How performance and hosting providers can affect your search engine results
Before we dive into hosting and performance, let’s take a quick look at how Google decides who will be at the top of their SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Google’s main goal is to make sure that users choose them over bing, yahoo, and even chatgpt. To do this there is a few things that they must consider:
Is the content relevant
What is the bounce rate of the site
What is the authority of the site
How quick does the site load
The load time of the site is extremely important to search engines because they understand how impatient the modern viewer is. This means that no matter how much on page optimization, guest posts, and back links you have… They won’t put you on the first page if your site loads slow or your server goes down often.
There are numerous factors to your performance, but none of these factors will matter if the type of web hosting you have does not work for your site. Choosing the right web hosting company is vital to making sure you don’t run into blackouts, data loss, malware, and slow load times.
What is the best domain and hosting website?
Pay close attention to the services offered when browsing for a web hosting plan. Shared hosting like Bluehost can be good for a small blog or parallax website with minimum information. Though for a small business we usually suggest getting dedicated hosting from a local IT company or Calgary web design company. You want to make sure your provider offers the following hosting solutions:
A Stable Connection
Without a stable connection your website may often lag or even go down at times. When confronted by slow or unstable connections most users will often move directly onto the next site and not look back.
Malware Protection
This is extremely important, especially if you go for a cheaper solution like Bluehost with a shared hosting plan. One thing to pay attention to is the price after adding malware protection. You will often find that a cheap option like Bluehost will become the same price as a premium hosting service once adding the required features.
Website and FTP Backups
Malware usually sits dormant for four to eight weeks at a time, infecting all of your back ups prior to activating. This means if your provider does not back up your site for extended periods it will not help you in your time of need.
Additionally, backups help with any fatal errors that may occur if you are new to web design and somehow damage the database.
Data Centre Location
The server location for your web page hosting plays a large role in how fast it loads in different locations. This means to be weary of local IT companies that say they can host the website for you themselves. Most often then not, this is profit driven for the business and not the best solution for your website.
Local hosting can work for local businesses that do not plan to grow.
File Sizes
When uploading images or videos to your website it is in your best interest to ensure they the proper size and file type. For images it is best to use JPG when ever possible, and PNG only where necessary. Make sure you are resizing your images to be the size they will be displayed on the website.
If a photo is 1920×1080 but will be shrunk down to be alongside some text, make sure you manually resize the photo to not waste server space.
Video has two different options. You can host the video on your site directly or use a media encoder on your site to pull the video off of a site like Youtube. By displaying a Youtube video on your site this can decrease load times, this is great for people with cheap hosting solutions.
When using self hosted videos it is best to lower the bitrate and never use anything over 1080p.
Responsive File Sizes
Making sure you build your website responsively on all devices is already a good rule of thumb. What most developers miss is resizing images, videos, and more for smaller screens. By making a responsive site you can further lower the resolution of the content on the site and reduce files sizes. This will in turn lower your mobile load times.
Local hosting can work for local businesses that do not plan to grow.
How Many Plugins Can I Have?
WordPress is a very user friendly CMS. With many plugins to help remove the need for knowledge in CSS, HTML, and Java. The issue we often see with clients is there are just too many being used. It is a good rule of thumb to try to keep the number of plugins below 6, and never over 10.
Each plugin will not only slow down your site as it loads, but can also be an extreme security threat if it is not updated regularly.
Automatic Plugin Updates
Plugin updates are vital to ensuring the security of your website. The older a plugin gets, the closer hackers get to breaking their code. If a plugin on your site has a security threat, you risk losing all of your data to scammers and hackers.
Web Hosting Support
Selecting a hosting provider with the right support levels is crucial for the smooth and uninterrupted operation of your business. A reliable hosting solution not only offers robust infrastructure and uptime guarantees but also provides responsive and knowledgeable customer support, ensuring that any technical issues are resolved quickly and efficiently.
This level of support is essential, especially in times of unexpected traffic surges or technical glitches, where timely assistance can mean the difference between a minor hiccup and a major disruption.
Furthermore, a good hosting provider will offer scalable solutions that grow with your business, accommodating increased traffic and data needs without compromising performance.
By choosing a provider with top-notch support, you safeguard your business against downtime, ensuring that your online presence is always strong, and your operations run smoothly.