Like many business owners, you may just want a website that displays your business, products, or services online, but you don’t want to worry about the technical side of things, like hosting plans and SEO factors. However, it’s essential to understand how that the hosting plan you choose will significantly impact your marketing ROI so you can make the best decision for your business.
Your hosting significantly impacts your marketing ROI by affecting your site speed, security, and overall user experience. These factors significantly affect your search rankings and SEO. Your users also won’t buy on your site; they’ll bounce when it’s slow and insecure.
Here’s a more detailed discussion of the technical SEO factors every business should know. It will help you improve your hosting plan decisions for a more profitable marketing ROI.
Core Web Vitals and Landing Page Conversion Rates
One of the most significant factors that determine your site’s ranking on search engines is its page speed. Google has explicitly stated that they prioritize website loading speeds when ranking relevant sites in a user query.
A slow website is not user-friendly, and users tend to bounce off quickly, leading to a high bounce rate.
The odds of visitors buying from your landing page drop with every microsecond your page takes to load. People who bounce off sites due to speed seldom return or refer the site to others.
It also harms search engines when users bounce off your site, making their pursuit for answers to their queries longer than necessary.
Google curated a set of metrics called Core Web Vitals to gauge the user experience of your website. These metrics include:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
This term refers to how long it takes for a webpage’s main content to load. Long LCP suggests that your website is slow, so users are likely to leave.
First Input Delay (FID)
This term describes how long it takes for a webpage to become interactive. A long FID means that users must wait longer before interacting with the site, leading to a poor user experience.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
CLS tracks unexpected layout shifts on web pages. It’s frustrating for users when they click on one element and accidentally click on another due to shifting layouts.
All these metrics contribute to your overall page speed and user experience. Poor Core Web Vitals will obliterate your site’s search visibility, and your content may not even be indexed for ranking.
Effects of Slow Speeds on Google Ads Quality Score and SEO
- Increased bounce rate, suggesting to search engines that your website is not relevant or useful.
- Lower Google Ads Quality Score, which impacts your ad placement and cost per click.
- Poor Core Web Vitals can lead to a lower rank on Google search results pages.
Therefore, having a fast-loading website is crucial for both user experience and SEO.
What’s Google Ads Quality Score?
Google Ads Quality Score is a significant factor influencing your placement, as well as PPC costs on Google ads. A low-quality score leads to lower ad positions and higher costs per click.
The three main components of Google Ads Quality Score are:
- Expected Click-Through Rate: The likelihood someone will click on your ad depends on its relevance and position.
- Ad Relevance describes how well your ad matches user search intent and keywords.
- Landing Page Experience: The user experience on your website after clicking on the ad.
Slow loading speeds will negatively impact all the three components we just listed, resulting in a lower quality score. So, optimizing your server response time is crucial for better ad performance.
Server Response Times and Google Ads Quality Score
Server response time describes the time your server takes your server to respond to a user’s browser request. It includes the time the server takes to receive, process, and send back data the user requests.
Time to First Byte (TTFB) is a crucial metric that measures how quickly your server responds to a user’s first request. It affects all the Core Web Vitals we discussed earlier.
How Poor Hosting Affects Server Response Time
Your hosting facility also significantly determines your server response time.
A poor hosting plan or provider causes websites to load slowly, negatively impacting user experience and SEO.
Here are some ways in which poor hosting can affect your server response time:
- Shared Hosting: In shared hosting, multiple websites share the same server resources, leading to slower response times during high-traffic periods. Security is also a concern, as you share the vulnerability of other site owners you don’t know.
- Insufficient Bandwidth: Limited bandwidth can result in slower data transfer between your host server and user browsers.
- Server Location: Your hosting server’s physical location also affects response time. If the server is far from your target audience, it can lead to longer loading times due to increased latency.
- Outdated Server Hardware: Old or outdated server hardware can struggle to handle multiple requests, leading to slower response times.
- Lack of Caching: Without caching, the server has to process every request from scratch, resulting in longer response times.
Improving Server Response Time
To improve server response time, you can take the following steps:
- Optimize server configuration: Configure your server for optimal performance using caching, compression, and updating software.
- Deploying a content delivery network (CDN): CDNs spread a website’s content to multiple servers worldwide, so your content doesn’t have to travel to the other side of the globe before getting to the user’s browser.
- Host with Adopt the Web for affordable, reliable, and faster hosting services.
- Minimize HTTP requests: The more HTTP requests your server receives, the longer it takes to process them all. Reduce the number of external scripts and resources deployed on your site.
- Optimize images: Compressing and optimizing images can significantly reduce their file sizes, resulting in faster user loading times.
- Enable browser caching: Caching stores frequently requested data, reducing the need for the server to retrieve it repeatedly.
Cost-Benefit Analysis of CDN Implementations for Multi-Location Businesses
Websites with global audiences need to invest in moving their hosting servers closer to all locations, enhancing user experience, and reducing abandonment rates.
A CDN helps distribute website content to multiple servers worldwide, minimizing latency and boosting loading speeds.
CDNs have servers in multiple locations. When a user requests some of your site content, the CDN will serve that request from the server closest to the user’s location. It significantly reduces response times.
Challenges Multi-Location Businesses Face Without a CDN
1. Increased Latency
Latency refers to the delay between a user’s action, such as clicking on a link or requesting data, and the response from the server. This delay arises from:
- The distance between the user and the server.
- Network congestion.
- Server load.
Without a CDN in place, users located far away from your hosting server will experience higher latency because their requests will have to travel longer distances.
2. Inconsistent User Experience
With a global audience, users from different locations will experience vastly different loading speeds, depending on their proximity to your hosting server. You’ll miss out on potential customers who’re far away, which defeats the purpose of online businesses in the first place.
3. Increased Server Load
Hosting servers without a CDN must handle all users’ requests, regardless of location. This fault increases server load and slows down your website’s performance, especially during peak traffic periods.
Benefits of CDN Implementation for Multi-Location Businesses
1. Improved User Experience
CDNs drastically reduce latency and improve loading speeds for users worldwide, enhancing user experience and leading to higher customer satisfaction rates.
2. Better Accessibility
A CDN ensures your website is accessible from anywhere worldwide at high speeds. It opens up your business to a global audience and potential customers previously deterred by slow loading speeds.
3. SEO Benefits
With a CDN in place, your website will load faster, attracting more search visibility for your business.
Your Hosting Plan Will Make or Break Your Website
While it is only one factor in the impact your website can make on your business, the importance of choosing the right hosting plan for your business cannot be overstated. A poor choice slows down your site and jeopardizes your website’s performance. That’s effectively putting off potential customers.
Hosting also affects your web security. Servers with weak security measures can easily be breached, resulting in data theft and potentially damaging your business’s reputation.
Here’s the best WordPress hosting for agencies that I personally recommend for multi-location businesses. You’ll enjoy fast servers, high-level security measures, and scalability to accommodate your growth.
Never underestimate how your hosting choice affects your website’s success. Choose wisely!
