The company you host your website with can have a big impact on your SEO performance. But if you don’t know how web hosting and SEO relate to one another, you probably don’t know how to choose an SEO friendly host.
Thankfully, there are a few easy tactics you can use to identify whether a web host is going to help or hurt your SEO efforts.
In fact, if you keep reading, you’ll learn how to choose a web host for SEO, even if you’ve never hosted a website before.
Let’s begin!
Loading Speed
Perhaps one of the biggest ways a web host can impact your SEO results is regarding how fast your web pages load. If your web host does not allow your web pages to load quickly, it could be hurting your user experience.
This is because slow loading web pages create a phenomenon known as ‘pogo-sticking.’
This is where people click on your search listing and then click the back button because your page takes too long to load. Google is able to track this. If they notice that this is happening a lot, they will begin to adjust your rankings downwards.
You, therefore, want to work with a web host that makes use of features which improve web page loading speeds. Examples include a content delivery network and local servers.
A content delivery network helps some of the large items such as images, load on more quickly on your site. Local servers, mean that information has to travel less distance. This, therefore, improves loading speed. You can find out how fast your web pages load, using a free tool provided by Google.
Website Security
The security of your website also has a big impact on how well your website ranks. One of the main things you need to ensure is that your website has an SSL certificate. There are web hosts that will provide this service.
If you have a large, high capacity website, it can be hard to manage security regarding viruses and spam. You will need to find a web host that provides a high capacity hosted anti-spam/Anti-Virus Service. You can find out if a web host provides this service, by asking one their support team members.
Dedicated Hosting
If you want to really take control of your SEO, it helps to choose a host that provides dedicated hosting. This means that nobody else is using your hosting server.
This is helpful because you can never be sure of what other people are doing. If they are doing something that goes against the Google’s webmaster guidelines, it might potentially hurt your site too.
Do You Know How to Choose a Web Host?
Hopefully, after reading this post, you know how to choose a web host that will not hurt your SEO efforts.
You need to find a company that will provide fast loading speeds. You also need the help of a company that provides ample security.
It’s important you do your research. You do not want to assume a hosting company provides a service, only to find out they don’t because when you question why your SEO rankings have suffered.
Want to learn more about driving traffic to your site? Check out this blog post for some tips!