Founded in 2005, the digital agency Shapes and Pages, Inc. provides SEO and website development services for companies across the U.S. Over the years, the agency’s founder and president, Kevin Clinton, tried different hosting solutions, but found he always had to spend too much time managing servers. Now, using Cloudways managed hosting and its optimized servers from DigitalOcean, the agency saves considerable time and gets great performance and support.

Hosting that frees up time to deliver more value for customers

Shapes and Pages has a strong focus on improving search rankings for all types of companies, helping them increase website traffic and revenue.

“Back when we started, there was no such thing as SEO,” Clinton says. “It was all about making good websites, and good websites got you ranked, so that’s what we focused on. Now it’s the other way around - we focus on the science of SEO, and making websites is part of our effort to do that.”

The agency develops long-term relationships with its clients, some of them going as far back as 2006. Clients can access their SEO progress reports and analytical data through a secure portal and through a weekly summary email report from the agency.

“What’s great about SEO is that everyone can see what’s working and what isn’t,” Clinton says. “As far as I’m concerned, we earn the right to keep our clients’ business every month. We review the results we get, discuss the objectives with the client and make adjustments to strategy accordingly.”

When developing websites for clients over the years, however, Clinton was frustrated that he had to spend too much time setting up and managing servers. “The choices have always been either shared low performance hosting or high performance virtual servers that I had to manage.”

“I’m a certified Six Sigma black belt and fanatical about process optimization,” he says. “To me, this means that every step in your process should add value. If I have to manage servers, which doesn’t add value for the client, then I’m wasting my time.”

Clinton decided he needed to find a new hosting solution, and that’s when he discovered Cloudways on the DigitalOcean website.

Great hosting performance with minimal effort

“I always wanted to find a hosting provider where I can easily create my space for an application and not have to manage a server,” Clinton says. “When I found Cloudways, I thought, this is what I’ve been looking for years. So I jumped in and started testing, and now have three sites on the platform. I’ve been really pleased with the performance. I’m finding that the Cloudways hosting metrics are better than almost anybody else.”

When Clinton has used Rackspace for hosting, he has to manage and update the servers himself through Virtualmin or the command line, which he says takes time away from more important work.

“Overall, Cloudways saves me time,” he says. “Cloudways frees me from the burden of server administration. Without having to spend my time playing with servers, I can spend my time doing things that are more valuable for our clients, which help me scale my business.”

Instant live chat 24/7 with support engineers

Aside from website performance and saving time on server admin, Clinton says that Cloudways’ support also really stands out. The platform’s user-friendly interface helped him find nearly everything he needed, but when he had a few questions, Cloudways’ support was ready to help.

“When I’ve used Rackspace for hosting, I need to log in into their site and put in a ticket, and sometimes I have to wait days for a response,” he says. “Anytime I’ve needed help from Cloudways, I open the chat window and someone is there in a minute or two. And every time I’ve had a question, they’ve had the answer. That’s worth its weight in gold.”