It’s everyone’s goal to have their websites appear at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). A digital marketing plan would be incomplete without SEO, so it’s not unexpected. For search engine optimization to work, the first step is to choose a web host that people know and trust.
What is the importance of SEO?
There are several ways to increase your website’s search engine rankings, including SEO. When a visitor searches for anything connected to your brand, you want to make your website more prominent in the search results. It’s important that your website is easy to locate. As a result, you work hard to improve your website’s ranking so that it appears on the search engine’s first page.
To do this, you’ll need to put in place a complete SEO campaign. You can also get help with your SEO efforts from a number of trustworthy SEO tools.
Why Do I Need a Web Host?
In order to publish your website on the Internet and make your company available to the world, you must first choose a web hosting option. Providing web hosting services is the job of a web host. They are in charge of building up and maintaining your website’s technical backbone. Your website’s code, graphics, and other data are kept on servers.
In order to make your website accessible to the world wide web, you must acquire web hosting space on a server. To go to your website, visitors type in your URL into their browsers.
SEO Metrics and Web Hosting.
Let’s imagine that your website has been effectively launched. However, you can’t afford to take a break from your SEO efforts if you want to keep your site visible and get more visitors. In other words, when someone searches for anything related to your company, your website is the first result they see.
Your website’s SEO relies heavily on the quality of your content, but web hosting also plays a significant influence. Websites that are easy to use, load quickly, and have minimal downtime are given a better ranking. So, your website’s SEO is affected by how good your web host and web hosting solution are.
The following are a few things to consider while making your final decision on a web host for your website.
Website Speed or Page Load Time
If a pageload goes from one to three seconds, the bounce rate is expected to increase by 32 percent.
When the page load time grows by seconds, your bounce rate rises considerably. ThinkwithGoogle has a great writeup on this topic.
The Internet is only as fast as its connection. When it comes to desktop search results, Google revealed in 2010 that page speed is a ranking consideration. Google finally confirmed in 2018 that this rule applies to mobile searches as well as desktop. If your website’s pages load slowly, it’s a given that search engines will punish it and lower its rank.
Most people won’t wait more than two seconds for a web page to load normally. A higher bounce rate will lead to a lower conversion rate, and the opposite is true. As a result, a reputable web host makes certain that your website is constantly using the most recent software. Improved caching and other variables may make a page load more quickly.
Note
In addition to the web host, there are additional elements that might affect your website loading times. The design and coding of your website is one of them. These may also slow down your website if they aren’t correctly optimized.
Two: Server Outage
Your website’s downtime is the amount of time it is unavailable to visitors. This is much worse than showing your audience a sluggish website. The web host is a common source of downtime. There are many things that can cause a website to go down, such as a security breach, a hardware failure, or a server that is too busy.
According to Statista, it costs businesses a lot per hour in 2019 to have their servers unavailable.
Downtime is a disaster for your business, regardless of the reason for its occurrence. Leads and consumers are lost, and your company suffers as a result of a malfunctioning website.
In addition, search engines will mark your website as untrustworthy and unavailable as a result of its unavailability. Clicking on a result at the top of the search results page only to be sent to an unreachable website will not do. Your SEO will suffer if your website is unavailable for an extended period of time, and ultimately, your website will vanish from search results. Digital marketers’ worst fear is to have no presence at all on the major search engines.
To avoid this, choose a web server with an uptime guarantee that is as close to 100% as possible. First, if your website is often down, you may want to look for a new web hosting service.
The Servers location
Your website’s geographic location is taken into account by search engines when determining where it ranks in the SERPs. The location of your website is determined by the IP address of the server that hosts it. Search engines will prioritize your website and give it a high ranking if it has an IP address that is close to your intended audience.
Google emphasizes local companies for local searchers in order to help them find what they’re looking for. In the case of geo-targeted customers, it makes sense to use a web server located in that area. They’ll notice a difference in the speed of your website. As a result, identify your target audience and then choose a web server that caters to them. When it comes to SEO, this is priceless.
So if your business is in Australia and caters to people in Australia, get your website on a server located in Australia.
A sense of security.
Ranking indications include Google’s endorsement of a website’s safety. Your website’s visitors need to feel secure while engaging with your pages, which is why security is so important. It’s the same with Google: you need to prove to Google that you’ve implemented the necessary security measures.
Your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) benefits greatly from the security protections installed by your web host. Having an SSL-capable website, for example, is an absolute must. A communication technique called Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encrypts the data flow between the server and browser. In 2014, Google included SSL as a ranking criteria for search engine optimization.
You can be sure that your search engine rankings will suffer if your website is frequently hacked. As a result, you’ll need to find a new web host.
