Look:
Nowadays, most business owners focus too much on the aesthetic appeal of their website because they think that’s the only feature that will attract new customers.
Of course, having a well-designed site is appealing and does help in some ways but the money and effort spent on designs isn’t worth much if the website is not found on search engines.
And while the importance of creating great content will always be there but what about the backend work that ensures your website gets ranked by search engines.
For that, we suggest you start looking at quality webhost service.
Many business owners take web hosting very lightly – without realizing the impact it can have on the website’s SEO ranking.
However, having a good web hosting provider can affect your website’s SEO in a number of ways and while it’s not guaranteed to increase your ranking – it can certainly help you in reaching your SEO goals faster.
How? Let’s find out!
Importance Of Quality Webhosting For SEO Rankings
Web hosting affects certain features of your website that are essential if you want your website to receive a large amount of traffic.
Namely, it impacts your website’s performance, speed, security, and your website’s uptime. Read on to learn how webhosting impacts each one of these features.
1. Website loading speed
The loading speed of any website and its pages can affect its SEO rankings.
We are all aware that the internet is a growing medium and more than 3 billion people are using the internet. However, people are no longer willing to wait even a single minute for your website to load and are likely to switch to your competitors website for a better service.
Good website speed can lead to more conversions and according to internet statistics, slow loading websites cost the U.S. economy more than $500 billion annually.
And although you can control some of the factors affecting the speed of your website such as content and coding, there are many issues that should be looked upon by your webhosting provider.
These include hardware, CDN, and whether or not the hosting is well optimized for your Content Management System such as WordPress.
2. Uptime/Downtime
We have all seen banner advertising 99.9% uptime guarantees by webhosting providers.
Well, the quality of your webhost is determined by how accessible the website actually is.
If your website is down and unavailable, Google and other search engines will not be able to redirect the users to your page.
If your host quality is poor, the more will be your website’s downtime which will indirectly affect your SEO rankings.
3. Security
According to 2015 reports, more than 300,000 websites are hacked daily while companies lose $400 billion to hackers each year.
Hackers are constantly searching for new ways to transmit malicious malware into servers, create spam pages, and generate massive amounts of fake backlinks on your website.
In short, do the many things Google loves to penalize. By the time you realize the extent of the damage, Google may have already penalized your website or ranked it low in its search engines.
When choosing a webhosting provider, make sure it is equipped with all the major security features including:
- SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) which secures your files and ensures that they are not intercepted and modified.
- SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate encrypts the path between a webserver and a browser.
- Regular backup of servers
- Regular server maintenance to stay updated with the latest patches and upgrades.
4. IP location
Does hosting location affect SEO? Does server location affect speed?
Yes. The physical location of your webhost server does have an impact on your SEO rankings.
Search engines may rank websites with IP addresses in the same country. So try to find a webhost who has servers in your own country to boost SEO rankings.
The IP location can also affect your page loading speed. If you are targeting consumers in the country where your servers are not located, the page loading speed for those users may vary and can adversely affect your rankings plus business.
5. HTTPS/SSL Support
HTTPS/SSL is the secure version of HTTP and ensures all communication between your server and the browser are encrypted.
It is especially important if you are running an e-commerce website and wish to secure sensitive information such as your customer’s personal name, addresses, credit card number, and banking details.
These days many websites are making a shift toward https in order to protect sensitive information. Google has also specifically stated SSL as an important ranking factor.
And although, currently it may seem like a minor factor, chances are it will become more important in the near future.
If you also wish to move your website from HTTP to HTTPS, check with your webhosting company and obtain their TSL/SSL certificate.
This will contain a list which you can use to ensure your website is fully operating HTTPS. And although, the process might sound intimidating at first, it very easy and will make the switch seamless.
6. Tech support
Most business owners go into panic mode as soon as their website gets down.
However, this is the time when you can fully assess your webhost provider’s credibility and find out how quality driven they are.
Before choosing a webhost provider, make sure they provide you with 24*7*365 days technical support and are thoroughly experienced to help you at all times and in all situations. A well known company like BlueHost has 24/7/365 tech support.
Final Words
In the end, customer’s satisfaction is utmost important and your main aim is to allow users to have an excellent experience on your site and keep coming back for more. Right!?
These were just some of the key reasons why quality and SEO friendly web hosting plays an important role in determining your website’s credibility and boosting its SEO ranking.
There are many quality webhost providers available with varying prices, features, and support. You have to choose and stick with the best best web hosting provider. Period. Be wise on this.
Don’t get lured with the cheapest offer and make an informed decision. By making a proactive approach and regularly checking your host’s quality – we can assure you that your website SEO will rank higher in search engines and all the efforts will be worth it!