SEO and you: How hosting can affect your website ranking

As a business, you’re always finding ways to make your company more visible to potential customers. In the digital world, that means that you’re continually finding ways to improve your website rank and SEO.

Did you know that where you host your site can affect your SEO? It’s true.

Below, we’ll review the most common asked questions about website hosting, how to understand what a good host is, and how to make the best decision for your business.

How does web hosting affect your SEO?

Most people believe that your host has a minimal effect on your SEO. Surprisingly, that's not true. Several factors can affect your rankings. When picking a hosting provider, you’ll need to keep some different items in mind

Downtime

Downtime can occur when your host has technical issues that stop your website from being live. SEO bots will try to visit your site multiple times a day, and if it’s down, you may have a lower rank because if it.

Some downtime for your website is unavoidable. Most hosting providers, even with the best plan, can only guarantee 99.99% of uptime. Be sure to find the best possible provider for uptime so your rankings won’t be affected.

Location

SEO rank is affected by the location your website is hosted. If the user looking for your site is based in the United States and your website is located in the United Kingdom your SEO ranking will be lower.

Finding a host with servers in the same location as you will greatly benefit your SEO rank. Be sure to do your research to find the right host.

Security

If your website is hacked, there are so many things that could happen to your SEO if it’s in someone else’s hands. Make sure that your host provider can help you take steps to ensure its security.

SSL’s are second to none when it comes to SEO rankings. If you don’t have a secure website, Google will see that and rank your website lower because of it. Potential visitors to your site will see a warning when going to your website too, turning them off from your business. As its primary goal is to protect personal information from getting hacked, Google has also been taking SSL certificates into account when ranking SEO since 2014.

A lot of hosting packages do not come with an SSL and they can be difficult to maintain. Make sure that you pick a hosting provider that offers a package with an included SSL. This will not only take the load off of you but help you feel secure and confident with your website.

How can hosting change your load times?

Google will test your load times, and if they aren’t at an optimal loading speed, they will rank you lower. Hosting can change your load times a little bit, but the most significant factor in having a fast website is making sure that your site is optimized.

Websites can run slower if your images aren’t optimized, plugins are out of date, or you have too many plugins. Having a professional look over your website in a no-cost project analysis would be an excellent place to start.

So, what can SP Marketing do for you?

As your digital marketing agency, we offer fully managed hosting. This not only guarantees that we’ll continuously be optimizing our speed and service to serve your business better.

When we say fully managed, we mean it. We include website backups, access to your very own CPanel, and we guarantee 99.99% uptime. We promise a no-hassle migration that will minimize any downtime during the transfer.

Regarding those pesky SSL certificates: We do offer packages that include them. We’ll install it for you and always keep it up to date with the latest security features.

Want to learn more about our hosting service? Please send us an email or give us a call now.

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Scottsdale Phoenix Marketing

Scottsdale Phoenix Marketing is a full service digital marketing agency and web design firm located in Scottsdale, Arizona.

1-877-347-3376
Monday through Friday, 9:00am - 5:00pm

SP Marketing Experts
www.spmarketingexperts.com
9903 E. Bell Rd., Suite #120-B
Scottsdale AZ 85260

Scottsdale Phoenix Marketing is a digital marketing agency and web design firm specializing in a variety of online marketing channels. Since our founding in 1999, it has been our goal to help all business run more efficiently and effectively online. Combined, our team of designers, developers, and marketing experts have over 40 years of experience and an ever growing drive for success.