Website hosting, along with domain name, is one of the first things you need setup to improve you search engine visibility.
In this article you will learn what website hosting is, why it’s important, options you have and considerations to keep in mind when choosing a web hosting company.
Definition
Your website consists of assets: text, images, and code. Website hosting is the home for those assets.
Any time someone enters your domain name in the browser bar, the browser pulls those assets from your website hosting and presents them to users in a well-laid-out website design.
Why does it matter?
Good hosting (fast, reliable, great support) is important to attracting customers from search engines.
Website hosting plays an important role in your page load speed. Customers leave slow sites and return back to search results. This signals search engines that a page is low-quality. As a result, the page drops in rankings.
Stable (always on) web hosting is key to success in search engines. If your hosting is unstable (your website goes down occasionally), neither users nor search engines can access your website. As a result, search engines choose to lower your page rankings.
Remember that search engines rank pages that make users happy.
Your options
There are many website hosting but most of them fall under to big categories: a) traditional website hosting and b) SaaS tools with hosting. Let’s explore each.
Traditional web hosting
Traditional hosting has two extremes: shared and dedicated (and options in between). Shared hosting means that your website assets live in a condo highrise and share the same limited resources. Shared hosting is the most economical option (from $4.99/mo) everyone starts with. As a result, it can be unstable and often slow to load.
Dedicated hosting is like a detached house with dedicated resources. As a result, it is expensive (from $219.99/mo) and takes a specialist or a costly add-on package to maintain.
Depending on your hosting provider, several options live between those two extremes. For example, GoDaddy has Web Hosting < VPS Hosting > Dedicated Server.
SaaS tools with hosting
Companies like Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, WordPress.com or GoDaddy will work best if you need to start something fast. These companies built an all-in-one beginner-friendly way to create and manage websites.
You can buy hosting and domain name, build a site using modern templates, set up email, etc. all in a single account. The advantage is that the company handles most of the technical setup and is included in a monthly fee (from $16/mo on Squarespace).
The key disadvantage is that you get locked into a certain way of managing your website. If you decided to move your website to another hosting or company, you will have to rebuild your website from scratch.
Considerations
There’s a lot to consider when choosing your website hosting. But most important things are: support, your requirements, cost and your competition. Let’s review each one.
Support
Hosting needs to be set up and maintained. Websites go down, and technology fails. You need a reliable company that can help when needed (a website is down or something is not working).
Read a few hosting support review articles to find the top vendors. Check the help/support section for the ones you liked the most based on reviews. A detailed, well-written support section is a good sign of good hosting.
Search for “Squarespace alternative” to find other SaaS hosting providers. Read their reviews. All hosting companies will have both positive and negative reviews. It’s part of the business. But pay attention to the overall sentiment.
Requirements
Choosing a good website hosting solution depends on your requirements. Are you building a landing page (one-pager) or a local business website with a blog, or an e-commerce-enabled website that sells products?
There are hosting companies and packages that offer specific hosting configurations for your requirements. Search for “best hosting for [type of business]”.
Cost
With hosting, you get what you pay for. Like many others, I started with the cheapest hosting options. Then I realized that I needed something faster, more reliable, better support and moved on to more expensive options.
I’m currently using a business-level cPanel hosting from GoDaddy and I’m happy with it so far. It offers enough resources for my needs, my websites work fast, I can create new websites quickly and phone support is fast and helpful.
Competition
Find what your competition uses for hosting by searching their domain on BuiltWith. It will not provide you with a specific package but will tell you which hosting company they use.
Your hosting is like a car at a race track. If it doesn’t perform well, the chance of outranking your competitors is slim.
Let me know if you have any hosting-related questions in the comments section below. And subscribe to my newsletter if you haven’t yet.
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