Hosting is one of the most important factors in running a website. This service provides a space for your site to thrive and remain accessible 24/7. Despite its importance, many website owners cut corners on hosting and choose an inferior hosting service.
Creating and launching a website is an expensive affair. It?s not surprising that many business owners want to cut corners wherever possible. Hosting isn?t something you can afford to compromise on, especially when you?re first launching your website.
Poor quality hosting will lead to poor website performance. That can cause permanent damage to your reputation. This article discusses some important ways in which hosting can affect your website and SEO.
1. The Speed of the Website
Did you know most people expect a website to load in 2 seconds? Around 40% will leave a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
This indicates a website?s load time and speed is a very important part of running a successful website. Google certainly considers it so, which is why load time and speed is one of the ranking factors.
Speed depends on a number of things ranging from website structure to optimization. However, the most influential factor is the quality of the hosting server.
If your hosting service provider doesn?t have the right system, your website will be slow to load and will crash frequently. This can prove to be detrimental to your SEO. It can also place your company reputation at risk.
Make sure you choose the right hosting service. Consider switching to a VPS or a Virtual Private Server if your site sees a lot of traffic. The better your hosting service, the better the speed.
2. Uptimes and Downtimes
The Internet never sleeps. You might receive good, converting traffic in the middle of the night and during offseason. This means your website must be on and operational at all times.
This depends entirely on the kind of hosting service you have. Good quality hosting ensures your website is available almost all the time. Such services often promise 99.9% uptime. If your website is always online, especially when Google comes calling, it will be more relevant to search and therefore SEO-friendly.
Poor hosting can lead to more downtimes. If your website is down while Google attempts to crawl it, you might experience a drop-in ranking. Frequent downtime won?t just affect your SEO rankings, but also hamper user experience. That will compromise your reputation.
Downtimes are especially common during times of high traffic. This means if your website shuts down during the peak holiday season, you will miss out on a lot of money.
Also Read, 4 Tips To Nail Your Website Design and SEO.
3. Location of Your IP
Most people don?t know that the website?s IP address can influence SEO to some extent. While it doesn?t make a remarkable impact on SEO, it can influence the rankings marginally. In this highly competitive field, it is important to press for every advantage that you can.
If your IP address and host server are in the same location as your business, it will give you an edge over your competitors in rankings. For example, Google will rank a UK website that is also hosted in UK higher than a UK website that's hosted in Spain.
The location of your IP will also affect the performance of a website. It will perform better if the hosting server is in the same country as your target audience. Visitors from other countries might experience slower downtimes.
4. Security
Google and other search engines take website security seriously. The security of the hosting service plays an important role in this aspect. If your hosting server doesn?t have a good security system in place, any decent hacker can target your website.
Some hackers will steal personal data and customer information. Some hackers can direct your traffic and customers to harmful sites like those that deal with gambling, drugs, or pornographic content.
All of these factors can permanently damage your website reputation. Customers will be less willing to trust you and that will impact your sales. The best way to avoid all of these problems is to choose a good quality hosting service.
Good hosting companies take steps to maintain the integrity of their servers. They use the best security software and maintain high-level real-life security systems around their data centers. This reduces the chances of hacking and keeps your website secure.
Image Source – xpandion.com
5. Backup for Your Website
No hosting server is infallible. Things like hardware crashes, accidents, natural disasters, etc., can compromise the quality of hosting and even cause an extended downtime.
Good quality hosting services include backup systems that hold your data and website in case the primary servers are compromised. They store the information at another secure location so ensure nothing is impacted by the crash.
If the service provider doesn?t have backup servers at a different location, you can experience a website crash. You might also lose very important data regarding your business and customers during such an event.
If your website is down for an extended period of time, it will lose its ranking. Without a good backup, you will lose all the marketing traction you built up over time.
6. HTTPS and SSL Certificate
Google considers HTTPS and SSL certificate a ranking signal. It isn?t as important as a backlink, but it does have some influence. If two websites of equal quality are competing for a top-ranking spot, the website with SSL will always rank higher.
You will need to check with your hosting service regarding their SSL or TSL certificate if you want a fully secure website. A good service provider will be happy to help you with the process. A bad one won?t have the processes in place to help customers migrate from HTTP to HTTPS.
As it is shown above, the hosting service can have a significant influence on your SEO ranking. Whether you have a new website or an old one, it is important to make sure you choose the right hosting service for it.
Author Bio
Justin Kemp is working as a Jr. content writer and blogger with Ethane Technologies. He can be seen blogging about digital marketing, SEO, SMO, PPC, etc.
