Many small business owners try to get their websites rank on top of Google web results, while not all of them know that the most important thing to do is to find a fine hosting service for their websites within a reliable hosting company.
Each time your site goes down, your competition has a chance to take away some of your business. Many hosting services promise about 99.99 percent network uptime but you need to take some of these claims with a grain of salt. Take a few moments to check reviews before you invest any money in a specific product.
You would also need to consider other hosting factors that impact SEO rankings. Google and Bing now factor site speed into their search rankings, which is why you don’t want to risk opting for a service that’s going to be too slow. While you can always optimize any scripts running on your site and you can take care to eliminate unnecessary video feeds or other widgets that slow things down, nothing will help you out if the service you work with is just inherently slow.
While you’ll also want to look at price, it’s more important to consider hosting companies first and price second. That’s because most companies now offer tiered service plans. If you find a firm you trust but can’t afford, then you can always opt for a lower-tier service plan.
Once you have your criteria sorted out, you might want to consider some of the top hosting services of 2020:
Bluehost, HostGator & DreamHost
These three names will be quite familiar to anyone who has taken a look at traditional hosting services lately. DreamHost is among the oldest hosting services still on the web, considering that it got its start back in 1996. They currently host over 1.5 million sites, and they’ve made a name for themselves by making it easier for developers to work with their APIs and create responsive designs in the process. The company is also well-known in the international SEO market.
On the other hand, some people have become dissatisfied with Dreamhost’s support for WordPress and they’ve thus moved to Bluehost. Considering that WordPress has both sites on their list of recommended services, it might be a tie between the two. Nevertheless, the service provides support for email as well as this popular blogging platform so it’s become a major option for small business owners who want a single solution for all of their business needs. Unfortunately, it continues to provide support for some older unsafe protocols like FTP, which has been a concern for more privacy-minded consumers.
HostGator has proven attractive to those who find these other two options to be at least somewhat overpriced. Those who want to find extremely low-cost support can subscribe to the service for an extremely reasonable service tier. On the other hand, it’s important to keep in mind that you might lose some important features by doing so. A business plan is provided for individuals who want something with more support, but this plan is more expensive than most of the others that they offer.
People looking for a hosting service shouldn’t feel like they have to select one of these companies. A number of other options are out there.
Alternative Hosting Service Plans for Small Business Owners
If you opt for an alternative service, then make sure you go with something platform-neutral because you don’t want to be locked into a builder tool that might hurt your SEO prospects in the future. Apple has been hinting at a new search engine for some time, and platform-independent web hosting services will be indexed by this kind of tool. Those who use something with a dated construction tool may get left out of the rain.
Nevertheless, there are a few options out there for those who don’t want to have to learn web development but would prefer to avoid running into problems. WP Engine works with a standard WordPress installation and provides all of the features you’d expect from one. The organization behind WordPress has also promoted SiteGround as a possible alternative.
No matter which option you select, you’ll want to read through all of the fine print before putting any digital ink on a hosting contract. Countless smaller firms have unfortunately put together dodgy documents that basically give them the freedom to reduce the amount of services they provide to consumers over time. Regardless of the type of service you get, you’ll also want to consider making local backups to USB media just in case something happens.
That being said, there’s a good chance that you’ll be able to find an excellent service that does everything you need it to without forcing you to make any compromises in terms of cost or security. The good news is that once you do find the right service, you’ll more than likely be able to stick with it for a long time.