Episode 66: WordPress & Website Hosting With Shauna & Javier Lee

On this episode of Bella In Your Business, Bella talks with Javier and Shauna Lee from Geek Ghost, LLC and Tampa Pet Sitters on all things website hosting and Wordpress! Listen in as they dissect: What is a virtual private server and who needs one? Biggest mistakes business owners make when web hosting Why is Wordpress a better alternative than Wix? Companies to consider hosting your website Shauna & Javier Lee Back in 2011, two Techs and a graphic designer walked into a bar. The blueprints for what will become GeekGhost were laid out and the Lee's start offering Web Hosting to a few select design clients. Over the next few years, they expanded to include clients from over 50 countries and across two continents, having launched servers in the EU as well as the US. GeekGhost's objective is to provide Web hosting on par with the bigger providers in terms of reliability and technology while offering a small host feel in terms of support and customer service.  Shauna & Javier have been doing this a while and genuinely enjoy what they do. They're happy to help in any way they can! Subscribe To The Show: Transcript: Bella:This is episode 66 of Bella in Your Business. Welcome to Bella in Your Business, where Bella will discuss anything and everything about your pet sitting business to help you land on target. So get ready, Bella's got your chute. Let's jump. Welcome to Bella in Your Business. This is Bella Vasta. And today I have a very unique topic for you. I'm so excited, and I think I need to tell you the backstory on this. So Shauna Lee is actually the owner of Tampa Pet Sitters in Tampa, Florida. She approached me on Facebook one day after one of those threads popped up—you know, those threads where people are just ready to pull their hair out because something happened with their website or their server or their host or their domain. I don’t even understand what all that stuff means. So Shauna reached out to me and said it’s driving her crazy. She sees this happen in all of the groups where people are having a hard time with it, and there’s a lot of misinformation out there. So Shauna is here with her tech husband. They actually own this company called Geek Ghost, and they’re here to lay it all out and help us understand this whole big thing called websites. Without further ado, welcome, Shauna. Shauna:Hi, how are you? Bella:Good! So why don’t you expand on that for me and explain how the pet sitting world met the geek world. How did this start? Shauna:I actually have a background in web and graphic design, and my husband has been a tech for years. We started the web hosting company together, and our running joke was that he makes everything work and I make it pretty. After a while, it took off, but I got kind of crazy being in front of a computer all day working from home. I’ve always loved animals—I grew up on a farm—and I had a friend who owned a dog walking business. I started working for her just to get out of the house, and it snowballed. I ended up buying the business and growing it to where it is now. Bella:And that’s what you do daily now while Geek Ghost keeps growing. What drew me to this and made me want to get you on the podcast was when you said you wanted to help educate people and steer them clear of bad experiences or companies that don’t support their users. So I do want to break it down with you and Javier today. Perhaps we’ll bring him on, and he can get into all the geeky stuff. Maybe you can start and he can finish. Shauna:Yeah, I wanted to bring him because while I have a good understanding of how this works from my background, when it comes to explaining things, I sometimes have difficulty finding the right words. It makes sense in my head, but he explains it better. Bella:Perfect. I always equate a website to a house. You have your plot of land, your address, you live in a city and state, and you need security. And with SEO and keeping people on your website, I call that interior decorating—your design, probably, right? Shauna:Yeah, kind of. Bella:So what exactly is web hosting and a server and this VPS thing? And let’s cue the tech. Welcome, Javier! Javier:Hi! Bella:We were just talking about how you’re the brains behind the geeky stuff, and Shauna makes it look pretty. Can you explain what web hosting and a server are? Javier:Web hosting is kind of like internet real estate. A server is like an apartment building, and each apartment is an account. The server runs your email, web files, PHP scripts, and databases, and it’s divided into many smaller accounts for individual users. Bella:So like an apartment building—you’ve got your superintendent, your mailman, your cleaning lady… Javier:Exactly. Each has its own function. Bella:And where does web hosting fall into that? Javier:A website is a collection of files. The web server serves those files in a way that your browser can display them. It’s just instructions telling your browser how the page should look. Bella:So it’s like when I go to Subway—they put all these things in a sandwich and serve it up? Javier:Yeah, that’s a good analogy. Your website consists of files and databases, and you want to be able to email people. DNS is part of that—it’s how your website is found online. DNS resolves an IP address to a domain name. Bella:So instead of remembering a long number, we just type geekghost.net. Javier:Exactly. The server combines all these services to provide your web hosting, email, and database service. Bella:What’s a VPS? Javier:It’s a virtual private server. It’s when you take one physical server and partition it into multiple smaller servers. Each one is separate with its own resources. Bella:So it’s like instead of renting an apartment, I own one and handle my own stuff? Javier:More like a duplex—you have your own water, electricity, and mailbox separate from others. Bella:So when I go to GoDaddy, that’s shared hosting, like a big apartment building? Javier:Exactly. Bella:Why should I care whether I have an apartment or a duplex as long as my website runs? Javier:Because with shared hosting, you’re sharing resources. If one site crashes, everyone crashes. If one sends spam, your email gets blacklisted too. On a VPS, your resources are your own. Bella:Got it. Like insurance—you can have a group policy or an individual one. Javier:Exactly. Bella:What bad advice do people usually follow? Javier:A lot of people think WordPress sites are simple. They’re not. Every page calls multiple databases and scripts. Plugins especially use resources—even deactivated ones. They still take up memory. Bella:So we should delete unused plugins? Javier:Yes. Also, never download paid themes for free from random sites—they’re often full of malware. Bella:Ah, that’s how sites start sending spam! Javier:Exactly. And worse, some include keyloggers that record everything you type, including passwords. Always buy from the original source. Bella:So in web world, you really do get what you pay for. Javier:Absolutely. Bella:Let’s talk about good and bad hosts. Two years ago, my website started selling Viagra. My host didn’t care. I switched to SiteGround and they helped me. What should we look for in a good host? Javier:Response time is key. If they take more than an hour to reply, avoid them. A 24-hour turnaround is unacceptable. Companies that only do phone support are inefficient—they rely on you hanging up. Smaller or mid-sized hosts like SiteGround or Liquid Web do better. We aim for 5–7 minute ticket responses. We don’t do phone-only support because written records are essential. Bella:That’s smart. Now, when pet sitting software goes down, why does that happen? Javier:Usually it’s database overload. Too many queries crash the system. Software should be downloadable so businesses can host it themselves if they want to. Our servers haven’t gone down in six years because we take nightly backups of every site on multiple servers. If one fails, we move you instantly to another. Bella:So if my apartment building crashes, you have another ready so I’m not homeless. Javier:Exactly. Bella:If listeners want to reach you? Javier:Visit geekghost.net or email [email protected]. We also have live chat and a Facebook page—Geek Ghost LLC. Bella:Perfect. And you’re offering 25% off any plan using code BELLA. That’s so generous. Javier:We just want to help. Bella:Any final advice? Javier:Contact a company’s sales team before signing up. See how fast they respond, whether they upsell you, and if they genuinely try to understand your needs. That’ll tell you if they’re worth trusting. Bella:That’s great advice. Thank you, Javier and Shauna, for joining me today. Everyone, this has been another episode of Bella in Your Business. Remember to subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher, and always keep jumping.