Hosting and Management

A robust and secure hosting environment at Rocket.net, Cloudways, Hetzner (via xCloud) or Vultr (via xCloud), four of the top-performing hosting services in the US. The selected server is optimized specifically for WordPress websites. It ensures high performance, reliability, and scalability, with support for handling spikes in traffic and maintaining site uptime. This includes domain configuration and management, along with ongoing server-level performance optimization.

An SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate is crucial for securing data transmitted between the website and its users. This service involves setting up and maintaining an SSL certificate, which encrypts data, protects sensitive information, and enhances trust by displaying the padlock symbol in the browser.

The website video and/or audio media is offloaded to the Gumlet, Amazon S3 or Bunny.net service, which ensures fast and smooth delivery of video and audio content on the website. High-quality playback is maintained for users across different devices.

A CDN speeds up the website by distributing its content across multiple servers around the world. This service involves integrating a CDN to reduce latency, improve load times for users globally, and enhance overall site performance. This also includes DNS management through Cloudflare.

Keeping the WordPress installation and plugins up-to-date is critical for security and performance. This service includes regularly applying these updates as soon as they are published, addressing any plugin compatibility issues, and ensuring that the site continues to function smoothly and securely without any disruptions.

Continuous monitoring of the website is essential for detecting and resolving issues before they impact users. 24/7 monitoring software is used to provide ongoing surveillance of site performance, uptime, and security, with immediate action taken if any anomalies are detected, including emergency support for critical issues as soon as they're flagged. This also includes ongoing site audits for broken links and other technical issues using a dedicated WordPress auditing plugin.

Regular backups of the website are vital to safeguarding the website data against loss or corruption. This service includes daily onsite backups (local on the server) and secure weekly offsite backups (to Amazon S3 cloud storage). These multiple backup copies ensure data integrity and quick recovery in case the website goes down from a critical error, system malfunction, etc. Backups are retained for 30 days, with one-click restore available to return the site to a previous state quickly if needed.

Wordfence provides a comprehensive security solution with a web application firewall (WAF) to protect the WordPress site from malicious attacks. This service includes real-time threat detection, blocking of known attackers and brute force attacks, and advanced firewall rules to safeguard against vulnerabilities. The Cloudways, Rocket.net and xCloud hosting platforms provide additional firewall protection.

Regular security audits and malware scans are essential for maintaining the health and safety of the website. This service includes scanning for vulnerabilities, removing any detected malware (a very rare occurrence), and implementing additional security measures to protect the site from future threats.

This service ensures the reliable delivery of transactional emails, such as form submission confirmations, password resets, and notifications, directly from the website. By integrating with Postmark, a dedicated email service provider, BradTech manages and monitors these essential communications, ensuring they reach the users' inboxes promptly and securely, reducing the chances of emails being marked as spam.

This service includes tracking the website's performance with Google Analytics (via Google Tag Manager), Microsoft Clarity, Site Behavior, and/or other similar analytics tools. These tools provide insights into user behavior (page visits, click events, etc.), traffic sources, and overall site performance, allowing for data-driven decisions to improve user experience and reach business goals.

To keep spam submissions, fake registrations, and comment spam off the site, BradTech integrates CleanTalk's anti-spam service. This filters spam at the form, comment, and registration level without relying on CAPTCHAs that hurt the user experience.

For clients moving an existing site onto BradTech's hosting environment, BradTech covers the full cost and handles the entire migration process — files, database, and DNS cutover — at no additional charge to the client.

Every hosting environment includes one-click staging — a full copy of the live site where plugin updates, theme changes, and other modifications can be tested safely before being pushed to production. This eliminates the risk of an update breaking the live site.