Web Hosting Effect On SEO [Explained]

Last Updated on July 25, 2022 by Ibe Princewill

You’re excited about what the future holds. Let’s get online right now, buy some cheap hosting and get going, right?

No, wrong.

It’s so easy to just jump into the deep end and then realize much too late that you don’t know how to swim the sea of web hosting services and their effects on SEO. So let’s talk about what web hosting is.

In its most basic terms, web hosting is the service that enables an individual or an organization to publish a website on the internet. A website is made up of a website address, also called a domain name and a web host.

And while we might think that a website is something that only exists digitally, physical resources are also needed to power internet content, mainly in the form of servers.

Different websites have different needs, so a variety of web hosting services exist.

The type that’s best for your business will depend on a variety of things, including the type of business, such as the amount of website traffic and how many visual assets are on your site.

Additionally, there are a lot of hosting companies that offer different options. So when evaluating a web hosting provider, we’ve got a few factors for you to consider. Which are:

Average Uptime

So the first factor to look out for is the average uptime, which is the average amount of time your website stays up within a given period of time. Your website’s average uptime is important because it can affect how much traffic your website gets, which is important.

Your website won’t get much traffic if visitors can’t access it when they visit.

Just one hour of downtime means your business is already losing a lot of potential sales (imagine when that special client with the right budget visits your website and gets the “503 Service Unavailable error”), which means that your server is down. This is why you’d want your average uptime to be 100% or as close to it as possible.

An average uptime of less than 99.9% means you should start looking for a different web hosting provider.

Page Load Time

And another major factor that you have to consider is page load time, which is the amount of time it takes for a webpage to load. Similar to uptime, your page load time affects how much traffic your website gets.

This is because the slower your webpage loads, the more frustrated the website visitor gets. A study by Google revealed that 53% of mobile site visitors leave if it takes more than three seconds to load a page.

It’s for this reason that you should use a web host that can provide page load times of three seconds or less.

Location

Nowadays, host location is far less important than it always was. However, the legal and international aspects are still important. It is advisable to host the website in Nigeria or the USA, for instance, if you intend to conduct business there particularly.

Make sure you avoid hosting in any nations where it is prohibited to engage in certain activities, or else users may not have access to your website over there.

These things aren’t truly SEO, but they can certainly interfere with your business or SEO efforts, which is worth mentioning.

Customer Support

Speaking of customer support, we all need it, and getting helpful customer support means you can deal with website problems faster and more effectively.

Most web hosting providers usually offer phone, chat, or ticket-based customer support, but what really matters is how quickly they can respond and how knowledgeable their support team is. You don’t need a customer support representative, who you’ll have to teach some website or web hosting terminology and explain how their backend support service works, and which button they’ll have to push from their backend in order to help you resolve the issue. I know you are not ready for that.

Pricing

Let’s talk about pricing and then the renewal pricing. Every business is looking to make a profit. In order to do so, you have to be willing to invest some money in it first, I mean, we all know that.

But if you’re just starting out, you may not want to spend your life savings on an expensive hosting plan. Right?

So, an affordable hosting plan with basic needs such as uptime, available storage space, and good bandwidth is fine for a start.

You also may not want to cheap out on features if you’re running a website for a major brand.

Another important thing to watch out for when it comes to pricing is the cost of renewing your account or package.

You might be surprised to find the renewal cost is two times higher than your initial payment when you signed up, which is very bad for business!

So, make sure it’s not too much of a price hike for your budget. Let me know in the comment section if you need a recommendation.

Storage and Bandwidth

All right, now let’s talk about storage and bandwidth. The more storage you get to store the images and files that make up your website, the better.

Storage or disk space is self-explanatory. It determines the amount of site content you can store, which includes text, images, code, databases, and even e-mails.

Similar to storage

Web hosting bandwidth, if you are wondering, is the amount of data that a website can deliver to its visitors over a certain period of time.

So the higher bandwidth a web hosting provider offers, guess what?

The better.

SSL (Secure Socket Layer)

Firstly, SSL, or Secure Sockets Layer, is an encryption-based Internet security standard. Netscape first created it in 1995 for the purpose of ensuring privacy.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) maintains an internet connection’s security while protecting any sensitive data passed between two computers (client and server), preventing internet criminals from accessing and changing any sent information, including potentially personal details.

Some web hosting providers offer free SSL as part of their plans, which is a necessity.

Ultimately, an SSL certificate creates an encrypted connection and establishes trust. It adds that green padlock icon before your URL and puts the S in HTTPS (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol).

They help secure your website transactions by encrypting any information going through them, and this is important, especially for e-commerce websites dealing with debit and credit cards.

Backups

The last major web hosting effect on SEO to consider is backups. Your web hosting provider should ideally offer regular website backups, or at least make it easy for you to do it yourself.

A website backup feature creates a copy of your website and helps keep your website up and running. It also prevents you from losing all your website progress and data if something unfortunate occurs.

A website backup can be very important when switching or moving from one web host to another for any reason.

