Are you looking for an exceptional SEO-friendly web hosting company?
True, hosting alone won’t push you towards the top of search engine results. However, it is an essential step that can help you through the entire SEO process.
Today, we’ll highlight the elements you should focus on to find the best web hosting to help you build a successful, SEO-friendly business website.
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of boosting traffic to your site through organic search results. It’s basically when Google positions you on the top of search results without you having to pay for it – which means you’re attracting traffic organically.
Google does that only when it recognizes the site offers an extraordinary, simple, yet informative and plagiarism-free content users are finding helpful.
The web host you decide to host with determines the overall quality and site experience your visitors have.
What are the Benefits of Having an SEO-Friendly Website?
Having an SEO-friendly site means you’ll have a better position on search engine rankings. That way, you increase web traffic at a steady clip.
Of course, we’re talking about organic traffic, which means you won’t need to go for paid advertising or some other marketing strategies in order to reach your target audience or potential customers. You’re getting a cost-effective solution with the best possible results.
Credibility of your brand is another thing that grows when you’re at the top of search results. When you’re at the top of the results page, it states your site is relevant and a valuable source of information users are looking for.
Taking a better position in search results also helps you survive in the competitive arena of today’s business world and challenges your business rivals.
Finally, with an SEO-friendly site, Google recognizes you have a more user-friendly website.
Top Six Elements of SEO-Friendly Web Hosting
1. Uptime
The most important feature a good web hosting provider needs to deliver is uptime, especially when combined with speed optimization. Uptime directly measures the percentage of time when your website is accessible via the Internet.
Reliable hosting companies bring high uptime guarantees. If a host guarantees 99.9% uptime, you can be sure to get excellent results. It means your site will be down around 1.44 minutes per day. Annually, downtime would be roughly 8.8 hours, which is a good score. Keeping the downtime short also helps to maintain your SEO performance.
2. Speed Optimization
Website performance is something we take for granted when all is good, but it sticks out pretty quickly when a site takes a while to load. While Google considers various elements before ranking your site, speed is one of the important items the ranking algorithm takes into consideration.
Search engines can even penalize your domain by lowering your rankings if you have a loading time below average. Try to stick below three seconds for pages to load.
A faster website also lowers your bounce rate. ‘Bounce’ is when users come to your site and leave it without making any interactions, such as visiting another page or clicking a button.
You can test your website’s speed with numerous free tools out there.
Two simple speed tools you might want to try right away are GTmetrix and Pingdom. After placing your URL in the box, these tools will immediately tell you how long it takes for your website to load, and give specific details about what needs to be improved.
Web hosting has a significant impact on your page loading speed. If you want to improve your spot on the search engine results page, make sure to seek an SEO-friendly web hosting company with a history of providing good speeds to their clients.
Liquid Web has made web hosting simple yet effective with utilizing enterprise-grade infrastructure and processes to produce excellent speed. Platforms are built using the latest technologies, including PHP, SSL, and Nginx, so if you’re looking for faster stores, membership sites, courseware, or blogs, you’re definitely in the right place.
Liquid Web also provides:
- Free hardware upgrades once when hardware is outdated.
- An image optimization plugin that boosts page speed.
- Perform server optimization for customers.
3. Server Locations
Server location can determine how fast visitors can access your content. Most companies will promise you a hosting service with excellent uptime and speed, but be sure to check where the servers are located.
Whether you have a dedicated, shared, or VPS solution, your websites and data are on a bare-metal server in a physical location. Most hosts store their servers in data centers.
4. Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a network of nodes (devices) that are used to deliver various content over the world fast. These nodes are geographically dispersed.
So, when clients open your website, they connect to your server and download the content, which then displays in your browser. That means clients are downloading every image, video, word, or other content you have. This can lead to longer load times.
Having a CDN helps minimize the geographic distance between your server and visitors.
5. SEO Features
The majority of hosting companies offer optional add-ons you can use to upgrade your site to affect your SEO value positively. Liquid Web provides several additional features you can use to enhance your site.
SSL Certificates
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard technology that secures your website and protects sensitive data you or your visitors input into forms or shopping carts. For instance, sensitive information can be some of your payment methods or accounts for logging into specific websites, which is why it’s very important to keep all of your personal information safe.
Google encourages all of the site owners to install SSL certificates to get better rankings, since that way users can feel safe and have better experience while performing online activities that include sensitive data.
Automatic Backup Option
When things go wrong, you want to have an automatic backup option to save your data and quickly restore it. Some companies include backups in their packages, while others treat them as an additional cost, so make sure to check not only that you have an automatic backup in place, but that it works.
Email Addresses
Plenty of hosting companies include free email after you sign in. It’s unnecessary, but comes as a relatively useful feature if you want to have a branded and separated mail address.
Scalable Hosting
Your hosting needs may change over time. A scalable hosting plan will help you increase or decrease your server size to meet your needs. Small businesses don’t need that many SEO tools, but as their target audience grows, they will need more features to bring their website(s) to a higher level and boost SEO value. Hosting tools can help structure information architecture and organize website content in the best way possible.
Depending on your website’s traffic, you may want to switch from a VPS to a dedicated hosting solution. It is both simpler and cheaper if you stay with the same provider for migrations between servers.
For those requiring higher availability, burstable bandwidth, or scalable resources, cloud hosting may be the way to go.
6. Responsive Customer Support
You can learn a lot about the quality and reputation of a hosting company through their support. An efficient and responsive support team will handle issues quickly, keeping your website online with fast load speeds.
When you have ambitious goals to improve your business, you need to have solutions to all potential issues you might experience with the website. Your customers are used to the quick and efficient sites when they want to make a purchase or navigate your site.
When looking at support for an SEO-friendly hosting provider, find out what support communication options are available (email, live chat, social media, phone, etc.) to you. Also, find out if they offer support during normal business hours or on a 24/7/365 basis. Finally, look up reviews to find out if their support is knowledgeable and helpful.
What About CMS?
While not a hosting-related feature, an easy-to-use content management system (CMS) is great to have since website content is one of the essential elements around which you’ll build your entire SEO strategy.
Go with a host that implements a CMS that’s easy to learn, or one you already know how to use. SEO-friendly hosts deliver their very own drag-and-drop tools to help you create high-quality content. Plenty of hosts also integrate with WordPress or other well-known content management systems, making content management and publishing easy.
Start Your Website Off Right With an SEO-Friendly Web Hosting Provider
Choosing the right SEO-friendly web hosting provider can help your website get better rankings in search engines. Uptime, speed optimization, scalable hosting, and reliable and helpful customer service are essential for boosting organic traffic.
Liquid Web has been helping businesses power their content for more than 24 years. Contact one of our Hosting Advisors to get help finding a hosting solution that best fits your website and SEO needs.
