Why the Right Web Host Matters to Your Business’s Success

Most businesses know the importance of keeping up with a website and blog to draw in new business prospects and delight customers. While creating smart and relevant content is what businesses should be focused on, something small that can make a big difference in the way visitors see your site is your web hosting.

We agree that web hosting can sometimes be an afterthought, especially when first beginning your business venture. Most often than not, you’re more focused on what the website will look like or the clever, catchy new URL. While this post isn’t meant to get too technical, we wanted to emphasize why it’s important to consider the right web host and tips on how you can find the right hosting provider that will grant your website with its fullest potential in engaging with and drawing in new site visitors.

As a business, you’re wanting to maximize your profits, here’s what could happen if you end up choosing the wrong web host:

Slow Site or Site Shutdown

If a site suddenly slows or shuts down randomly, prospects and customers won’t be able to see blog posts and read about any products and services. Worse, businesses with ecommerce or online stores could be losing cash fast if visitors can’t see, purchase, and order products. Online visitors’ expectations are high when it comes to load times on mobile, tablet, and desktop devices. The average person waits no more than 3 seconds for a web page to load before moving on to a competitor’s site (New Media and Marketing).

Low SEO Ranking

With content marketing, businesses can increase traffic and SEO rankings, which is great. Prolonged site shutdowns, though, can significantly decrease or have a bad effect on search rankings, according to some SEO experts. And this is why: search engines, much like visitors, casually crawl websites to search for relevant content for search queries. If a website is down all the time, search engines don’t have those opportunities to find and list it and won’t want to share unreliable websites to searchers.

Spam and Malware Overtake

There isn’t a surefire way to avoid all security breaches with websites, but choosing a reputable web host that can offer remote storage of all content and provide assistance with handling and restoring a website just in the case of such a luckless incident is super helpful and will save time, money, and headaches.

Okay, So How Can Businesses Choose the Right Host?

There are TONS of web hosting sites out there to choose from, so how do go off choosing the right one for your business’s needs?

Customer Support is a Must

A hosting site that can provide dependable, outstanding customer service should be the top priority, especially if a business doesn’t know where to begin with web hosting and the management of a website. Stellar support that can thoroughly walk through the hosting, storage, web packages, monthly costs, etc. can be extremely beneficial. And not only that, a great support service can be sought out right away to relieve any issues that come up. When searching for a web hosting service, make sure to take a look at the accessibility of the support (can they be contacted through phone or just by email?) and research track records (just search keywords: “complaints,” “issues,” “reviews” with the prospective hosting client name in a search engine).

Uptime/Stability

A good hosting provider will always make sure that uptime (the time that websites are “on” and running without any problems) is the highest it can be at all times, no matter what. Some hosting providers will even refund a monthly fee back if a website experienced more than X amount of downtime at a given month. Again, a simple Google search with the name of the web hosting company + uptime will reveal how a company handles downtime and how easy fees can be refunded if downtime is experienced.

Cost

A good rule of thumb when figuring out the monthly web hosting cost is that paying a little extra is almost always worth it. Typically, a good web host will charge about $4-7 for hosting of a WordPress site. Going any lower than that could come with limitations, unreliable customer support, or an increased risk that a server will experience lots of downtime. Make sure to read the fine print and clarify with the hosting provider’s sales representative before complying. Avoid any “free” offers unless websites supported by only ads is desired.

Specific Storage and Features

Nowadays, most web hosting providers will offer customers unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth to handle any type of traffic a site ever receives. Again, make sure with the hosting provider that they’re offering a sufficient amount of space and bandwidth. A good idea is to go with a provider that can offer flexibility or upgrades later to accommodate growing traffic or features that are added on to the site.

Have any questions or wanting more tips and recommendations on web hosting, design, or development? Contact our team! We’ll get you started with a free marketing assessment report that will give you a low-down on how your website is performing for visitors and against competitors.