25Sep 23 SEO Efforts for Web Hosting: A Complete Guide on the Impacts and Benefits

Any content on a website or application is incomplete without search engine optimization.  Marketers have been experimenting with SEO best practices for a long time to identify valuable techniques.

For instance, you might think keyword optimization, content development, or adding backlinks could be your best bet at improving your website’s position on search engines. If you know a bit about technical aspects, you might be perfecting your mobile friendliness and site structure.

However, advertisers tend to overlook one simple aspect. It is called WEBSITE HOST. Website Host can have a major impact on your SEO Rankings. Many companies fail to identify the metric purposes. They choose a host service provider who is unable to direct you to your goals.

This is one big mistake most marketers make. Selecting the right hosting for SEO will boost your search engine rankings, reduce the bounce rates, and significantly drive conversions.

Want to learn how you can achieve the same for your brand? Read ahead!

What Is SEO and Why Is It Important?

SEO is an abbreviation for ‘Search Engine Optimization.’ Optimize your websites for search engines like Google and Microsoft Bing to improve the face value. Optimizing your website for search engines helps you be indexed, recognized, and presented by search engine crawlers to Internet users. The chances of outreach among Internet users get high when you have a better ranking.

With a great SEO strategy, you can achieve an enhanced visibility for:

• Your product offerings
• Your services
• The knowledge and information you share about your niche

The main SEO objective is to help you reach more organic traffic which will ultimately become successful conversions.

As per statistics, nearly 53% of buyers turn to search engines to shop online. Innumerable potential customers for your brand are grouped in one place.

Therefore, it is natural for brands and businesses to fuzz so much about SEO. Investing your time and energy in website hosting and SEO is a significant stepping stone in growing your business digitally.

Appearing on search engines will not do the work alone. Nobody scrolls to the second page of the search engine. Nobody even goes halfway down the first page.

As per the latest research, it is estimated that nearly 27.6% of users click on the top appearing Google results. The second result gets 15.8% of the entire traffic and the third spot is the flag-bearer of 11 percent of Internet users.

Importance of Web Hosting for SEO?

Even though hosting is a significant SEO element, it is often ignored. Your website must perform well to land in Google’s “good books.” Your host has a direct role to play in this.

Your search engine can affect your performance in the following ways:

Website Speeds and Loading Times

Let me paint a scenario for you.

There is an Internet user who comes across your advertisement. They click on the link to your landing page. They wait for your page to load. But it keeps loading and nothing happens. Your visitor loses their patience and shifts to another site.

People are used to 5G Internet speeds, in case the page does not load immediately, they naturally think there is something wrong with the page altogether. A user will not even wait several seconds before making a shift.

If we talk about data-driven analysis, it has been found that a page that loads within 5 seconds has a much lower conversion rate when compared to pages that load in just 1 second. Investing in site speeds could be a good option. Studies suggest that retail shoppers are more inclined to spend at least 10 percent more when there is a 0.1-second decrease in site loading speed.

Keeping your website at an optimal speed can also increase your search engine rankings. In 2010, Google announced that site speed would be a ranking factor in desktop versions. In the year 2018, they declared the same for mobile versions as well.

Hosting is not the only aspect affecting the website’s loading speed and time but also a major one. Among other factors are JS minifying and caching. Invest in good quality hosting for SEO once you have sorted the other aspects. This will not only improve your speed but also bring you more conversions and more traffic.

Server Downtime

Isn’t it annoying when your website server is down? If your website experiences frequent downtime from time to time, you might be losing a lot of customers. Your conversions and sales also suffer tremendously. Besides this, your customers feel disappointed in you and question your credibility.

In addition to this, server downtime severely impacts your SEO score. When a search engine crawler reaches your site when it is down, the crawler de-indexes the website. Google, one of the most popular search engines, crawls the pages that experience downtimes less frequently. This significantly affects your SEO.

It is common for a site to experience a downtime but the key is to reduce the frequency of downtimes. Choose an SEO hosting company that guarantees the uptimes so you can rest assured that your website will rarely face downtime issues.

