With any product or service, having a weak link in the system can hold back the rest of an otherwise exemplary creation, and this is true of hosting for websites as well. Hosting may sometimes seem like an afterthought, but that couldn’t be further from the truth; your hosting solution lies at the very heart of your website’s ability to function.
It stores all the data of your site, providing virtual access to your website to potential customers the whole world over. Hosting, as with everything, comes in many different shapes and forms, with some better than others - here’s why quality hosting is crucial for your website.
The primary advantage of a quality hosting provider is that it will allow you to have a fast website. In the modern age, speed is everything - people just don’t like to wait for things if they don’t have to.
To put that into numbers, 47% of internet users expect a website to have already loaded by the time two seconds have passed. A still very significant 40% of users will leave a site if it takes more than three seconds to load. If that’s not a reason to fork out a little extra on good hosting, I don’t know what is.
Using poor-quality hosting solutions often results in your website experiencing periods of downtime. When users, both those who are existing customers and those who are prospective customers, see that your site is down, it can have a damning effect on their perception of your brand’s legitimacy.
Even the top hosts will have some downtime. However, it will be a fraction of that of worse quality solutions. Their support team will also get it back up and running as soon as possible.
While this is still related to speed, having a high-quality hosting solution is crucial for your website’s SEO. Websites with slower than average loading times are penalized by the algorithms. Partly because it results in a higher bounce rate from visitors who simply get frustrated, as we saw above. And, because speed itself is a factor that Google considers to be important.
At the end of the day, the speed and reliability that a quality hosting solution will provide your website with are crucial. They allow you to achieve a meaningful form of user experience, or UX. It’s really as simple as that - your users shouldn’t have to wait any longer than they have to for any page to load. Your content might be worth waiting for, but not that long.
If a website is highly unreliable, your customers will want a solution that can facilitate repeat orders and reliable browsing. Even the most loyal person’s fidelity will wear off at some point. Experienced web designers like the Webheads team will always use the highest quality hosting solutions available. Therefore, if you’re unsure, it’s always best to follow their lead.
