Is Your Hosting Destroying Your Website SEO, Performance, Security & Business?

It's incurably boring. Nauseatingly so. If you're discussing it with someone, web hosting is inarguably the sloth of the online marketing world; boring, bland, beige. Unlike a sloth, it's not even cute ??

Worse yet, without you even knowing it, by entertaining the sloth in the form of bad, or shared hosting, you are perpetually placing your online success at severe risk. In this quick-fire article I want to show you how and why this happens and how you can avoid it today.

Right now, chances are that your website is running on sloth mode.

Except, it should (and can) be the cheetah. Lightning fast, powerful, secure - nobody's gonna mess with it.

How do you make it so and what are the true benefits for your business? I'll outline them all in 4 simple areas, below and show you why scrimping on web hosting is one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your online marketing.

The first thing to get to grips with here (because it impacts every single pillar below) is that shared hosting is a bad idea. If you run hosting (shared or otherwise) with GoDaddy, 1and1, Bluehost, Hostgator, Hostmonster, Network Solutions, especially on a shared server with one of those companies... you need to revisit thinking that it's ok - and NOW, because your website is in severe, terminal risk.

If you're interested in hearing some horror stories about shared hosting with those companies I highlighted above, just PM or email me and I'll fill you in on these companies' practices!

For now, here are the key impact areas:

1) PERFORMANCE

If you run shared hosting for your website, you're likely making a mistake because performance is going to be ploddingly slow. Why does that matter? Well, believe it or not it impacts multiple facets of online marketing, from UX and conversion through to SEO.

PERFORMANCE & UX - Have you ever visited a site that takes forever to load? Maybe even the page times out or you get a blank white screen or a server error? It's infuriating, isn't it?

Let me set the scene for you... Imagine being one of your potential customers visiting your website for the first time. We (the prospect) are excited at the anticipation of buying from your business, thinking of all the ways your products/services are going to solve our current, urgent problem and how we can spend money with you. We click into the website and... sloth-ness ensues... SLOW load times, images not loading, jittery scrolling.

Dare I click that button to buy? I do so, and the little loading wheel spins, and spins, and spins. Then the page goes white... What happened? Is it loading? Has it given up? Is the site hacked? The cart loads finally but my trust is dwindling. There's a coupon area, do I dare to enter that massive 30% coupon I found online or is the page going to take 3 eons to load again? Will it even work? I click the "update" button and sure enough, another 3 eons go by and then I get a server error - "Too many requests". Do I go back? Try again? Y'know what, I'm not that bothered at this stage and I don't even believe in your business enough any more. I'll go to your competitors instead.

We've all been there. Performance either makes or breaks User Experience, it's that simple. Without the performance there, your users will have a bad experience and will likely get frustrated to the point of lack of trust in your business. With great performance however, your foundation is set for a blazing fast experience that wows the prospect and lets you build other genuinely powerful UX protocols (e.g. content, video, Calls to Action) that at least have the chance to convince the prospect to move forward with trust.

Shared servers, in case you're not aware, are servers that the host (e.g. GoDaddy etc.) packs a number of websites onto (as many as they can fit, most often). That means ALL the server resources are split among this multitude of websites to the point where performance will often (actually, always) be drastically affected on all websites. Wow betide your site if one of the others on that server gets hit with a hack or has a ton of traffic visiting it because your resources will get stripped away to be redirected to that site or sites. And yet you pay the same fee every month. For what? It's not a good look for your business when this happens and your visitors experience a slow, laborsome experience while navigating your site. It creates what, in the marketing industry, we call 'friction' to the process of conversion. It adds an obstacle to your online success and it therefore needs to be attended to and streamlined.

Yes, shared servers are cheap. Yes, they are easy. Yes they are slow, unreliable, less secure and ultimately, to be avoided at all costs.