Location

Check the hosting company’s location before you select one for your business. The location should be convenient to serve your company easily and accurately. This step will significantly improve your SEO score.

The servers that are situated closer to the place where your audience resides provide improved site speeds. Besides this, selecting the right location will help you better comply with data storage regulations. Your website will face downtime if you are unable to adhere to the compliance guidelines.

Your domain name is also a crucial location-based factor. Some hosting service providers offer it to you for free. As per Google, crawlers treat all domains equally for SEO. Therefore, you can choose any domain as long as it suits your business well.

It is vital to check for any specific extensions for countries. For example, if you want to target your audience in the United Kingdom, you can choose the .uk domain so that search engines can geo-target that particular country.

Types of Hosting

You will get multiple options to choose an ideal hosting company and relatable plans. There are shared, dedicated, and managed hosting options. You may feel confused and overwhelmed if you are new to this.

Different domains serve dynamic purposes which can directly affect your SEO. But if you choose The best web host for SEO, it will multiply your growth immensely.

Let us look into a few website hosting types that you may come across. We will show you how they affect your SEO scores.

Free

Varied websites offer free hosting while other tools help to build websites. WordPress and Wix are two examples.

If you are starting a personal blog or website, this could sound like a good choice but it will not impact your SEO. A domain name is mandatory to handle a huge volume of incoming traffic. However, this website does not offer one for your domain.

Shared

We have seen that small websites begin with shared hosting plans. These plans are not only pocket-friendly but also convenient for beginners. A shared plan can cost you a few dollars which will do justice to your SEO aspirations.

Shared hosting maintains a good SEO-friendly web hosting experience by offering shared resources. It means that multiple users on the same server share the same resources.

Shared hosting is a great option for beginners. Nevertheless, the narrative changes for established businesses. Sharing resources can degrade your website’s performance.

For example, if one user’s website experiences a spike in traffic, your website will also face downtime. Therefore, it affects both SEO and performance.

Virtual Private Server

Your website shares the server with many others on selecting the Virtual Private Server. However, there is a virtual partitioning wall that keeps you apart. You can improve the website performance and reduce the chance of traffic on other websites affecting your SEO and loading speeds.

Dedicated

‘Dedicated’ means all to yourself. So, this entire server is dedicated to your business.

What does it mean for your brand?

It means that your website will have faster speeds and increased uptimes. You can control the server settings and adjust the options to make your website perform well.

While Dedicated SEO is an excellent SEO choice, it is also an expensive one. You might need it if you are running large-scale business operations. Otherwise, less.

Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting allows your website to be spread across several remote servers. If there is any issue with one server, the other servers actively take over. Therefore, cloud hosting ensures excellent uptimes, which helps your SEO scores. You can get a fast-loading website if you the proper set-up process.

It gets challenging in the primary stages if you do not have WordPress experience. This is where a managed hosting option could help you.

Managed Hosting

A lot of work burden is reduced when you select Managed Hosting. These tasks include – software or hardware configuration, technical support, maintenance, and upgrading the CMS.

Regardless of the expenses of this type of hosting, small and mid-sized businesses can easily fit this within their budget. You will notice a great improvement in the site loading speeds, performance aspects, and uptimes. Therefore, spend your money on an accurate hosting plan instead of wasting time to identify the bounce rate spike causes.

Bounce Rate Definition

This is the calculation for the number of users who visit your brand’s landing page but do not proceed to take any actions. The user comes and leaves.

Google confirms that bounce rates do not affect search engine rankings. However, other sources have revealed that there is indeed a direct relationship between the two.

Several parameters indicate that bounce rate significantly influences SEO score regardless of Google’s guidelines.

Dwell time is an important ranking factor as per Google’s latest updates in 2023. So, more bounce rates = fewer dwell times. Google crawlers think a site is irrelevant for users when a large number of audiences quickly abandon your website. Therefore, your relevance decreases for the search term and our position lowers.

How are bounce rates and hosting related?

Server downtimes and slow-loading websites are two main reasons for high bounce rates. These two factors are controlled by the hosting service only.

