideration first, including future growth and the type of content you’ll be hosting.

The reliability and uptime offered is critical, as it affects the availability of your website and its performance. A reliable service should have a high uptime rate, meaning your website is almost always available and accessible to visitors. A service’s uptime guarantees, and past performance records are worth looking into.

Let’s not forget customer support. Technical issues can arise at any time, and you want to make sure you have access to knowledgeable and responsive support to resolve any issues quickly. If your website goes down, you need to know that you can reach out to your hosting provider for help and that you’ll receive quick and effective support. A good hosting service should offer 24/7 support, through multiple channels, such as phone, email, live chat, and support tickets.

The Bottom Line

A great website will help grow your business. As your website attracts more traffic, you may need to upgrade your resources (like bandwidth and storage) as needed without facing downtime, so choose a service that offers that kind of scalability from the start.

When it comes down to it, Web Hosting is the unsung hero of the Internet. The right service provides a stable and secure platform for your website and helps ensure your visitors have a positive experience every time they visit. Factors including reliability, uptime, customer support, scalability, and security will mean the difference between your website’s failure or success.

Let’s talk…. Premium WordPress Hosting

Posted on 19 August 20225 August 2024 by Suhail Dinat

Ja ne? In South Africa, we definitely like things…

It’s the reason people who visit the UK for three weeks come back with an accent, or how the closest reference point for those in JHB South is automatically Bassonia. It’s why we have a song about Versace and, despite having no electricity, even our looters went for the TV’s first. We like Woolworths’s water because it makes us look fancy, our petrol is pricier than the most expensive fragrance, and our most established chicken franchise costs a small mortgage for a medium quarter chicken meal (we’re looking at you, Nando’s).

Also, based on some of our competitors Fibre prices, it explains why some of them are even in business – but that’s a story for another day.

The fact is that nobody likes being extra quite like South African’s. From the kid in the tuck shop line who only buys buddy cokes to the CEO of Eskom taking a bonus after 294 days of rolling blackouts, as a nation, we’re not shy to say we enjoy the finer things in life (or, if you’re the owner of Ster Kinekor Hyde Park, not shy to ask either).

So, if we unanimously like premium products and premium experiences in our personal life, we really need to wonder why our business (and its website) should be any exception?

Let’s talk Premium Hosting – which is basically WordPress Hosting made Bougee.

If you (or your business) needs a website, then Vox provides locally hosted and dedicated WordPress Hosting service – just minus the headache involved with managing a server (it’s like flying Business Class over economy – more perks, way better space to operate, and none of the headache of hoping you can get the armrest before someone cramps your style).

True, Shared Web Hosting does exist (and has its merits), but why would you offer your brand anything less than the best? After all, your website is effectively the face of your business and, more often than not, your first point of customer interaction – particularly if you’re big on E-Commerce. Studies show that a first-time user on a web page has an attention span of around four seconds before they keep scrolling, move on or click “back” (unless, of course, it’s one of THOSE websites) – so it’s your job to make it count. If your page is buggy, crashes, or just looks as bad as the SARS one (with similar levels of response time), your business will eventually feel it – either through a lost sale or, even worse, a lost customer for good.

This is what separates traditionally shared hosting from its Premium counterpart – it doesn’t just sound fancier, but opts not to split resources across multiple customers. The end result? Instead of inconsistent levels of speed, reliability and customer service, your audience can feel like they’ve just checked into Emirates first class – minus the caviar, of course.

Unless you’re Nokia or Home Affairs, everything adapts to the present and gears up for the future – and conventional shared hosting is now a thing of the past (at least if you, like us, require optimised performance and better uptime and scalability – which is pretty much everyone except the licensing department).

Still not sold? Here’s the pitch (or, at least, more of the pitch) …

With Premium Hosting, you can enjoy lightning-fast speeds through our dedicated infrastructure.
Worried about Security? Stress not – you’re backed by the Vox Security Team (which is basically the digital version of The Hawks – versus Coin Security for standard).
Improved performance, which results in higher click to sale ratios.
Need an HTTPS enabled site? We offer SSL certification as well.
And, of course, Vulnerability Scans come included. Why wouldn’t they? It’s Premium.

So, like Maboneng in 2022 or the Diamond Walk in Sandton City, everything looks better when you go the extra mile to make it stand out. Your brand, and your website, deserve the best – and it doesn’t come better than Premium WordPress Hosting with Vox.

Let’s put the Premium in your WordPress Hosting

Posted on 27 January 20221 August 2024 by Suhail Dinat

The general sentiment seems to be that if you want to make something sound high-end, you can either give it Woolworths’s water or stick the word “Premium” around it.

