Is Your Web Hosting Package Holding You Back?
When was the last time you thought about the quality of your web hosting service? If you are like most of the business owners and marketing executives we work with, it’s probably been a very long time.
Web hosting servers are like real estate. The best ones are faster, newer, and controlled by reputable businesses. The worst leave your site on an overcrowded drive somewhere, possibly in a Third World location with slow connection speeds.
The most obvious and noticeable result of these differences is that good web hosting results in fast page loading times while bad web hosting slows your site down. What’s more, some low-end web hosting providers don’t guarantee uptime, meaning your website could disappear from the internet at regular intervals.
Another side effect of bad web hosting is that it can leave you vulnerable to hacking, cyber attacks, and other online security issues. That’s partly because cheap web hosting servers aren’t always as protected as they should be, but also because you could be placed next to some online “neighbors” who won’t be doing you any favors.
For example, it isn’t uncommon for the lowest-cost web hosting providers to lump small business websites together with online casinos, adult websites, payday loan portals, and other shady online destinations. When they get blocked, or have problems with malicious software, those issues can spread to your website, too.
You’ve probably been hearing a lot about SSL connections lately. They give an added layer of security preferred by banks and online retailers, encrypting transmissions between a website and a remote user.
SSL connectivity generally isn’t available on cheap web hosting packages. That’s important because it doesn’t just make you and your customer safer, but also is preferred by Google. In fact, all of the premium web hosting improvements we’ve outlined so far are positive search signals and can improve your Google ranking.
Probably the most important thing for business owners to know is that the difference between “cheap” web hosting and “premium” web hosting is pretty small when measured in dollars and cents. In fact, the difference can be pretty negligible, particularly when you consider the performance gains that are there to be realized when you upgrade your hosting plan.
Given that the difference between premium web hosting and bad web hosting usually comes down to a few dollars a day, why would you let your site sit on a server where it’s going to load slowly, be vulnerable to attacks, and possibly even hurt your visibility on Google?
Contact our team today to learn how easy it is to make a simple web hosting upgrade, and to have the rest of your website evaluated for other simple problems that are easy to fix.