We are very excited to have caught up with Simon Carter, Content Executive at Strawberry Forge, who shares his insight into the importance of hosting and the benefits of having a reliable hosting partner.
You could have the best website in the world, but picking the wrong server hosting provider and hosting option can cause a lot of harm to your site’s reputation.
No one knows better than Strawberry Forge how important it is to provide great, relevant content on your website, but that’s only half the battle. We often recommend our clients to think more about their hosting as well, which will significantly help them achieve the results they’re after.
The reason we do this is because we’re SEO specialists who understand how bad hosting can seriously affect online authority and search engine rankings. Our content can get our clients to rank high on SERPs, but good hosting is what helps them stay there.
The Problems with Bad Hosting
It’s not uncommon to find websites that are still running on old, unfit-for-purpose servers purely because it only costs the site owner £10 a month.
Picking a host provider for their low price might sound like a money-saving idea, but in this world, you get what you pay for. Saving £40 a month on your bill could end up costing you a small fortune in online sales.
With this in mind, we’ve listed some of the biggest problems of bad hosting.
Website Crashes
Poor hosting can result in your site crashing, which can be because too many websites on the same server have a lot of traffic at the same time. Alternatively, one site could be using too many resources, meaning there’s not enough left for actions to be taken on your site.
For every second your website is down, you’re losing money through sales and you’re also paying for a service you aren’t receiving. Does £10 a month still sound like a good deal when your site is offline for several hours a day? It doesn’t to us.
Lack of Security
Running on a shared hosting service can bring with it a few security issues. While you may have taken the time to make sure your security is as solid as can be, other sites using the same server as you can provide hackers with an entry point to your website.
Even if you’re not on a shared service, a host that doesn’t provide extra firewall tech or antivirus software can leave you open to losing all your data.
What’s worse is that your customer’s data is susceptible to being stolen, too, and an unhappy customer can be very bad for business.
Which leads us onto our next point…
Poor Customer Service
An unreliable website can spell disaster for your customers and clients. Whether they’re in the middle of making a purchase, downloading an eBook or looking for your contact details to make an enquiry, if your site crashes, they won’t be coming back anytime soon.
Bad hosting can also cause your website to lag and actions could take a lifetime to implement. Well, it won’t literally take a lifetime, but if it feels like that to a visitor, they’ll be off to find another site.
Customers and clients are the lifeblood of any business, so naturally, you should be doing everything you can to make their visit to your site one they’ll enjoy.
The Benefits of Good Hosting
We don’t really want to focus on the negatives of bad hosting when there’s so much we can say on the benefits of good hosting.
Finding a provider and host type that suits you and your site can lead to great results, so let’s take a look at the plus points.
Higher SERP Rankings
Being experts in SEO, we’d be doing something very wrong indeed if we didn’t take the time to explain how good hosting can help you improve your SERP rankings.
Google’s algorithms are smart enough to work out if your web visitors are enjoying your site. If your site has significant uptime (ie. it doesn’t crash), is fast, responsive and has a solid SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) in place, Google will rank it higher as it clearly has a lot to offer visitors.
Improved Site Performance
As we’ve already talked about, lagging and poor loading times can actively drive visitors off your site and towards your biggest competitors.
Quality hosting is one of the best ways to keep visitors on your site. If they find each action they take to be quick and smooth, they’re more likely to look around the rest of the site, which could easily lead to them buying immediately or returning at a later date to make a purchase.
Who would’ve thought removing out-of-date repository plug-ins could yield such great results?
Technical Support
This one is a big benefit to you personally, as having a team of experts on hand will give you peace of mind that your site will always have someone looking after it.
The help and support offered by a hosting provider can also be useful in keeping your site free from bugs and coding errors, and they can backup all your data just in case your site does go down. This means you’ll still have data that can rank for search terms on Google.
Who Should you Turn to?
In this blog, we’ve highlighted why it’s so important to have a great hosting service, and we’re sure you’ll agree with us at this point.
This is precisely why we recommend Datacentreplus to our clients when building websites. We know from experience just how useful the Datacentreplus team can be in improving your site’s authority.
And, of course, with better authority, you’ll gain better SERP rankings.
To enhance your ranking score even further, you’ll need the help of dedicated SEO professionals, and that’s where Strawberry Forge comes in.
Call us on 0161 503 4650 or send an email to info@strawberryforge.com to find out how we can help with your digital marketing.
Image Credit: Tova Studio Photography & Video