Case in point: you get regular Ster-Kinekor, and then you get Ster-Kinekor Premier. You get the PSL (with Benny McCarthy’s waistline), and then you get the Barclay’s Premier League (with Cristiano Ronaldo’s jawline). You get Eskom, and then you get, well, darkness (sorry Houghton, we’re in this together).

We’ve come to learn that, like an awesome new weave or posh accent at Saint, give it a few hours and something that seems fancy at first doesn’t always hold up well. Except, of course, when it comes to Premium WordPress Hosting – which has all of the high-end and none of the needing a tender to afford it.

What is Premium WordPress Hosting? Well, it’s like Airbnb for websites, except the homes are in Camps Bay and there’s no brown stains on any of your surfaces.

Look, there’s only so much we can say about generic website hosting. Everyone from Jeff Bezos to all the creators responsible for Incognito Mode (we see you) know what it’s about. Like building a house without owning a plot of land (a joke that probably holds up better outside of SA), you can’t have a website without a domain or some form of hosting.

Back in the day, Shared Web Hosting was sufficient much like flared jeans were acceptable in the late 90’s. However, as time has progressed, so too have the needs of modern business (and, in turn, their hosting solutions).

Enter Premium WordPress Hosting: which is basically the spinach to your website’s Popeye. Not only does it take your site to the next level, but it offers a rock-solid, secure and scalable platform. Your business and website have enough moving parts (especially if you’re one of those Incognito Mode pages we spoke about earlier) without you needing to sweat the small stuff. PWH offers a reliable, locally hosted WordPress Hosting service without the headache of managing a server – leaving you free to focus on your content.

Okay, we’re with you – but why should my business even consider this? My website works fine?

Sadly, there was a time when City Power also worked fine – but if you’re seeking longevity (and no angry Twitter base), just “fine” isn’t enough (trust us on this one). Here are some of the reasons you should consider PWH with Vox:

We’re hosted on the Vox Carrier Cloud Network (at the Edge of the Internet).

Relax, flat-earthers, the Internet isn’t another 2D object you can theorise falling off. Rather, ‘Edge’ Computing is a modern take on Datacentre and Cloud computing Architectures. Basically, it takes your real-time applications and analyses them more efficiently.

This means that instead of running your website with a Chico engine, you’ll instead be running full throttle with a V12 strong enough to make Vin Diesel stop talking about family.

Did someone say, “Free Vulnerability Scan”?

We included that purely because ‘free’ anything usually brings in traffic (which is why you saw so many free Yellow, Green and Black T-shirts recently. Wink wink). Jokes aside, Vulnerability Scans allow for Proactive Risk Monitoring (which is some technicians way of saying we check for weaknesses before a hacker gets there). Rather than let your site be stolen, our PWH services make sure there’s nowhere for hackers to break into. And no, we can’t offer the same service to your physical premises.

Get your Backup against the Wall

Unlike your Google Search History, your Website Data is something you want to keep. We conduct ongoing Backups to ensure that your site can’t be lost, or, in the event of a worst-case scenario, your information isn’t stolen by some guy in an Anonymous mask who thinks he’s Mr Robot.

Locally Hosted is Lekker

Look, we have our share of problems like any other country, but sometimes local is just better (have you ever eaten Australian Biltong? No wonder they choke at the RWC). Our locally hosted services actually offer a 99.9% Uptime Guarantee – come rain, hail, looting or load shedding, your site will be able to run regardless of how many Guptas it takes to ruin a power station.

Honestly, this sounds like a high-end product for the Takealot’s of the world. Why my SME?

That statement, like a speech before election time, couldn’t be less factually correct. Our packages start from R249.00pm and cater for everyone from start-ups to WordPress enthusiasts (yes, those are a thing). Whether you have a booming E-commerce site or just need a landing page to justify your marketing budget to your line manager, the competitive advantage of PWH places you head and shoulders above your competition. It’s like steroids for your website, except instead of smashing your keyboard out of pure rage, the only thing you’ll be smashing is web traffic and conversions.

So, there you have it. Dedicated infrastructure, lightning-fast speeds, backed by Vox, Secure and reliable – if only it had its own political party. Your website is the face of your business but, if not done right, could also be another body part instead.

A slow, unattractive website will have a seriously negative impact on your business – so take your brand experience and online presence to the next level and let Premium WordPress Hosting send your humble website to private school.

So, What Is Web Hosting?

Sounds Important, Right? That’s Because It Is

When it Comes to Web Hosting, You’ve Got Options

There Are a Few More Things to Keep in Mind

The Bottom Line

Available in your area