Hosting a website consists of putting it on a storage space so that users can access it from their browser. This is done on remote servers that can also be used to host databases. In search engine optimization, or SEO, the choice of a web host is a key element, as it can positively or negatively influence the performance of a website in search results (SERP). In the article below, we’ll give you all the information you need to make the best hosting choice for your site’s ranking.
Hosting your website: what is it?
Hosting is one of the most important steps in the process of creating a website. It comes after the development phase of the site and is essential for its final operation. Hosting is the fact of putting at the disposal of the website storage spaces on secured servers so that the website is visible.
What is the purpose of web hosting?
When a website is created, it is associated with an address (a domain name) that allows users to visit it using a web browser. It is in a way the identity of the site itself. In order for the site to function properly and be accessible from a distance, the files that make it up and its contents must be stored somewhere on the Internet. This is where web hosting becomes essential. In other words, hosting is what allows a site to be visible on the Internet and to exist. It is a virtual home where the content of your platform is stored.
How does a hosting company work?
A web host or hosting company has a collection of servers (corresponding to powerful computers), which operate 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, on which it stores the data of the sites it hosts: this is also known as a data center. Each hosted website has an IP address which is associated with its domain name registered with a registrar (domain name registrar). When an Internet user types in the address of the site in his browser, the request is sent via the Internet to the remote server which searches the database for the desired content in order to return a response. If all goes well, the requested website is displayed and the user can browse its pages.
The web host uses advanced technologies and respects a rigorous security protocol to guarantee a permanent and fluid access to the websites it hosts. The equipment is administered and constantly maintained by competent and very dynamic technicians.
The importance of hosting your website in SEO
Choosing a good web host is the starting point for a successful SEO strategy. Indeed, hosting has a great influence on the technical aspect of a website, which is one of the pillars of SEO: loading speed, data security, site operation.
Influences the speed of your pages
Page load speed refers to the time it takes for a page to fully display when a user wants to access it. It is an essential component of the user experience (UX). Google and other search engines pay close attention to this data when determining the positioning of websites in search results. With equal performance, a website that is slow to display may be relegated to the background in the SERPs in favour of other faster websites. Its bounce rate will also be high, because users tend to leave a page quickly when it takes a long time to load.
The loading speed of a website can be influenced by several factors: the source code, the contents… The most determining element remains the web hosting, i.e. the server which treats the requests of connection to the site.
Guarantees the security of your data and your website
The security of user data is another critical technical element that can be directly influenced by the hosting infrastructure of a website. Indeed, when the exchanges between the remote server and the clients (the web browsers of the Internet users) are not sufficiently secured, it can facilitate the theft of personal information. Moreover, an unsecured web hosting infrastructure also makes the site’s data vulnerable to being stolen or encrypted at any time by hackers. These technical failures are penalized by search engines whose ultimate goal is to provide an excellent user experience to Internet users.
A website whose hosting solution does not guarantee maximum data security will therefore have difficulty ranking favourably in Google’s search results. Sometimes the search engine even displays a security warning to users who try to access such websites to discourage them from doing so. It is therefore important to use a good hosting solution to protect the data on your site.
Allows the availability or not of your website
A website cannot be put online without a hosting solution. Therefore, the availability or not of your website after its creation depends entirely on the web hosting infrastructure you have chosen. If it is not available, the site may be inaccessible, which can have a considerable impact on your referencing. Indeed, search engines put forward credible and trustworthy sources to the detriment of websites with poor technical signals.
What are the criteria for choosing a web hosting service?
To choose a web hosting, you need to consider 5 main criteria. Below, we detail them one by one.
The performance of the hosting company
Several factors can determine the performance of a web hosting solution. One of the most important is speed. To offer the best possible experience to your visitors, you need to choose a web hosting offer that will allow your pages to load quickly. To do this, pay special attention to the server configuration, bandwidth and storage type.
The server configuration of your web host must be recent. An obsolete technology risks being quickly outdated during traffic peaks. As for the bandwidth, it must be consistent to guarantee an unlimited and fast availability of your website. At this level, everything depends on your needs. Preferably, it is best to opt for a web hosting service with unlimited bandwidth and not subject to any restrictive conditions.
Finally, as far as the type of storage is concerned, avoid web hosts that still use HDD hardware (the old mechanical hard drives). SSD hard disks are to be preferred, as they guarantee fast access to information. A server-side caching system is also useful to shorten the response time for database queries.
