SEO is a powerful online marketing strategy. This aims to enhance your website’s overall ranking on search engines. Since the common SEO practices relate significantly to website elements such as Metadata, title tags, and header tags, one question that may be asked by those studying WordPress 1o1 is: “What does WordPress Managed Hosting have to do with SEO?”
Let’s take a look!
Types of Web Hosting
There are four most common types of web hosting that you can purchase:
1. Shared Hosting
When you purchase a shared hosting, your website will be hosted on a server that also hosts other websites. The number of websites can vary from under ten to hundreds of websites. Think of it as renting a room in an apartment where you share available resources with other residents. Shared hosting mostly promises unlimited bandwidth and storage, but you will be limited to your equal share from the server’s resources. So, unlimited isn’t technically unlimited.
Shared hosting works great for the majority of websites. It is capable of handling several thousands of visitors in a day. If your website receives several thousand visitors within an hour, the host may throttle your resources and your website is highly likely to become painfully slow or won’t even load. If there are shady websites hosted on the same server, your ranking will be affected significantly because you’re sharing the same IP address. This is one of the strongest reasons we do not recommend shared hosting for your website.
2. VPS (Virtual Private Server)
VPS are also shared hosting. The only difference is that your website on the shared server will have a dedicated IP and resources. Your website will be guaranteed a higher amount of RAM and bandwidth. But, some VPS hosting plans don’t always come with an unlimited bandwidth and disk space like shared hosting plans. Practically, websites hosted on VPS always perform better in case of heavy traffic.
VPS hosting is more expensive than shared hosting. In certain cases, it can cost double or even more. You will also be responsible for maintaining your part of the server, which means requires a bit of technical knowledge. Reputable hosting providers can scale resources if any shared host is receiving high traffic. This may not be the case for plans on a fixed-bandwidth VPS, though.
You should buy VPS hosting if you have a large, complex website that receives tens of thousands of visitors each day, or if most of the visitors gather within a short time. Many hosting companies allow you to host multiple domains on a VPS hosting, which can be an advantage if you are planning to host multiple small websites.
3. Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting allows you to have your own server alongside complete control of all the resources. However, managing a dedicated server is not as easy as it looks. You will be responsible for dealing with various hardware and software. If anything goes wrong, you will be pretty much on your own. Dedicated hosting can cost you as much as a couple of hundred dollars a month or even more.
It is suitable for websites that are being browsed by thousands of visitors or have extreme customization. You also have to buy a dedicated server if you’re going to host sensitive information and need customized security.
4. Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting is popular among website owners who need dedicated servers. It looks like a dedicated server, except that you don’t have to deal with the hardware. You don’t even have to worry about the server going down or unexpected traffic flows, as cloud hosting can flawlessly replace or add resources to keep your website performing at top speeds. And Google, as we know, is crazy about speed.
Cloud hosting providers offer you raw Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS), so your IT department will have complete control over the operating system and the resources. This type of hosting may not be suited for non-technical users. Most cloud hosting providers charge you hourly for the resources, so you need to carefully avoid paying over your budget.
Here is a detailed comparison between WordPress shared vs dedicated vs cloud hosting to assure that you pick the right hosting service for your business to minimize the risk of failure.
How Can WordPress Managed Hosting Affect SEO Rankings?
SEO is like following a set of rules to help your website get more exposure and visibility on search engines. Among these rules, some are related and affected by the quality of service you get from your web hosting providers such as performance, speed, availability, uptime, and security.
Slow Loading Time
According to Google, page speed is an important factor in search rankings. The faster your website loads, the higher it can rank on search engines. Slow loading time will cause your visitors to bounce from your website, which can hurt your website’s SEO in the long haul. The stability and loading time of a website depend on its web hosting servers. On the SEO side, you can start by optimizing images and removing unnecessary plugins.
Uptime and Downtime
If your website is suffering from excessive downtime frequently, it is one of the first signs of an unreliable WordPress managed hosting provider. Not only does downtime affect the performance of your website, it will also affect your website in terms of SEO. For instance, downtime means visitors won’t be able to access the website. This will increase the site’s bounce rate, which has an impact on search rankings. To avoid downtime issues and get a 99.9% uptime for your website, choose your WordPress managed hosting provider wisely.
Server Location
The location of your WordPress managed hosting server may also have affect website accessibility. Shared or dedicated hosting providers likely have a physical server in a data center, unlike those that use cloud hosting. Ideally, your data center should be close to where the majority of your website visitors are coming from.
Security
You are building sand castles if your WordPress managed hosting provider does not take all the possible measures to secure your website. They need to provide security against hackers and malware. If your provider is unable to resolve security issues quickly, this may result in de-indexing and domain blacklisting.
Backups
Don’t disregard the possibility of losing data on your website. It doesn’t matter whether you’re experiencing a malicious attack or a natural disaster—not having backups is a catastrophe for website owners. All your hard work, data and rankings lost in a snap. Not everyone has the time and resources to start from scratch.
The good news is many WordPress managed hosting providers offer backup services. They will backup your website regularly and ensure everything is in place. This is the perfect solution for many site owners; those downtimes will be nothing but a minor hiccup.
SSL Certification
Visitors should feel safe and secure when browsing your website. This is where having an SSL certificate becomes important. SSL certificates encrypt the exchange of information that takes place between your hosting server and your visitor’s web browser.
Google considers websites with SSL certificates as trustworthy and user-friendly. They even consider SSL certificates as a significant ranking factor. Many web hosting providers will ask you to purchase SSL certification for your website from third-parties, but some can offer this at no cost.
To Sum It All Up
Some WordPress managed hosting providers will promise you tons of things at the start, but don’t be swayed easily. Consider the factors above to ensure you’re not getting the short end of the stick. Choose providers who can fulfill your business needs, so you can save yourself from all the frustrations.
