Companies are always looking for ways they can improve their website ranking on search engine results pages and improve their search engine optimization efforts. However, one of the things that many businesses overlook when pursuing various SEO efforts is that their web hosting also has an impact on website ranking and general public relations campaigns.
There are various factors that contribute to all this, such as the security of the company’s business website and the location of its servers.
Security
It was back in 2014 when Google first listed an HTTPS certificate as an important website ranking factor. After all, most consumers wouldn’t make a purchase from a website they don’t trust, and that trust can only be highlighted and increased if it doesn’t have this type of certificate. The reason why this type of certificate is so important for companies to have is that nearly all consumers tend to load pages via this secure protocol, and many consumers have started looking for such a certificate before deciding whether to do business with a company via their website. Now, although companies can purchase and install an SSL certificate on their own, the easiest option would be to find a website hosting service that provides clients with either a free or an affordable SSL certificate for their websites.
Location of servers
The location of the servers of a website hosting service has an effect on the website loading time and its speed, and according to Google, the search engine presents its users with relevant results according to their location and the location of the server of that website. That means if a company’s website is located on a server in Europe, but most of the customers are in the United States, the website is going to be loading at a slower pace. However, if the company changes the location of its website to a server in the US, then the response times are going to be reduced, which can improve the loading speed of the website too. The reason behind all of this is because of the time it takes for a server and browser to transmit the first byte of information, as well as network latency, which is the time it takes for the information to travel between different points in a network. Another significant reason why companies should be looking to web hosting services that have servers closer to where their consumers are is that the location of the server can also impact the website bounce rate, as well as various local compliance laws regarding storing consumer data. Fortunately, companies can rely on various tools to figure out where their consumers are located, the latency on their websites, and if necessary, transfer their website to a different website hosting service.
