Building a successful online business requires a well-planned marketing strategy. However, paying attention to the website’s infrastructure is necessary for the strategy to work. This includes having a reliable web hosting service.
Web hosting is an online service that makes websites accessible on the internet. Choosing a poor hosting service can harm the overall website performance, leading to low conversion and high bounce rates.
Any business, no matter the size, must have this crucial framework because a website won’t be reachable to online users without it. A reputable web hosting service provider will guarantee reliable, secure, and fast access to your website 24/7. On top of that, it offers a range of essential features, such as protection from cyber threats, such as malware and hacking.
As a result, knowing how to choose the best hosting service is vital. But it is not an easy task since each web hosting provider also offers different hosting services. For example, you might find different pricing, features, and hosting plans.
Today’s popular option is using cloud servers to store website files and data. With this option, you can access data anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection. Their scalability and flexibility have made them in demand over the years.
This article will cover the essential factors of web hosting that impact marketing effort. Moreover, we will also go over several best practices for choosing the right web hosting provider for your needs.
Page Speed
A fast-loading website is a great investment as it can help improve the user experience. Moreover, you will likely receive a higher conversion rate if your web pages can load within a second compared to web pages that load in 5 to 10 seconds.
Web hosting resources, such as bandwidth, memory, and type of hard drive, are factors that affect your page speed. Since web hosting providers offer multiple hosting plans, choosing a suitable plan is crucial.
For instance, a small business website can choose cloud servers as its starting hosting environment. This hosting service allows users to utilize resources from multiple servers, which results in faster site performance.
Page speed should never be underestimated. Many online users with purchasing power have been found to abandon their carts because of the slow loading of website pages. This is a massive loss of opportunity. If you want to expedite customer orders on your website, invest in a web hosting service that promises unparalleled speed.
Security
An online store can suffer heavily from a cyber attack since eCommerce retailers typically hold customers’ personal and financial data. It might entice attackers to steal the data for their own benefit.
Therefore, website security practices are important to safeguard business owners’ and customers’ data.
A website with robust security will benefit your visitors and search engine rankings. As the website becomes more credible, users feel safer when inputting personal information.
Also, a secure website has a higher chance of driving more web traffic which can eventually increase its position on the search engine result pages (SERPs).
It is important to ensure that your web host provides various security features, such as an SSL certificate, DDoS and malware protection, Web Application Firewall (WAF) integration, Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), and a backup tool.
One of the most common cyber threats today is DDoS attacks. What usually happens is that the attacker overloads the website with too much traffic, causing it to crash. A reputable web hosting service will have tools to deter such threats to ensure your website is always up and running.
Server Location
Server location refers to where your website is hosted. It also affects data transfer. So, the closer the server is to your location, the faster it will deliver or load the content on users’ web browsers.
Server location can benefit online businesses that target local audiences. Visitors might convert into customers because they can seamlessly access and interact with the website.
As for businesses with a global target audience, utilizing the Content Delivery Network (CDN) service can help deliver web content quickly. Many web hosts already include this service in their hosting packages as a free feature. A CDN distributes and caches web content through a geographical group of servers, so it can load almost instantly when users access the website from various regions.
Uptime
Site uptime or website availability refers to the time a site is accessible to users. Therefore, high availability helps business owners increase their website visibility and credibility.
Meanwhile, downtime hurts the overall site performance, leading to a higher bounce rate. Furthermore, downtime harms the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) performance as search engines like Google will flag the website as unreliable, decreasing its ranking.
Therefore, we highly recommend choosing a web hosting service with a 99.9% uptime guarantee to avoid unexpected downtime and decrease the website’s bounce rate.
If you have high-volume website’s traffic, consider opting for Virtual Private Server (VPS) or dedicated server hosting. Unlike shared hosting, where users share resources on the same server, these hosting services are less likely to experience downtime as they offer allocated resources.
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Backups
The biggest risk of having an online business is experiencing a data breach, which can harm your business reputation and customer trust, not to mention losing your essential data.
As website security can help minimize cyber attacks, performing website backup is crucial in case of accidents like data loss due to a data breach.
Website backup refers to duplicating or archiving your site data, files, and database to a different storage location, such as a physical or cloud storage. Many web hosting providers already include an automatic backup feature, allowing you to schedule a backup task easily.
Moreover, web hosting’s backup tool lets you back up the website files and database separately. It might come in handy if you just want to restore your site files due to an unexpected error after implementing a new feature.
Scalability
Since it is difficult to predict your business growth, having a web hosting service that can scale with your business can be a long-term investment.
Suppose your small online store cannot handle frequent web traffic surges anymore. It means that you need to opt for a higher-tier hosting package that provides bigger bandwidth, memory, and disk space.
That is why choosing a web hosting company that offers scalable hosting services, such as Virtual Private Server (VPS) or cloud hosting, is important. Therefore, you can rest assured that your website will stay online even when experiencing a high traffic surge.
How to Find the Best Website Hosting for Your Business
Choosing the right web hosting provider might be a daunting task since many offer great features and deals.
So, to pick a web hosting service provider that suits your needs consider the following tips:
1. Understand Your Website Needs
Knowing the needs of your website can save a lot of time when selecting the right hosting service.
Suppose you are starting to run an online clothing store. You will probably need a web hosting service that is beginner-friendly and affordable. According to this information, shared hosting can be the ideal option since it is typically the cheapest type that doesn’t require any coding knowledge.
2. Check the Hosting Plan Pricing
Web hosting providers offer various hosting plans with different pricing.
Always compare the pricing of one hosting plan with other plans before purchasing it. Furthermore, don’t forget to check out what other hosting providers have to offer.
This will help you choose the best one that fits your budget allocation.
3. Check the Website Hosting Features
Each web hosting plan offers different features, so we highly recommend knowing which ones you need the most. Bandwidth, disk space, security, backups, domain, and support are several main features you need to pay attention to.
For instance, you want to host multiple business websites. However, your desired hosting plan only allows you to host one website. With this in mind, it is best to opt for another plan or even look for another web hosting service.
4. Look For a Reputable Web Hosting Company
All web hosting companies may offer enticing features and deals, but not all have an excellent reputation. So, we recommend looking for a web hosting provider with positive customer reviews.
To do that, you can research and compare web hosting companies with the highest reputation. Read articles and reviews about them. Check their rating on famous websites, such as Google reviews or TrustPilot.
Ultimately, you will be able to make an educated decision about the right web hosting company.
Conclusion
Creating a successful online business requires you to have a reliable and secure website. Besides applying a digital marketing strategy, good web hosting can help you build a stable website foundation. Therefore, make sure that you invest in the right web hosting provider as it can determine the success of your business.
We have gone through how web hosting can affect online marketing efforts. Here is a recap of the six main factors:
- Page load speed
- Security
- Server location
- Uptime
- Backups
- Scalability
We have also given you several best practices for choosing the right web hosting provider, such as understanding the website needs, checking the hosting plan pricing and features, and looking for a reputable hosting company.
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the importance of choosing the right web hosting provider for your online business. The next step is implementing your marketing strategies to find potential customers and make sales. Good luck!
