Good web hosting is about a whole lot more than simply getting your web pages up on the internet. Good hosting also includes a number of functions that improve SEO, enhance the user experience, and help keep your site and your data safe. Here are the top 5 reasons why good hosting matters to your business.
1. Good Web Hosting Improves Rankings
Did you know that the quality of your hosting has a direct impact on how search engines like Google and Bing rank your site? Since 2010, Google has been penalizing sites with slow load speeds by moving them down in the search rankings. If your site’s poor hosting results in load times greater than the standard 2 second cut-off point, Google doesn’t want to direct users to your site because recommending a badly hosted site will reflect poorly on Google.
To make matters worse, because Google’s latest ranking algorithm places a lot of emphasis on how long visitors spend on your website, bad hosting can result in a double blow to your site ranking as slow page load speeds chase users away from your site. Fortunately, you can recover from this by getting better hosting and developing a SEO plan to climb back up in the rankings.
2. Good Web Hosting Protects Your Site
Bargain web hosting often comes with a bare-bones set of features and may not include security options or backup services. This leaves the host’s servers (and therefore your site and any data you collect from your site) vulnerable to attack by hackers and viruses. Without a backup service, you risk losing your data if the server becomes compromised due to attack or to equipment failure. A good web hosting package will include security features as well as an automatic backup system that you can configure to suit your site’s needs.
3. Good Web Hosting Improves the User Experience
Your customers do not want to wait for your site’s pages to load! While poor hosting can result in slow page loads, slow server response, or even a site crash due to a lack of bandwidth or to excessive traffic on a shared server, good hosting provides a reliably fast and enjoyable experience for the user’s browsing your site. The best hosts promise ample bandwidth and 99.99% uptime, meaning that there is only the tiniest chance that your site will ever be unavailable due to a server issue.
4. Good Web Hosting Puts Stats at Your Fingertips
A high-quality hosting package will give you the ability to view important stats about your website, including site visits, page views, etc. from a convenient, user-friendly control panel. This improves your ability to keep on top of your SEO practices. You can constantly monitor the site to see where and how improvements can be made to enhance the user experience, draw more traffic to your site, and convert more visitors to customers.
5. Good Web Hosting Gives You Flexibility
Another reason that hosting matters is that good hosting packages often come with lots of extra tools or plugins that can help you add apps and other features to your site. Good hosting typically supports all the latest versions of the major programming languages and is compatible with Linux-based software and components as well. Plus, good web hosting allows you to quickly implement changes to your site content, which gives you additional flexibility for serving your customers better.
Get Good Web Hosting Now
Ready to say goodbye to the slow page loads, diminished ranking results, and lack of security that come with poor hosting? Give Webstract Marketing a call. We’ll be happy to go over our hosting service offerings with you and help you get the good hosting your website and your business deserve.