How Does Your Web Host Affect SEO

October 29, 2019 by Mary Derosa

Any business that is hoping to upscale their presence in the World Wide Web should adhere to the rules of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). With Google owning about 92 percent of the search market, ranking high on SERPs will improve the searchability, visibility, and credibility of a brand.

To harness the benefits of SEO, businesses must first ensure that their websites are fully functional with a reliable web host. Without careful consideration, choosing a wrong hosting provider may do more harm than good.

Here are the reasons why choosing the right web host is vital to your site’s SEO:

Server Uptime and Downtime

Search engines put a lot of emphasis on the reliability of a website, which is largely based on the server’s uptime and downtime. This measure is crucial to maintain the quality of the search results.

Downtime refers to the amount of time that the website is inaccessible due to server problems. If a site is always down when search engine robots try to crawl it, the site will be flagged as unreliable, hence lowering its ranking.

As such, it’s crucial to choose an excellent web host. It ensures that your website will have enough resources to be up and running 99.9% of all the time. If a site experiences downtime on a regular basis, then it is a clear sign to change hosting providers.

Loading Speed

Since 2010, Google has highlighted the importance of page loading speed when determining search rankings. Furthermore, it clearly states that two seconds is the threshold for ecommerce sites.

The reason? The faster the site, the better the user experience.

From a business standpoint, a good page loading speed stands to gain far more in terms of sales and visibility. According to Amazon, a one-second slowdown in their page loading can cost them $1.6 Billion in sales per year! If a website is built with the intention of converting traffic to sales, then this is a key factor that all site owners should invest in.

While the page loading speed is not entirely reliant on the web host alone, having a reliable provider can support a website’s loading time with the latest technologies and infrastructure to handle a high volume of traffic. If a web page takes more than two seconds to load, it is a clear sign that a web host evaluation is required.

Server location

The server location is closely related to the speed of your site.

To reduce latency, it is recommended to host your website in a data center that is located near your visitors. The shorter the distance, the quicker it takes for the data to travel.

For that reason, Google prefers to show results based on the location of the user. So if your visitors are primarily based in the US, choose a web host that has a data center in the US. That way, you’ll have a higher chance to rank well.

Alternatively, if you’re a global business, you can also choose a hosting company with a network of geographically-distributed servers. So, wherever your customers are, your website will always sit on the top of Google SERPs.

How to Select the Right Web Host?

Aside from the key factors mentioned above, it is also important to ensure that the provider has excellent customer support, security features, and upgrade options.

For instance, choose a web hosting with 24/7 customer support, so you can contact them anytime an issue arises.

In terms of security, pick a web host that offers various security measures like regular backups and updates, malware detection and removal, and DDoS protection.

Lastly, keep an eye on the company’s upgrade options, so you can seamlessly scale your resources whenever you need to.