Selecting the Best SEO-Friendly Web Hosting
What aspects should you consider when looking for a good web host for your website now that you understand how a web host influences your website’s SEO?
Make sure that the hosting plan you choose is suited to your requirements and use.
We may find it difficult to keep up with the rapid pace of change in the commercial world. Consider the fact that your web hosting requirements may alter over time. As a result, while comparing hosting plans, it’s important to know what they have to offer in the short and long term.
Consider how straightforward it would be to upgrade or downgrade your hosting package in the future. Keep up-to-date on your company’s marketing strategies and commercial objectives, since they can help you decide what future adjustments to your website are necessary. There are a wide variety of hosting plans to choose from, and this information will help you make an informed decision.
Hosting Plan Types:
Source: Namechap Types of web hosting and their features
How do the characteristics of various kinds of web hosting compare?
Compare the features of different web hosting plans before deciding which one is best for your website.
Hosting on a server that is shared with other people
When you use shared hosting, you share a server with other websites. Everyone generally shares all of the resources available to them (memory bandwidth, CPU storage, for example). In terms of cost, this is a benefit. Sharing hosting is ideal for new businesses with low traffic expectations and basic websites that don’t need a lot of storage space.
Managing a shared hosting account is similarly simple. As a result, this plan may be ideal for those just starting out in the world of web hosting.
Recommendation for:
- Lightweight, uncomplicated websites
- Blogs written by the narrator
- Small companies with less than 20,000 monthly visitors
Hosting for Virtual Private Servers
Hosting on a Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a more advanced version of shared hosting. Your website does not share a server with anybody else, but it does have a certain amount of space set aside for it. You are virtually separated from the rest of the web hosting space, and you are allocated a defined quantity of resources for your website.
Your expenses are lower since you share a server with others, despite the fact that you have your own resources. As a result, your website will not be impacted by the demands of other websites. VPS hosting, on the other hand, requires some technical proficiency.
Recommendation for:
- Websites that need a lot of resources (outgrown shared hosting)
- Larger e-commerce companies that may need to expand in the future
- Those that need more control over their servers yet are on a budget
Dedicated web servers
If you choose dedicated hosting, you will have exclusive use of the whole server. You have complete access to the server and all of its resources for your website. This, however, comes at a price.
Recommendation for:
- Huge companies that demand the highest level of performance.
- More than 100,000 visitors per month
- Websites with a high need for security and control
Your Financial Plan:
It all comes down to how much money you have to spend. There is no use in wishing for the sun and the moon if you can’t afford them. If a hosting plan is more expensive, it doesn’t always mean it’s better. Think about the needs of your business and your budget when deciding what is best for you.
There are several options for low-cost hosting, including shared and virtual private servers (VPS). Then, if the sky’s the limit, why not check into dedicated web hosting services? Make sure your budget and hosting plan are aligned with your company’s objectives.
Performance
A high uptime guarantee is essential when looking for a web hosting provider, since frequent downtime is disruptive to your company and affects your website’s SEO. So, only web hosts with powerful servers and a strong architecture with redundant power supplies and resources should be considered.
99.99% uptime is guaranteed by reputable and reliable web hosting. Do not be satisfied with anything less than 99%. In addition, look for web servers that provide compensation if they fail to meet their uptime guarantees, since these providers are serious about their company.
Measures to Protect
Web hosting-related security risks in 2020/Statista
In 2020, the most serious cybersecurity attacks were expected (Source: Statista).
The security of your website is in the hands of your web host. For this reason, be sure to review the security rules and services given by the web host in each plan. Encryption must be at least 256-bits. Use Transport Layer Security (TLS) v1.1 or higher if you accept credit card payments on your website. The Secure Socket Layer (SSL) standard is not as secure as this one (SSL).
Investigate the company’s backup and upkeep procedures. It is strongly suggested that you back up your site regularly and scan it for problems (including malware) as a preventative measure.
Help Is On The Way.
The level of assistance and the Service Level Agreement (SLA) provided by your web host cannot be overstated. Having a team of experts on your side might make all the difference when the unexpected happens.
Find out what channels of help are accessible to you based on the SLA. Don’t settle for anything less than round-the-clock assistance from your web host. Investigate the average response time reported by other customers. Every time you need a solution, you want it fast and relevant.
It would be ideal if your web host provided you with access to an up-to-date knowledge base that was both extensive and regularly updated. This may speed up the process of resolving any problem you run across.
Here are my final thoughts on the matter.
Having a website that regularly ranks high in search engine results is the objective of every company owner. Your website must be hosted by a reliable web host in order to function effectively. If you choose the right hosting option, your online services will be more safe, easy to use, and reliable.