2) SECURITY

One of the other major issues with cheap, shared hosting, is that it is very, very risky to your business. As an example of why this occurs, the host may employ all sorts of security measures on their server but that does NOT mean the individual websites on that server are protected. Hacks can install damaging files and code into your website much like a computer virus... If one website gets hacked on that server, the likelihood is that the infection will spread to other websites (i.e. yours) and wreak all sorts of havoc within the server ecosystem. Worst case, your website will go down for an undisclosed amount of time. That is, of course, assuming the host does employ strong security on their own server, but that's not always the case. We've had huge issues for clients who have gone the cheap hosting route with notoriously bad security hosts like GoDaddy and Hostgator.

So, how do you mitigate? If you're on a shared server, or a server with a cheap host like those I mentioned above, I'd recommend you'd move your site to a new host. It's not hard to do and if you go with a host like Liquid Web (we use them ourselves and recommend these guys to ALL our clients; they're phenomenal) you'll certainly protect your online assets in a much more secure environment.

3) SEO

Performance directly impacts SEO. Fast sites get a little green check in the Google algorithm. Slow sites get a big fat red "X". It's as simple as that. Don't get me wrong, SEO is not anywhere near as simple as having a fast website, but it's a component. By moving from a cheap host to a good host today, you're not going to see your rankings sky rocket, but it will attend to that component of the SEO process.

4) LOST BUSINESS

You can probably see how all of the factors above (1-3) can lose you business. Poor performance equals frustrated users (builds friction in the process of conversion and therefore reduces conversion %). Poor performance impacts SEO to some degree as well because not only do fast sites get benefits, but slower sites also demonstrate poor UX which Google actively uses to rank engagement and "authority" - unlike simple site speed, this WILL impact SEO massively. When Google see people leaving a site instantly (e.g. due to slow load times), when it sees them leave the site after 1 page or not delve further into the site, return to the site or spend any significant time on the site, you will see penalties in your SE performance.

Poor security also puts you front and center for a hack which ultimately can tear apart your website, or at least have the site 'down' for some extended period of time. We once had a client who got hacked while on a cheap host (Bluehost I believe) 4 times in 6 weeks. When we finally convinced them to move to Liquid Web (3 1/2 yrs ago at this stage, without a single issue by the way) their e-Commerce website selling had been down for upward of 21 days across the 4 different hacks. IMAGINE the impact that has on business, especially an e-Comm storefront. It could be disastrous for the business.

THE SOLUTION

So, hopefully you can now see how having a poor, cheap host is a bad move for your business. Don't do it, it's just not worth it.

What is the solution, however?

Well, it's simple and you can do it right now without a major hassle. First, set up an account with a good, reputable, high-performance and trustworthy host. As above, I strongly recommend Liquid Web. We've hosted our own sites, along with many clients, with Liquid Web for the last 6 years and have had very few issues with them. Better yet, their server performance is exceptional across the board and their support is maybe even better. Unlike cheap hosts, you'll likely not wait any longer than a couple of seconds before their support techs hop on chat with you.

Once your account is setup you need to move your website from your existing host to the new server. Liquid Web, and other good hosts, will offer a free migration of the site if you have a CPanel account on the site. So you just give them your logins and let them look after it.

Once the migration is complete, you'll just need to point your Domain's DNS (Domain Name Server) records toward the new Liquid Web server to push the website live again. If you have email you'd also like to move it requires a few extra steps but that little element of hassle is more than worth it for the performance, security and service upgrade you'd get.

I don't have an affiliation with Liquid Web at this stage so if this seems like a LW hard sell I guarantee you it's not. I just think you can do better than cheap hosts who don't care about your success and LW is a company that offers superior everything as part of their packages.

You'll invest more each month (From $50 for a decent VPS) but it will be worth it long term.

As always let me know if you have any queries about hosting or websites.

So, with that in hand, go forth speedily and with impact. Start your work. Or better yet, get a company with a proven track record and cutting-edge strategies and platforms to do it for you to remove the guess work and wasted time. 

Connect with us at www.zenithonlinemarketing.com or PM me on LinkedIn and take your marketing forward in ways you never thought possible ??