The Impact of Web Hosting on SEO: Choosing the Right Host for Better Rankings
Your web host contributes to much more than just providing space for your website on the internet. One of the things you NEED to know is the impact of web hosting on SEO… And how to pick a web host that maximizes your rankings.
If you’ve got any kind of blog or you’re relying on organic methods to bring visitors to your site, every single small thing you can do to optimize your SEO is worth considering. And the web host you choose does make a difference!
Here’s what you need to know about how your web host impacts SEO and how to choose the right host for better rankings.
Why Web Hosting Matters for SEO
There’s plenty you can do to boost your website’s SEO, including investing in a variety of SEO tools. Web hosting is often neglected in the quest for great SEO, but here’s why it matters.
Speed
To rank well, your website must have an impressive page loading speed—less than 2 seconds! Google prioritizes speedy websites, so choosing a web host that’s stable and fast is a must for good SEO.
Shared hosting is affordable but often loads slowly, knocking you down the rankings when Google crawls your site. A slow page loading speed also tarnishes your reputation in Google’s eyes because most users will bounce if your page hasn’t loaded within 3 seconds.
Ultimately, you can do spot-on keyword research and write valuable SEO-friendly content. But if your web host is working against you, then you’ll never be able to rank as well as you’d like… Or as well as you could, with reliable, fast hosting.
Security
A website with poor security looks untrustworthy in the eyes of Google, causing it to push you down the rankings. Interesting fact: Google redirects 95% of web traffic to HTTPS sites, so websites without an SSL certificate have practically zero chance of ranking.
The good news is that most web hosts offer an SSL certificate free these days, but double-check this before you settle on one. Aside from SSL, a website without robust security might be seen as a threat to visitors, meaning Google could drop it way down the rankings in an attempt to help protect users.
It’s in your best interest to make sure your site has multiple security layers. Not only does it protect you from cyber-attacks and your visitors from potential problems, but it gives you bonus points with Google and helps edge you up the rankings.
Location
The location of your web host’s server can boost or hamper your SEO. If your audience is in a specific region, make sure you host your website on a local server so it loads as fast as possible for our visitors.
If your audience is global, you need a web host that uses a CDN (content delivery network). This distributes a copy of your content across a network of virtual servers, so no matter where a user is, there’s a copy of your data nearby that’ll load quickly on their browser.
While server location isn’t exactly a factor in SEO, the effect it has on loading speed is the important thing here. The closer it is to your user, the faster your pages will load.
Uptime Reliability
Frequent downtime not only damages your reputation with users if they can’t access your site, but it also presents an issue for SEO if Google tries to crawl your site when it’s down.
If your site is offline when Google (or any other search engine) is crawling, it won’t be ranked at all. Google may perceive your site as being inactive or having a problem, leaving it off the rankings entirely, no matter how good your on-page SEO is.
How to Choose the Right Web Host for SEO and Better Rankings
If SEO is important to you, start by choosing a web host that’ll work with you and not against your SEO efforts. Here’s what to look for.
A Host With Servers Optimized for Speed and Performance
Speed is extremely important when it comes to SEO. A web host that’s optimized for speed will naturally offer better performance, but multiple factors go into a speedy web host.
Check the page loading speed of the host you’re considering. Under 2 seconds is the ideal number. Make sure the host uses SSD (solid-state drives) instead of HDD (hard disk drives), as they’re noticeably faster.
The host should have a server location close to your target audience OR a content delivery network (which is preferable). Check what other speed-related features the host offers that could boost your page loading speed.
Verify Speed Claims
Don’t just take the host’s word for it when they throw out numbers. When it comes to speed, you can’t afford to choose something sub-par, so do your own research and verification rather than assuming that they’re being honest.
Tools like Pingdom or Google PageSpeed Insights are free and easy to use to test website loading speed. If you know of a website being hosted by the provider, you can easily do a speed test and get some insight into the actual loading speed.
You can always ask for a demo, but some hosts won’t allow for this. Aside from doing your own tests, browse through user forums, social media, and real-people reviews for a deeper look into the web host’s claims.
Uptime Guarantee
Your web host should offer an uptime of at LEAST 99.9%. An excellent web host will offer four nines (99.99%), and it’s the gold standard that every website owner should aim for. Anything less, and you can expect your uptime to tank and downtime to increase.
You can also check real reviews to get an idea of if the web host is true to their uptime claims. Do your own research using tools like Uptime Robot or Pingdom to monitor the uptime/downtime of sites you know are hosted by the provider.
Evaluate Security Protocols
An SSL certificate is the first thing to look for. On top of that, a good web host will offer layered security measures, including things like firewalls, malware scanning, two-factor authentication, and regular updates.
You can add extra security features later, but a web host should offer tough enough security that you don’t have to add much more and take up memory and storage space.
Assess Scalability
An SEO-friendly web host will be able to grow with you. As your business grows, the features you’re using now might not be enough, and if your site outgrows its web hosting plan, some features may not work properly.
This can lead to issues like slow loading speeds, which will end up having a negative effect on your SEO. Make sure the host you choose makes it easy for you to upgrade or scale as your business grows, so you can avoid these kinds of issues.
Reliable Tech Support
When something goes wrong with your site, the faster tech support can fix it, the less time your site spends being offline. Choose a web host with excellent, reliable tech support, and you can expect better uptime and in turn, better rankings.
Make sure the host you choose is easy to contact in case of an emergency. Email, phone, and 24/7 live chat are the minimum requirements—you want to be able to get in touch as soon as possible if something needs to be fixed.
We also recommend choosing a host with a robust knowledge base or library so you have the opportunity to boost your own knowledge or troubleshoot on your own if you’d prefer.
Customer reviews are one of the best ways to get an accurate idea of a web host’s customer service. Do your research and don’t compromise on this!
Conclusion
Choosing the right host for better rankings isn’t as hard as you might assume! Knowing what contributes to good SEO is the first step, and once you understand which boxes to tick, it’s easy to study web hosts and make a more informed decision as to whether they’re a good choice or not.
Don’t undermine your SEO efforts by choosing a poor web host! Build your website on a foundation that works with your SEO, and you can expect better results in the long run.
About the Author
Paul Wheeler runs a web design agency that helps small businesses optimize their websites for business success. He aims to educate business owners on all things website-related at his own website, Reviews for Website Hosting.