The most important element to keep in mind when building a website, maintaining a blog or otherwise engaging with audiences on the web is the effect that competition can have on outcomes. Today, nobody has to settle for an average outcome with respect to products, services or information. If your web-based presence fails to deliver what is expected, then it will not be something that many frequent in the future. Hosting providers – seemingly a simple decision that is made early in the process and forgotten about thereafter – can play a huge role in how your website performs in search and how it is reviewed by others. Below, we’ll talk about how this simple variable can impact a lot.

Visitors Hate Slow Websites

Perhaps most important, it is worth noting that no two hosting providers are created equally. Even identical hosting packages between two vendors in terms of bandwidth, storage and cost can look very different underneath the surface. With instant gratification now being a huge component in how people make decisions, a slow-loading website – caused by inferior hosting provider infrastructure – can make the difference between visitors pinging your website and leaving versus them navigating it extensively. If your website takes more than one or two seconds to load on mobile or traditional devices, then there is an exponential abandonment effect by visitors for each additional second they have to wait.

Search Engines Penalize Slow Websites

It’s not just everyday visitors who find slow websites questionable: search engines frown upon it, too! While the exact correlation remains unclear, it has been documented that search engines tend to rank slower loading websites lower than their faster-loading peers. Whether this is a direct connection due to site speed in absolute terms or an indirect connection due to higher bounce rates from users who cannot stand to wait for more pages to load remains unclear. With that being said, do we really need to know the answer for sure? If you are pinging your website to Google, Bing or other search engines from a slow hosting provider, then prepare to have your website’s rankings in search be lower than they could be otherwise with a better provider.

Factors to Consider

There are several elements to consider when selecting the proper hosting provider in terms of speed. The selection of a reliable web host with stable infrastructure and fast speeds is paramount and should be prioritized above all else, but other elements are also important. The location of the hosting provider (and its relation to where the largest chunk of your audience resides) and the correct hosting package are other elements that must also be carefully considered. Always be sure to consult with a hosting provider before agreeing to any hosting plan – ask them how many connections to the internet they have, which will give you an idea of how well they’ll be able to re-route traffic during periods of high demand. Many people are beginning to select VPS hosting providers for this very reason, which offer more uniform speeds and more resources and features in most instances.