Having a website is a must in today's digital world, especially for businesses. But having a webpage that is on the top of Google, Bing, MSN, or Yahoo search engine can be difficult. Search engine result pages drive the online economy, and so it is crucial to understand what factors contribute to the SERP algorithm and those which do not. One question you may ask is whether shared web hosting affects my ranking? The answer is yes and no.
Hosting does not essentially affect SERP rankings.
The SERPs are not concerned with how you have your site hosted. Algorithms are more concerned with whether you have organic content if you have unique visitors to the site, if your content is SEO saturated, the comments and engagements on the site, and whether the site is mobile friendly. Essentially, the SERP is focused more on the site's content than how the site is delivered to the internet. But this does not mean that there are no hosting factors that contribute to the SERP results.
Two Factors of Hosting which affect your ranking
When choosing a domain and hosting web service, you must find the fastest shared hosting for WordPress or HTML. Loading times are a huge factor when it comes to page rankings. A website is expected to load in less than a second in today's online world. That is almost instantaneously. According to current website standards, sites that take more than 2 seconds to load are slow. Because shared hosting divides the server amongst other users, it is possible that sites could see lags in their loading time if the right domain and web services are not chosen.
Find an affordable WordPress hosting provider who guarantees fast loading times for your page. You will also want to ensure that the website has a low downtime percentile. The best-shared WordPress hosting providers will have a 99% uptime for their sites.
The second factor affecting your rating is whether the site has a secure certificate. Sites that do not have an SSL or CER may rank their page lower in the SERPs. At a minimum, the best domain and web hosting services will offer SSL certificates for the sites hosted on their page. Google algorithms specifically look for SSLs. Sites without SSL certifications are labelled as potentially hazardous, and a message that the site is unsafe is given to visitors. This is something that a business cannot have, as an unsafe site corresponds with the consumer's perception of the products, goods, or services offered.
How shared web hosting can help your ranking
While factors can lower your ranking, there are many features in the top-rated web hosting services that can boost your ranking. Many shared hosting sites offer add-on features to help boost the visibility and the overall engagement between the target audience and the site. These add-on features contribute to the search engine result pages when the target audience engages with these features. For example, a shared WordPress hosting service may offer Facebook and Instagram share buttons for your site, or the hosting service may offer a plug-in for your site, which converts text into social media snippets. This feature, when utilized, creates content for social media and thereby boosts the engagement and visibility of your site. Search engine algorithms see the boost and give more credibility to your site, boosting you higher in the SERPs.
The domain name is king.
Perhaps the most influential factor to the SERP ranking of your site is the domain name. If your site has the best content, the fastest shared hosting WordPress service, and loads quickly but has a horrible domain name, it will not rank well. Discard the generic or the generated domain name. Symbols and underscores do little to help your site and do much to affect your ranking. Instead, use low-cost domain registration to find an easily remembered name specific to your site. For example, you would not want to have a johndoe789_123%6.wordpress.com/home for your site. Using JohnDoesBBQHouse.com is better. In this example, the owner and the service are identified and easy to remember.
Does shared hosting affect your ranking?
Shared hosting does not essentially affect your ranking. Where you put your site in terms of hosting is not a factor in the search engine rating pages. Only the supporting security and loading factors play into the SERPs and should be addressed before your site goes live. These factors are the same for dedicated server hosting websites. If a site on a dedicated server does not have SSL or loads slowly, it will lower its ranking.
Ensure that you have the best ranking by having the proper certificates, SEO, organic content, and a domain that can be remembered.