Your Partner in Peace of Mind: Liquid Web Relieves Technical Burdens with Fully Managed Hosting Packages

TL; DR: Liquid Web is known for delivering virtual, cloud, and dedicated hosting solutions backed by knowledgeable, always-there support. The company, founded in 1997, leverages years of experience to provide managed solutions for business-critical applications and websites. With an ongoing mission to serve as the Most Helpful Humans in Hosting®, the company’s premier experts remain laser-focused on delivering performance, reliability, and security after all these years.

In the earliest days of the pandemic, “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah took to the internet from a socially distanced studio. His mission was to draw attention to No Kid Hungry — a charity providing critical assistance to the 22 million children who lost access to free meals due to school closures.

The plea for donations caught the attention of more than 3.8 million viewers. Among them was Carrie Wheeler, EVP and General Manager for the popular hosting company Liquid Web, who took immediate action.

“It was such an inspiring segment — it lit something inside of me,” Carrie told us. “I worked with our leadership team, and everyone eagerly embraced the initiative. Since last year, we have donated over a quarter of a million meals to No Kid Hungry. It means a lot for us to be involved in our community.”

The effort continues this year, with Liquid Web donating $10 of every new order to No Kid Hungry.

Liquid Web is also helping pandemic-affected businesses upgrade their hosting infrastructure in the name of business continuity. Among other strategies, this could mean providing customers with additional VPN capacity, boosting security services, or offering CDN access for efficient content distribution worldwide.

All Liquid Web’s managed products and services feature 24/7/365 support from highly trained technicians. Ultimately, Liquid Web’s mission is to back its wide choice of hosting products with expert, caring support to help customers navigate change.

Since its inception nearly 25 years ago, Liquid Web has focused on providing growth opportunities for SMBs — and the designers, developers, and agencies that serve them.

“We provide products, services, and support designed specifically for mission-critical sites, stores, and applications,” Carrie said. “Our clients’ businesses rely on the web; therefore, they must rely on us to deliver speed, scale, security, and service.”

Customers count on Liquid Web to provide a stress-free hosting experience via advanced technology designed to help businesses evolve.

“A typical Liquid Web customer grows with us,” Carrie said. “Our wide product portfolio means that we have a product for every project, and we make it simple for businesses to elevate their technology as they grow.”

While most new customers start with an entry-level virtual or dedicated server, the Liquid Web team has seen increased adoption of its more sophisticated product offerings. These include private cloud hosting powered by VMware, HIPAA-compliant solutions, and cloud servers.

“Our product strategy starts with researching market dynamics, listening to our customers, and understanding their business needs,” Carrie said. “We then use evolving technologies to introduce solutions that bring sophistication to customers’ tech stacks while being easy to manage.”

She told us that the best part about working with the Liquid Web family of brands is witnessing how the company’s products enable customers to dream big — and grow bigger. From packaging to delivery and support, every detail of the company’s hosting services can make a difference for entrepreneurs looking to run a successful business.

“Now more than ever, our SMBs and their creators are embracing the technology needed to survive and grow,” Carrie said. “It is fascinating to see their energy and grit — and humbling, inspiring, and exciting to be part of their path to success. We recognize that we power their online potential, and that is a responsibility that we take seriously.”

With nearly a quarter-century of experience under its belt, Liquid Web has observed the evolution of the hosting industry firsthand.

“One of the most significant shifts I’ve seen is businesses wanting to consume technology as a service; i.e., Platform-as-a-Service, Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Software-as-a-Service,” Carrie told us. “One of the reasons behind this shift is that entrepreneurs and SMBs want to focus on their businesses and not worry about managing infrastructure.”

Fortunately, managed hosting is Liquid Web’s area of expertise. The company’s goal is to help businesses offload administrative work and instead focus on the creative side of things — app development, improving the customer experience, and offering personalized services.

