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Why is hosting your website essential in SEO?

Website hosting

Hosting a website consists of putting it on a storage space in order to allow users to access it from their browser. This uploading is done on remote servers which can also be used to host databases. In natural referencing, the choice of the host is a key element, because it can positively or negatively influence the performance of a website in the search results (SERP). NaddraBlog gives you all the information you need to know on this subject.

Hosting your website: that is?

Hosting is one of the most important steps in the process of creating a website. It intervenes after the development phase of the site and is essential for its final commissioning. Hosting is the fact of providing the website with storage space on secure servers so that the site is visible.

What is the use 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 very identity of the site. For the latter to function properly and be accessible remotely, the files that compose it 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 residence  in which the content of your platform is stored.

How does a web host work?

A web host or a hosting company has a collection of servers (corresponding to powerful computers), which operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, on which it stores the data of the sites it hosts: we also speak of data center. Each hosted website has an IP address which is associated with its domain name registered with a registrar (domain name registration office). When an Internet user types the address of the site in his browser, the request is thus 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.

Related: Healthcare professionals: improve your web visibility with SEO

The web host uses advanced technologies and respects a rigorous security protocol to guarantee 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 greatly influences the technical aspect of a website which is one of the pillars of SEO: loading speed, data security, site operation.

Influences the loading speed of your pages

The loading speed of a page refers to the time it takes to display completely 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 to establish the positioning of websites in search results. At equal performance, a website that is slow to display risks being relegated to the background in the SERPs in favor of other faster websites. Its bounce rate will also be high, as people tend to quickly leave a page when it takes a long time to load.

The loading speed of a website can be influenced by several factors: source code, content, etc. The most decisive element remains web hosting, i.e. the server that processes connection requests. at the site.

Guarantees the security of your data and your website

User data security is another critical technical element that can be directly influenced by a website's hosting infrastructure. Indeed, when the exchanges between the remote server and the clients (web browsers of Internet users) are not sufficiently secure, this can facilitate the theft of personal information. Moreover, an insecure web hosting infrastructure also makes site data vulnerable which can be stolen or encrypted at any time by hackers. These technical failures are penalized by search engines whose ultimate goal is to offer an excellent user experience to Internet users.

A website whose hosting solution does not guarantee maximum data security will therefore have difficulty positioning itself favorably in Google's search results. Sometimes the search engine even displays a security warning to users who try to access such websites to dissuade them. 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, whether or not your website is available after it is created depends entirely on the web hosting infrastructure you have chosen. If it is faulty, the site may be inaccessible often, which can have a considerable impact on your SEO. Indeed, search engines highlight credible and trustworthy sources to the detriment of websites whose technical signals leave something to be desired.

What are the criteria for choosing web hosting?

To choose a web hosting, it is necessary to rely on 5 main criteria. NaddraBlog details them for you one by one.

The performance of the host

Several factors can determine the performance of a web hosting solution. One of the most important is speed. To provide the best possible experience to your visitors, you must choose a web hosting offer that will allow your pages to load quickly. To do this, pay particular attention to the configuration of the servers, the bandwidth and the type of storage.

The server configuration of your web host must be recent. Outdated technology can quickly become outdated during traffic peaks. The bandwidth must be substantial to guarantee unlimited and fast availability of your website. At this level, it all depends on your needs. Preferably, it is better to opt for web hosting whose bandwidth is unlimited and not subject to too restrictive conditions.

Finally, in terms of the type of storage, avoid web hosts that still use HDD hardware (the old mechanical hard drives). SSD hard drives are 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 must check whether the latter has data centers located near your geographical area. For example, if your main audience is French, it is not smart to have your website hosted in China or another Asian country. Your pages will be slow to load. Instead, prefer a geolocated web host in France or in a nearby country (Belgium for example).

If your services are not oriented towards a specific geographical area, it is better  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 capacities and performance of the equipment are not the only elements that make a good web host. The quality of technical support and assistance also matters. Indeed, it may happen that a malfunction occurs at the level of the host's installations, making your website temporarily unavailable. In these circumstances, the responsiveness of 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 the event of an emergency.

