When setting up a website, most business owners don’t put enough time and effort into choosing a reliable web hosting service. Instead, they go for the most affordable option, pay them a monthly fee, and go on their merry way.
However, this not a good idea. Choosing an unreliable provider may hurt your SEO efforts, website security, and online performance on multiple levels. This may result in poor user experience and low conversion rates, affecting your online business’ bottom line.
So, if you’re still not sure why web hosting is important, here are a few facts you should keep in mind.
Speed Impacts User Experience
Did you know that your customers expect your site to load in 2-3 seconds? And, if it doesn’t, they will kick it.
Today’s web searchers are tech-savvy. They know what the characteristics of a user-friendly site are and they don’t want to spend their time on anything less than that.
In other words, your website speed is what makes people stay on your site or leave it immediately.
This is exactly why you should check with your hosting provider what your hosting plan includes and upgrade it regularly to boost your speed. Using a CDN (content delivery network) can also be useful, especially when it comes to ecommerce sites and websites using large graphics and images.
Website Security may Make or Break your Business
Today’s cyberattacks have become smarter. And, they usually target web hosts to gain the access to their clients’ sites. And, when this happens, even the simplest malware can ruin your ecommerce site if it isn’t protected properly.
Here is how.
First, cyberattacks such as website defacements may affect your SEO efforts. And, like you already know, in today’s overly competitive business ecosystem, ranking high in the SERPs is critical. SEO improves your visibility and gives you the opportunity to be found by the people that are really interested in your products.
Second, hacked sites face a significant brand reputation damage. Namely, to complete a purchase on your site, people leave their sensitive data, such as passwords and credit card information there. And, the fact that you’ve been hacked indicates that your users’ data isn’t safe with you and they will decide to buy from your competitors.
Apart from the plummeting number of your customers, there are some additional costs you will need to cover, such as customer notification, possible legal judgments, and credit monitoring. These expenses may affect your financial health and the chances are you won’t be able to recover from them ever again. Research shows that 60% of SMBs that go through a cyberattack go out of business in 6 months.
Here is how to prevent this from happening:
- Choose a reliable web host that uses trusted malware and vulnerability scanners.
- Check if they have a strong policy against DDoS (distributed denial-of-service attacks), ensuring that the hosting system will be available even in a case of an online hack.
- Back up your website data regularly so that you can recover it in case you go through a cyberattack. Check how often your web hosting provider backs your data up, what data they back up, as well as where this data is stored.
Website Speed + Better Website Uptime = Higher Rankings
Choosing a web hosting provider may influence your SEO in multiple ways.
First, there’s the website speed we’ve been talking about. Apart from influencing user experience, this is one of Google’s most significant ranking signals for both mobile and desktop sites. Simply put, if your website is slow, your bounce rates will be high and conversion rates poor, which is a clear indicator for Google that it shouldn’t rank you high.
Second, your website downtime (when your website is down due to the problems with the hosting server) can also affect your rankings. Namely, Google’s bots will probably crawl your website a few times a day and, if they keep noticing that your site is not working, they will flag it as unreliable and your rankings will drop. Google cares a lot about their users’ safety and experience and they won’t give such sites a boost.
It Helps You Save Money on IT Support
Today, many website owners use web hosting control panels to manage their sites without having to hire an expert. In this case, all you need to have is a server and a control panel. As you can conclude, a control panel is a web-based interface provided by a hosting company that helps you manage hosted services effortlessly.
Now, there are different types of control panels. The most popular one is cPanel hosting. It combines simple interface with some advanced features, making it a perfect choice for both newbies and well-versed professionals. Some other paid hosting panels are:
- Plesk
- Direct Admin
- H-Sphere
If that’s still too much for you, you can always choose open-source hosting panels, such as Sentora, VestaCP, Webmin, Ajenti.
Domain Name System needs to Work Perfectly
DNS is short from Domain Name System, which is basically the basis of your website. It’s a directory that matches domain names with specific IP addresses. Something like a phonebook.
And, if your DNS is down, this simply means that your site doesn’t work.
Since it’s usually your web host’s responsibility, many website owners take it for granted, which has inspired hackers to develop different forms of DNS-based cyberattacks, such as DNS reflection attacks, DNS cache poisoning, DNS resource exhaustion, and so on. This is why you need to register your domain name with a reliable register and, most importantly, always choose a web host that invests a lot in their clients’ security.
Choosing a reliable hosting provider can give your ecommerce site a boost. So, make sure you do your research and choose the plan that meets your business’ needs.
