SEO professionals certainly have no shortage of things to worry about, from staples such as content creation and backlinks to new factors such as voice search and the mobile-first index. Amidst all the different factors that can affect your website’s SEO, web hosting is often overlooked, although it can impact both your site’s page speed and uptime, both of which are absolutely essential for maintaining optimum organic performance. The web host that you choose will determine the overall consistency of the user experience your site is offering to visitors. If you want to avoid page timeouts, server errors and bounce backs, you need a solid, reliable web host. Here are five SEO factors to keep in mind.

#1. High Uptime Guarantee:

The guarantee of uptime is arguably the most important factor when it comes to an SEO-friendly web host. This refers to the percentage of time that your site is live and accessible, which should ideally be 100% of the time. High uptime rates mean that you can avoid visitors landing on your site online to discover that it’s down and they need to try somewhere else instead. For the best results, choose a web host that offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, or even higher, if you can. But, bear in mind that there’s always going to be some downtime – the key is to keep it as short as possible, so it won’t affect SEO performance.

#2. SEO-Friendly Add-Ons:

In addition to a hosting plan, many companies also offer a range of optional value add-ons that can improve the SEO performance of your site. For example, SSL encryption is an option that you should always embrace. HTTPS has been a ranking factor for some time now, and having a secure site is more important than ever before in terms of SEO, particularly if you’re asking for customers’ personal information on your site. Automatic backups are also something to look out for. If your website is down, you’ll want to have a site backup that you can quickly restore from with minimal changes. And, it’s a wise idea to choose a company that offers multiple hosting plan options, so that you can easily change the plan if your business expands in the future.

#3. Server Location:

The location of the server where your website is hosted can determine how quickly your site is accessible to visitors. If you’re using a shared, VPS or dedicated server hosting plan, then your website will be stored on a physical server as opposed to cloud hosting, where the data is stored online. If your site is located on a physical server, ideally, you’ll want to make sure that it’s located as close as possible to the majority of your site’s visitors. The further away the server is, the longer it’s likely to take for your site to load. And, faraway server locations can also look suspicious to search engines, which can have a negative effect on your SEO.

On top of these essential factors, look for a web hosting company with great reviews and a responsive customer service team.