To avoid any unpleasant surprises, also check the time slot during which the technical support of the web host you choose is available. 24/7 support is ideal. You can check the customer reviews posted on the internet about the company to get an idea of ​​the quality of their technical support and assistance.

Related: WooCommerce: improve the SEO of your e-commerce site

The storage space offered

Web hosting is used to store the files and data that make your website work as well as all of your content: videos, images, text files, etc. Therefore, it is important that the storage space that will be 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;
  • An Anti-DDoS protection service (to protect against attacks from outside);
  • A domain name transfer service.

Using a web hosting comparison can help you quickly choose the host that offers all the options you need.

Hosting your website: what are the solutions?

To host your website, you have the choice between three solutions: dedicated hosting, shared hosting and cloud hosting. NaddraBlog presents them to you and gives you its opinion.

Dedicated servers

Hosting 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 full control over the server settings. It is  an optimal solution for SEO referencing.

shared servers

A shared server is a server shared by several websites belonging to different customers. In this type of architecture, the performance of your site is closely dependent on that of other websites which also use the server's resources. Also, you have no control over the server setting, as it is the same for all websites using disk space. This is a solution not recommended for websites of a certain size, because it is often problematic for natural referencing. For a small website, the shared server remains sufficient in the vast majority of cases.

virtual servers

Just like dedicated web hosting, cloud hosting is a modern solution that allows you to have a fully dedicated space on a virtual server. The latter offers great flexibility to the webmaster and allows him to control all the configurations. It presents no problem for SEO.

What is the cost of accommodation?

The cost of web hosting varies depending on several factors:

  1. The type of web hosting;
  2. Server performance;
  3. Allocated disk space;
  4. The associated services offered by the web host.

Shared web hosting is the most affordable, with a monthly subscription starting at €2.5. Dedicated hosting and VPS are logically the most expensive with a price range ranging from 25 € to more than 600 € per month.

It is not uncommon to find accommodation offers on the internet that are presented as being free. These are actually very limited formulas that offer no guarantees in terms of performance.

Example of hosting for your website

Whether your website is under WordPress, Prestashop or another CMS, the hosting solution you need is not the same. NaddraBlog presents some examples of web hosting offers adapted to the most popular CMS currently.

WP Server pour Wordpress

WordPress is currently the most used CMS on the internet with 65.2% market share. According to figures from W3Techs, 42.7% of websites currently use it. WP Server is web hosting designed and optimized especially for WordPress websites. It offers excellent display speed thanks to the NGINX server cache technology. The security of the servers is maximum and an automatic backup of the sites is carried out every night. Restoration can be done in one click in the event of a problem. WP Server also offers a multitude of very useful optional services for managers of websites created with WordPress:

  • Domain name registration;
  • Added dedicated IP;
  • WordPress Release;
  • Content Delivery Network ;
  • SSL Certificate…

There are many accommodation offers available and can be adapted to different needs.

772424.com for Prestashop

Prestashop comes second in the ranking of the most used CMS today. The most suitable hosting for websites that use this CMS is 772424.com, the WP Server equivalent of WordPress. Optimized for e-commerce, it allows ultra-fast display of Prestashop pages (2 seconds maximum for most). It also offers a daily update of the data for their rapid restoration in the event of a problem.

Related: How to Choose the Right Keywords For your SEO Strategy

O2Switch

If you are looking for a versatile web host that offers complete solutions and has data centers in France, then O2Switch is one of the options available to you. Available for all CMS, it offers the best quality/price ratio on the market today. The spaces allocated for the hosting of each website are 100% isolated, which makes it possible to avoid a certain number of malfunctions and to guarantee the speed of processing connection requests. The disk technology used is the NVMe SSD.

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 develop the visibility of your website, it is possible to go through a referenced agency like NaddraBlog who will be able to advise you in order to apply the best technique for your SEO.

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