Search engine optimization, or SEO, is not solely about what you can control on-page and in the backend of your site. There are other factors that could decrease your Google ranking, search traffic, and user experience. One of the most important of those factors is website hosting.
Website hosting that continually serves up uptime issues or delivers poor WordPress support can be harmful to your site and business. However, there’s good news. The following SEO essentialsfor hosting can ensure you are providing the best user experience possible.
Choose A Hosting Service That Serves Up SEO-Minded Options
Hosting services usually have plenty of add-on features you can get for free or with a yearly or one-time purchase. Not all add-ons are needed, but some are good to have for improved site optimization.
For example, having a SSL certificate and HTTPS website is a must. Google is giving ranking priority to websites with HTTPS in place, according to a Google news release.
Another important SEO element to consider when researching hosting provider options is upgrade options. As your website grows, you may need to upgrade to a different hosting to ensure users are getting a stellar experience.
Choosing a web or website hosting provider with next-level plans is highly recommended. This can cut down on site speed and uptime problems online users, especially those of the mobile variety can’t stand.
Ensure The Hosting Provider Is Attentive
If you experience hosting problems, you definitely want to be able to get them fixed as fast as possible. This makes choosing an attentive website hosting provider an absolute must.
For instance, if your site crashes from the server side, you need to be able to call or chat with your hosting provider immediately. After all, for every minute your website is down, you’re losing money.
An exceptional hosting provider will offer 24/7 WordPress customer support, and you will actually be able to connect with them instead of being on hold for an hour. You can test this out by calling the host’s service number. If someone picks up in a relatively normal amount of time, they may be worth putting on your short list of potential choices.
How else can you qualify hosting providers that serve up exceptional customer support? Check online ratings and reviews from third parties. Don’t trust the website’s testimonials as those can be easily manipulated.
Research Online Ratings And Reviews Before Purchase
If you are looking for a hosting provider, you are most likely starting a business, or developing a website for your brick-and-mortar location. You did your due diligence about the marketplace, target audience, and more. Now apply those research skills to hosting.
Where can you find hosting provider reviews? Some of the best ratings and reviews can come from “Top Website Hosting” articles. Simply Google search it and you will find plenty of reviews and ratings articles that compare the different hosting providers.
One word of warning, some of those articles may be paid comparison articles from an actual host. This is good and bad, but unavoidable. Compare review articles while doing research and make the best decision possible.
While you’re at it, you might as well search for top WordPress themes and top plugins articles to further your SEO efforts down the road.
Get A Website Hosting Uptime Guarantee
We’ve touched on uptime already, but maybe you’re not quite sure what it is exactly. Uptime of a website refers to the amount of time your site is up and running from the server-side of things. When you have uptime issues, your website will display a 5xx error to your potential customers when they land on your site.
This is not good for business. Most consumers will never return to a site that doesn’t come up. In fact, you will probably lose users to your competitors. This makes high uptime percentage a must for SEO and providing a powerful user experience.
A site will go down once in a blue moon, but it’s important to uptime issues to a minimum. Hosting providers with an uptime guarantee ensure you will get the service you’re paying for. Shoot for a hosting uptime guarantee of 99.999 percent.
Know Where Your Server Is
The type of hosting plan you choose will dictate what server your site will be on. For example, if you choose a shared hosting plan, you will most likely be on a server in a data center somewhere, sharing space with hundreds of other websites.
This is generally normal for new businesses trying to keep costs low. However, knowing where that server is located can have an impact on how fast your users get your content. Slow delivery and poor site speed can provide a bad user experience, and you want to avoid that for the sake of SEO.
The closer your server is to your target audience, the faster they will get your site content. If your audience is in the United States, you want your server to be located in the U.S. and in your audience’s region for best results.
Make SEO A Hosting Priority
To provide a user experience search engines and your potential customers love is all about SEO. Hosting can impact your site optimization efforts, and to ensure you are partnering with a hosting provider that delivers is vital to your business’ short and long-term success. Here you can get some ideas about benefits of managed hosting for your business.
