Whether it’s a blog or an eCommerce store, marketing is an essential feature, helping your site to be seen amongst the masses.
We are all aware of the importance of SEO to generate organic traffic and Paid Ads to help bring in targeted leads, but what about web hosting?
An important feature that is required by all sites, when it comes to creating a new website, your choice of web host can play a crucial part in your sites future performance.
In this blog, we will discuss how your web hosting can play a crucial role in your marketing efforts and how web hosting and marketing can be linked together.
What is a web host?
For those unsure souls considering taking the leap of faith and creating a shiny new site for their latest business endeavor, a web host is a crucial decision that is often overlooked.
When it comes to hosting a website, there are two options. Larger businesses often choose to host their site in house through the addition of an industry leading rackmount servers, while smaller, independent businesses would look at a web hosting service. With a large range of companies around, these organisations allow people to post a website or web page onto the internet. If you are new to the game and the least bit technical, a web hosting service can conduct all the required changes, updates and are often on hand with support when required.
How does a server work? A web host will take your website, storing it on one of their large servers, a special kind of computer. When a searcher types in your website, their computer browser will connect to the server that your site has been stored upon, before the server delivering the requested web pages onto the browser.
Web hosting and marketing, how are they linked?
You can be excused for asking, how is my choice of web hosting linked to my marketing strategy? With the aim of digital marketing to drive traffic to the site, with these leads then converting, the biggest feature within the project is health and functionality of the website.
With the website sitting at the heart, the core foundation of all efforts, the web hosting that you choose can play a crucial role.
If overlooked or rushed, the server that you choose to place your site could affect the website’s performance, slow down the page speed, security and even counteract all conducted SEO efforts. No matter whether you create a solid keyword strategy, compress images, reduce the amount of slow loading plugins that your site possesses, a slow and inadequate server can keep your site from making it to the first page of the Search engine result pages SERPs.
How to work out the best web hosting for your business?
When it comes to web hosting and marketing, first you must take the time to work out the best web hosting for your business. You must ask yourself, what do I need in my web hosting? With a selection of servers, from self-hosted, service providers and SaaS, the different nature of the business and the role of the site will play a part in deciding your final decision.
SaaS sites are most commonly seen with Shopify, Squarespace and Godaddy, where business owners can pay to host their site on their server for a small fee.
Self hosting sites, unlike with SaaS sites, allow the owner to have full control of their data. It has also been found that there is a higher security level when self hosting the site, as SaaS sites see the data from a large range of sites being stored in one location.
What to look for in a web hosting company?
When it comes to upgrading your web hosting and the time to look for a new company to entrust your site, there is a range of categories that this site must meet.
From high uptime guarantee, to the servers location and option of added extras, keep reading to discover what you should look for, for web hosting and marketing.
1. Guarantee of High Uptime
Many web hosting sites offer an uptime guarantee and this is one of the most important factors in deciding whether the organisation is SEO friendly.
For those new to the web hosting game, uptime refers to the time where your site is live and accessible. The more the uptime, the less likely visitors will visit your site when the site is down. This will reduce the amount of visitors being redirected back away from your site, in turn not affecting your SERP rankings.
High uptime results in more conversions, with a 99.9% uptime guarantee being a desired figure.
2. Location of the server
As we have discussed previously, the location of where the server is, is an important feature. You must ask yourself, how accessible is the server and the data that is stored on it.
You also should consider the country where this server is located. If your target audience is in the UK, but your server is in the United States, this will lead to the site taking longer to load for UK visitors.
The location of your server can also be viewed and evaluated by search engines. For instance, if you are a Russian company hosting on a US server, Google and other search engines can view the difference in doman location through the use of geolocation, in turn they may question why, which could affect your SEO and rankings.
While the company hosting on the web hosting server has to follow and act upon the data laws enforced in their servers location.
3. Added extras
Like when purchasing car insurance, when shopping around for web hosting, keep an eye out for added extras. Helping to improve and enhance your web hosting experience, look for companies that offer optional add ons.
There is a range of added upgrades, from Automatic backup, SSL certificates to multiple hosting plans.
Automatic backups are important for those times when something goes wrong or the site was to drop, as this important extra allows your site to quickly be back up and running in no time. This added feature is usually included for free or for an added cost. SSL certificates, however are an important HTTPS feature for any
ecommerce marketing expert looking to create a secure site for conducting regular transactions.
Each feature should be considered depending on the nature and role of your website and should be discussed when shopping around for the best web hosting platform for their needs.
4. Support Team
A key feature to look for when shopping around for your next web hosting company and that is a reliable support team who are on hand to help when required. If in the unforeseen event that the site was to go down, by having a support team that you can contact in your time of need, it is essential in ensuring that the fault is fixed immediately. Many web hosting services offer 24/7 support for free, with these features often rated and detailed within customer reviews.
5. CMS
Not an essential requirement, but equally important, finding a web host that integrates CMS is an added bonus. By choosing a hosting that accommodates a familiar or easy to use CMS can be useful, allowing you to make your own edits to your site when required over time. By also offering a CMS system that you can use, you can be more flexible and free with the changes that you make to your website, helping your site to keep up with your changing targets over time.
6. Reviews
Like with all investments and large purchases, it is important to read the reviews and note companies with good ratings. By reading the reviews, you can make your judgement based upon other companies’ own experiences. Instead of investing and signing a contract locking you in for a further year, read the review and make sure that you are choosing the best plan for you and your businesses needs.
Hopefully we have answered any questions that you may have about web hosting and marketing and how they are linked and how they can impact your marketing efforts. Whether they are slowing the loading speed of your site, crashing with a low uptime; the importance of a reliable and trusted web host is paramount.
When shopping around for your next host of choice, make sure to look at all the features, ask for add ons, all the while reading the reviews, helping you to choose the best web hosting for your sites needs.
With a variety of choices available, whether you are seeking internal or an external server located on a shared server, make sure to take the time to find the correct plan for your needs.
If you have any experience looking and upgrading your hosting, we would love to hear from you. Comment below and share with us your experience of hosting your websites and any challenges that you experienced.