Security is another urgent concern when it comes to hosting and infrastructure management, with the volume and frequency of threats increasing almost daily. Carrie said security vulnerabilities have only increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As businesses across the world went remote, hackers stepped up their game, targeting employees working out of their home offices,” she said. “Liquid Web has launched multiple security offerings this year through partners like Alert Logic and Threat Stack to help our customers meet their security needs.”

Liquid Web’s datacenters are privately owned, meaning that no one else has access to its servers. The company identifies and blocks malicious activity using threat intelligence and vulnerability management techniques to provide advanced network protection. Liquid Web also monitors accounts for known and previously unknown threats and protects against vulnerabilities with prompt system patching.

“As the frequency of cyber attacks grows, web-based businesses need not only protection during an attack, but also a plan that addresses the bigger picture,” Carrie said. “Business processes, attack prevention, logging, analysis, and risk management are all required to fully thwart attacks.”

When it comes to customer service, the data speaks for itself. Liquid Web boasts a Net Promoter Score of 67 — one of the highest in the hosting industry. The company also guarantees a 59-second initial response for phone and chat, plus a 59-minute initial response guarantee on its help desk.

Carrie said the number one benefit Liquid Web delivers to businesses is peace of mind.

“We’re about way more than selling servers — we deliver a fully managed solution that keeps those servers fast, secure, and updated,” she said. “Our customers count on our 100% power and network uptime guarantee, redundant networks, level-three techs onsite, and certified experts ready to help 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.”

Whether they’re monitoring client servers, mitigating risk, and optimizing performance, Carrie said the LiquidWeb team is “always on.”

“But even more importantly, we’ve got our customers’ backs,” she said. “We’re here to help. We believe the more you need technology to fuel your business, the more you need expert, caring people to be there for you. That’s why we try to be the Most Helpful Humans in Hosting®.”

Liquid Web’s development processes are driven in equal measure by customer feedback, customer experience, and technological advancements.

“We get feedback from customers via surveys, account managers, and support interactions,” Carrie said. “We have close relationships with IT consultants, developers, designers, and agencies through our partner channel. We also engage externally in forums and events.”

As for what the future holds, the Liquid Web team has some exciting plans in the pipeline. Nexcess, the company’s digital commerce cloud brand, recently launched StoreBuilder by Nexcess.

The product takes the guesswork out of creating a WooCommerce store with a built-in intelligence engine that makes it easy to create industry-specific ecommerce sites.

“It’s a great example of our vision to become the leading provider of open-source digital commerce capabilities through the WordPress/WooCommerce ecosystem,” Carrie said.

The Liquid Web family of brands recently acquired The Events Calendar, KadenceWP, and Restrict Content Pro — all high-quality WordPress software providers. “We’re excited to deliver these popular software solutions as standalone products, within our Managed WordPress product offering, and as add-ons with special pricing for our Liquid Web and Nexcess hosting customers,” Carrie told us.

In May, the Liquid Web family also announced its acquisition of GiveWP, a leader in WordPress plugins for nonprofits. The GiveWP acquisition is an extension of Liquid Web’s commitment to leadership in the WordPress and WooCommerce space. The company’s innovative solutions power the online potential of businesses and the designers, developers, and agencies who create for them.

“GiveWP is a well-known and respected brand in the WordPress community. We are excited to welcome them to the Liquid Web family as we continue to build our strength in the digital commerce ecosystem,” said Joe Oesterling, Liquid Web’s CTO. “GiveWP has already been able to help more than 100,000 fundraisers around the world raise more than a billion dollars. We believe in their brand, and we know that with our backing, they will continue to create the solutions nonprofit organizations need.”

On the hosting side, the company is anxious to return to the face-to-face interactions that it values.

“Our teams have done exceptionally well serving our customers through this pandemic,” Carrie said. “We’re grateful for the way we worked together and the lessons we’ve learned through it all. But man, we’re ready to see each other in our offices, visit our partners, and engage with our communities in events such as WordCamps. And we’re optimistic that will happen soon.”