Security

With strict government regulations regarding data protection and security popping up, all tech giants are working to be more responsible with data handling. Google warns users when they get close to a website that is not secure.

Data from 2014 shows Google announced HTTPS encryption would be a crucial ranking factor. If you want to rank higher on SERPs, you need the lock sign before your URL.

A website host will also secure your company’s data and information from being hacked. You can lose your credibility and a lot of your business over this. A good SEO hosting company provides you a free SSL certificate ensuring your site is protected.

Level of Support

Choose a hosting provider that is always there to support you. Great hosting companies not only provide 24/7 customer support but also provide backup to resolve your issues swiftly.

Factors to Consider Before Choosing a Host For SEO

Let us check out a few key factors to select an ideal website hosting partner. This will help you increase your sales, boost your ranking, and drive more traffic.

Type of Host

Be aware of what your company needs at the moment. Whether you want a shared hosting or a VPS one, decide based on your requirements.

Price

The hosting plan cost does not impact your SEO but consider it regardless. You have to check what companies are offering. Compare the offerings and charges. Spend the extra money to maximize the outcomes. It is worth every penny.

Ask and understand what you will get for the price you pay. For instance, you will come across several shared hosting options that charge as low as $2.95 but the question remains will it be enough to support your business?

Check out aspects such as:

1. Will you get 24/7 support?
2. Will get any additional features for free?
3. Will the low-cost plan fulfill your needs?

Accessible Support

The Internet never sleeps and nor can you. What will happen if your Internet servers are busy when you are expecting massive sales?

Let me paint you a word picture!

People are staring at the clock. They are waiting for the sale on your website to go live. When the hour comes, visitors flock to your site in hope. But to their dismay, they find your website is down. What do you think happens next?

I will tell you!

You will lose customers, sales, and credibility all within a few minutes.

A hosting service can prevent this nightmare from becoming a reality. A good SEO hosting company offers constant monitoring to check and troubleshoot for technical glitches regularly.

Ensure that your hosting providers are readily available before you hire them.

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Establish whether your service providers offer CND in your final step. It is a separate service which speeds up your website.

A CDN uniquely functions by caching static data such as images, JS files, CSS, web fonts, and much more. This caching of data ultimately adds speed to content delivery. In simpler terms, the road for data commute is shortened. CDN can also reduce your TTFB. Time to first byte (TTFB) is measured by the amount of time the first byte takes to travel from server to browser. When the TTFB lowers, your website speed boosts. This is crucial for a well-optimized website.

A CDN will also enhance the uptimes by replicating content present across several servers at multiple geographical regions. As a result, if servers at one location are busy, the traffic gets redirected to another location.

Many hosting companies that provide CDNs also bring more security to the table. This is one more good reason to opt for CDNs.

How can You Make a Shift to a Better Hosting Company for SEO?

If your business is in its infancy and your website is just in its baby phase, you have a chance to decide after considering all the aspects we discussed above.

What will you do if you have active websites and the hosting providers do not support their promises?

Now, the question arises, will shifting to a different SEO hosting company be a good decision for your well-established website?

I will explain this to you in John Mueller’s (Senior Search Analyst, Google) words.

John Mueller mentioned that when you decide to migrate your website to a new host, Google chooses to decrease the number of times it crawls your website. Therefore, it will have an impact on SEO. But after some time, when Google’s systems consider it safe to crawl the site faster, it will pick up pace.

This effect does not happen only when a person migrates to a different host. Change in country or location records a similar impact.

Wrapping Up

Most companies make a huge mistake of basing their host purchasing decisions on factors like pricing plans and bandwidth. SEO remains out of the question.

For this mistake, companies have to pay a price by suffering losses and losing customers and sales.

Google or any search engine does not have anything to do with the type of Host you use. But factors like site speed, loading times, downtimes, security, and reliability play crucial roles in winning Google’s trust. The choice of hosting partner directly impacts the mentioned factors. So, choose wisely.

Use Per Wish specializes in customizing our digital solutions to fit each of our client’s needs. We work day in and out so our clients keep ascending the ladder of success. If you are still wondering which is the best hosting plan for SEO, Contact us today for consultation.