Sometimes, as a small or medium business owner, we don’t really consider web hosting services based on much more than the cost, name or recommendation and reasonable reliability. However, this isn’t always the best solution. Let’s take a closer look.
Mass Servers
There are loads of large companies out there offering cheap and reliable web hosting services to people all over the globe. For example, a large company such as GoDaddy is widely renowned and reasonably affordable. However, GoDaddy (just like many others), is a mass hosting provider whereby a website gets placed on a random server with a shared IP address (which identifies your location).
Now, even though your business may only operate in Australia, your website now has an IP address that may be assigned to another country. This means that search engines may potentially be confused as to the true location of your website and business.
While it has not been proven that search engines use server location as a ranking factor, there has been some strong evidence to show that the IP address of a website can affect the rankings of the site.
Site Speed
We all know how important it is for a website to load quickly for visitors in order to provide them with a positive user experience (UX).
So, if your business solely operates in Australia, then would it make sense to choose an Australian web hosting provider? Or better yet, if your business operates in Melbourne, would it make sense to choose a web hosting provider in Melbourne?
The answer is yes! The closer a website visitor is to the data center that hosts your website, the quicker it will load for them.
40% of visitors will leave a website if the page takes longer than 3 seconds to load. That’s serious stuff!”
There you have it. This is just another reason to think locally, and it might be more affordable to achieve than you think.
At DigitUX, we have affordable web hosting services that Australian utilise data centers and support – and free inbound migration.
If you have more questions about web hosting, we’d love to hear from you.