The location of the host’s servers
This aspect is often trivialized, yet it is one of the factors that strongly influence the performance of a website. Before choosing a web host, you should check if the latter has data centers located near your geographical area. For example, if your main audience is French, it is not smart to host your website in China or in another Asian country. Your pages will be slow to load. Instead, choose a web host located in France or in a nearby country (Belgium for example).
If your services are not geared towards a specific geographical area, it is best to opt for CDN (Content Delivery Network) web hosting. This offer allows you to put your website on several servers located in different countries in order to optimize the loading time, regardless of the location from which Internet users wish to visit your pages.
Assistance and technical support
The capacity and performance of the equipment are not the only elements that make a good web host. The quality of the technical support and assistance also counts. Indeed, it can happen that a malfunction occurs in the facilities of the host, making your website unavailable momentarily. In these circumstances, the reactivity of the technical support is crucial for a quick resolution of the problem. A good web host must also have various means of contact to facilitate the task of site managers in case of emergency.
To avoid any unpleasant surprises, also check the time slot during which the technical support of the web host you are going to choose is available. Ideally, the support should be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can check the customer reviews published on the internet about the company to get an idea of the quality of their technical support and assistance.
The proposed storage space
Web hosting is used to store the files and data that run your website as well as all your content: videos, images, text files… Therefore, it is important that the storage space allocated to you by your web host is sufficient. It all depends on the needs of your site, but it is most often advisable to opt for an offer with a sufficiently large storage space.
Associated services
Some associated services are essential for a web hosting package to be truly complete:
- An automated daily backup device ;
- Anti-DDoS protection service (to protect against attacks from outside);
- A domain name transfer service.
Using a web hosting comparison tool can help you quickly choose the web host that offers all the options you need.
Hosting your website: what are the options?
To host your website, you can choose between three solutions: dedicated hosting, shared hosting and cloud hosting. We’ll provide our thoughts on each option.
Dedicated servers
The hosting of a website can be done on a dedicated server. The site manager therefore has all the resources available on the server (storage space, bandwidth) that he can use as he pleases. He can install the services he wants and administer them. This option allows you to have total control over the server settings. It is an optimal solution for SEO.
Shared servers
A shared server is a server that is shared by several websites belonging to different clients. In this type of architecture, the performance of your site is highly dependent on the performance of the other websites that are also using the server resources. Moreover, you have no control over the server settings, as they are the same for all websites using the disk space. This is not recommended for websites of a certain size, as it is often problematic for natural referencing. For a small website, the shared server remains sufficient in most cases.
Virtual servers
Like dedicated web hosting, cloud hosting is a modern solution that allows you to have a fully dedicated space on a virtual server. It offers great flexibility to the webmaster and allows him to control all configurations. It does not present any problem for SEO.
How much does it cost to host?
The cost of web hosting varies depending on several factors:
- The type of web hosting ;
- Server performance;
- Disk Space Allocation ;
- The associated services offered by the web host.
Shared web hosting is the most affordable, with a monthly subscription starting at €2.5. Dedicated and VPS hosting are logically the most expensive, with a price range from €25 to over €600 per month.
It is not uncommon to find hosting offers on the Internet that are presented as being free. In reality, these are very limited packages that offer no guarantee of performance.
Examples of hosting for your website
Whether your website is under WordPress, Prestashop or another CMS, the hosting solution you need is not the same. Let’s take a look at some examples of web hosting offers adapted to the most popular CMS today.
WP Server for WordPress
WordPress is currently the most used CMS on the internet with 65.2% of the market share. According to W3Techs figures, 42.7% of websites currently use it. WP Server is the web hosting designed and optimized specifically for WordPress websites. It offers excellent display speed thanks to the NGINX server cache technology. Server security is maximum and an automatic backup of the sites is performed every night. The restoration can be done in one click in case of problem. WP Server also offers a multitude of optional services that are very useful for managers of websites created with WordPress:
- . domain name registration
- Adding a dedicated IP ;
- Moving WordPress ;
- Content Delivery Network ;
- SSL Certificate…
There are many different types of accommodation to choose from, to suit different needs.
Invicta Private Hosting
After dealing with a variety of hosting providers on behalf of our clients, we’ve come to the conclusion that none of them were able to provide everything our clients needed (high speed, security, and great support) at a reasonable price. For that reason, we’ve partnered with trusted provider InterServer to create our own private hosting for our clients. Contact us today to find out more about hosting your site on our servers. We guarantee you won’t find a better offer than ours!
With improved loading speed, security for your data and availability for your site, good hosting is fundamental for the SEO of your website. You can opt for dedicated, shared or virtual hosting. If you want to increase the visibility of your website, it is possible to go through an agency like Invicta, which will advise you on the best technique for your SEO.