Finding a web hosting provider is an important part of building your website. Finding the right one may be a make or break for your business, but going through these points will help you find the web hosting of your dreams and enable you to build that perfect website.

After putting the above points in place and building that perfect website, you’ll need that website to be seen by your clients or customers, right?

Then you have two options, which are: paid advertising or SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

For paid advertisements, check out >> So Cheap Advertising Agency 

I’ll be covering the free method below, which is SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Bonus Tip: SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) refers to the process of making your website better so that it will be more visible when people look for goods or services linked to your business on a search engine such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

I’m sure you’ve heard of it, but what does it offer?

Well, it offers an excellent opportunity to make money online, and when done well, SEO can be a good source of passive or recurring income.

However, like starting any other business, starting an SEO business can be a bit overwhelming, especially if you lack the right skills.

So does that make it difficult? Not really, and that is why I am here to help you.

Luckily, I am going to explain how you can develop a recurring income stream with it.

First, let’s briefly talk about the different types of SEO that can help make either passive or recurring income for you.

So we’ve got a few of them, starting off with:

Affiliate SEO.

This is where you optimize an affiliate website or a special link of the website assigned to you for SEO to increase traffic, generate leads, and, ultimately, make sales so you earn a commission.

Client SEO.

Client SEO involves providing SEO services to businesses and getting paid for them.

Lead Gen SEO

Lead Gen SEO is the act of improving a website’s ranking for individual web pages and search engine results to increase leads and revenue.

And lastly,

Rank and Rent SEO.

This is when you build a website, improve its rankings on search engine result pages, and later just rent it out. Yes, rent it out like a building!

So let’s talk about how you can get started. The first step to building a good SEO service is to learn SEO.

Many people who just go ahead and skip over this step end up with a half-baked venture and unhappy clients, which is terrible news.

So take your time to learn SEO in detail before you actually go and set up that SEO business.

The best part is that there are many online resources out there to help you understand SEO and the best practices that go along with it.

Some useful SEO tools include Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Google Data Studio, and Google My Business.

Then other tools outside of Google are Semrush and Ahrefs.

Also, you don’t have to master everything to start offering SEO services.

Once you understand the basics, you can start using and offering the services, which will lead you on a safe path to becoming an expert.

So now you want to create a website that’s actually showcasing your service options, and learning SEO is only the beginning.

You need hands-on experience and what better way to gain SEO experience than to try it on your own website.

Ideally, creating your own website allows you to apply what you’ve learned instead of using your client’s websites as a testing ground, and a simple but attractive website will do the trick.

Also, create and post SEO content on your website to address common customer pain points.

One thing you’ll want to keep in mind is SEO isn’t a one-off project. That means you need to learn project management skills to manage tasks and your team if you have one.

And project management involves two crucial categories, Planning and Fulfillment.

Planning forms the foundation of your SEO services. It involves research, evaluation, and strategy.

In other words, planning helps get a clear direction of how to build your SEO campaigns.

And then fulfillment involves plan execution.

More specifically, fulfillment involves implementing a well-thought strategy to get the most out of your SEO efforts.

This can be delivering what you promised to clients or getting more revenue from your SEO business.

Pricing Structures

Speaking of revenue, how do you create your pricing model?

Well, there’s not a single answer to this question, unfortunately. Knowing the value of SEO will help give your prospects a more convincing answer.

And that said, here are three common pricing structures for SEO companies.

Fixed

You may want to use this pricing structure in projects that involve various SEO services like keyword research, SEO consulting services, on-page optimization, web design services, et cetera.

Hourly

You could also do it hourly. Therefore, this pricing structure is ideal for those simple tasks, such as website audits and keyword research.

Retainer

So once you’re established, you can put your clients on a retainer basis, depending on their budgets.

Now wrapping everything up, you want to make sure you document everything. Now testing systems is one thing, and you should make sure you document all of your findings.

Consider gathering positive reviews and creating case studies that will help showcase your SEO services with the right web host in place.

Some of the crucial things to conclude in your case study could be the problem.

which includes:

• The problem(s) that your clients want to be solved.
• The solution(s) that you personally propose.
• The result gotten from the solution you proposed.
• Did the solution you offer provide the desired results?
• Why or why not?

And lastly, testimonials. We love the social proof here.

• What’s a client’s experience working with you?

Like any other business, starting an SEO business can be overwhelming and confusing, but if you’re willing to learn and do the hard work, you can create a successful SEO business that will give you recurring income. By putting the above effects of a good web hosting service in mind, you’ll surely scale through.

Final Question

Does web hosting affect a site’s SEO?

Short answer, Yes!

A website can only function smoothly and quickly and achieve better Google search rankings if it is hosted on a high-quality hosting server. 

You don’t want to put on your best SEO hat with a poor web hosting package filled with downtimes and low uptime. All of the aforementioned factors are sufficient to confirm the assumption that a website hosted on a lousy host is doomed to failure.

Putting the above points covered in this article in mind, you should be able to get a better web hosting service/package for you and your clients.