If you’re a fan of our blog, you’re already familiar with the basics of a great website. But there’s one secret weapon that can have a huge impact on your site – both immediately and long term.

Hosting your website on a high-quality, dedicated server helps increase your site’s speed, SEO ranking, security, and up-time. It can be one of the biggest factors that will give you an edge over your competition.

Here’s how hosting your website on a top tier server can help:

Instant Speed Boost

When you switch from a heavy, weighed-down server to a more efficient, well-maintained one, your site’s speed can increase overnight! And not just increase a little bit – our private server averages a 38% bump for our clients. Since most users bounce off a site that takes longer than 2 seconds to load, every little improvement matters.

To understand what a high-quality server does to make sites work faster, let’s dig into the technical details…

They have a dispersed content delivery network (CDN) – this means web traffic can be routed to a server near the user, no matter where they are. That will keep requests local and prevent unnecessary travel
They’re prepared for large amounts of traffic – on a cheap server, if one site gets a lot of traffic at once it can decrease the performance of the rest. A good server will have multiple caching layers to best serve all users
They let you know when your site needs an update – things like outdated plugins and WordPress versions can seriously slow down your site. A quality host will recognize when your site is behind so you can address the issue and get back up to speed

Long-Term SEO Improvement

Your website’s search engine ranking is based on how helpful search engines like Google or YouTube think your site is, based on a user’s inquiry. The most important factor is whether or not you provide helpful, informative content. But search engines also weigh things like your site’s speed, how well-maintained it is, and even what kinds of sites share the same server. That’s right – a site that was randomly tossed onto the same server could be dragging your SEO ranking down without you ever knowing it.

When a site is hosted alongside low-quality websites (like gambling, pharma, or online scams), it’s referred to as a ‘bad neighborhood’. And much like a real bad neighborhood, it can have a damaging effect on your home even if you keep everything in tip-top shape.

There’s a fascinating study that measured the SEO movement of thousands of sites from different quality servers, including ‘bad neighborhood’ servers vs. their higher quality counterparts. The study definitively showed that sites on the shared IP address ranked less strongly than those on the dedicated server, and the difference continues to grow over time.

Top Notch Security

One unfortunate side effect of the pandemic has been unprecedented levels of cybersecurity attacks. Thousands of sites are hacked every day, which results in leaked customer data, ransomware attacks, site takeovers, and plenty of other nasty things that can bring a business down. Here are a few ways a high-quality server plus regular maintenance can help:

Includes an SSL certificate, which shows your site can securely process data transfer, authentications, credit card purchases, and more
Alerts you when plugin updates are available, so you can avoid out-of-date and potentially vulnerable versions on your site
Keeps you out of ‘bad neighborhood’ IPs, making you less vulnerable to attacks
Provides regular backups and/or a backup environment, so you have a version of your site saved in case it needs to be restored

Signs You Might Have a Cheap Plan

Not sure how your current hosting arrangement measures up? Shopping around for better service? Here are a few red flags to watch out for:

They offer a ‘free domain’ with your hosting package – often these programs will buy a your domain themselves, and essentially rent it to you as long as you continue paying for hosting. If you ever cancel your contract, they usually take your domain with them or sell it back to you at a premium.
No staging site/test environment – before you roll out major site updates, new features, or plugin versions, you should test for issues on a backup version of your site. Many cheap providers forgo this, leaving you to make risky updates directly on your live site.
Tons of add-ons and extra expenses – Some companies offer a cheap rate for hosting, but then charge you extra for things like your SSL, disaster recovery, space usage, and more. Before you know it, you’ll be paying five times the sticker price you budgeted for!

A quality website can be one of the greatest assets you can invest in. It helps recruit new business, answers your clients’ questions, and teaches people more about your brand and what you’re all about.

But the most important word in there is a quality website! Here are the 4 keys to make sure your website is truly working for you and your business:

1. Lightning-Fast Site Speed

Bad news: The average person will bounce off a site if it takes 2 seconds or longer to load.

Worse news: When they bounce off due to speed, people often return to their Google search and select the next site on the list – so not only do you lose them, but they probably end up on your competitor’s site!
The speed of your website is arguably the most important factor in starting the virtual conversation with your visitors. Here are a few things to pay attention to that will help you keep your site quick and light:

Image sizes – this is the #1 culprit we see when someone comes to us with site speed concerns. Did you post headshots straight from the photographer’s ultra-high-def files? Are your decorative background photos taking up a disproportionate amount space without providing a ton of value? A simple reduction in size or quality can often provide an instant speed boost (and is often not even noticeable to your users!).

Plugins – plugins are a great way to introduce new features and functionality to your site without the cost of custom builds. But too many can really weigh your site down! Do a quick audit to make sure all of your site’s plugins are (1) actively being used (2) being properly maintained and regularly updated.

Server Quality – even if you have the fastest, most well-designed site in the world, if you host it on a subpar server your speed will be affected. While those cheap monthly GoDaddy plans might be tempting at first, the security and speed you receive on a higher end, private server can’t be beat.

2. Mobile-First Optimization

Since late 2019, over half of web traffic has come from mobile devices – and that percentage continues to climb every year. Gen Z is positioned to be the most mobile-reliant generation yet. Even Black Friday, once an in-store frenzy, has lost about 40% of its sales to mobile devices. So yeah, mobile-friendly sites are a pretty big deal!

A lot of the traditional web development best practices hold true for mobile development – in fact, often they’re just magnified. Here are a few keys for mobile-first optimization:

Prioritize readability over design – you may need to customize a version of your site specifically for small screens

Create clear, easy to click call-to-actions – make it easy for users to engage and take the action you want them to take

Cut the fluff – no one wants to scroll through tons of unnecessary content on a tiny screen. Give them what they’re looking for, and cut the rest

Avoid click-to-open features – some people think this makes for a cleaner interface, but more often than not, it just hides your content

Take care of your hyperlinks – click-to-call, online scheduling, linking to supplemental resources, and click-to-email should all be linked to open with the press of a button

3. Top-Notch Security

As the owner of a website, it’s your duty to keep your visitors and their information safe. Cybersecurity attacks have been on the upswing, and even a minor attack can devastate businesses of any size. Protect yourself and your clients with the following:

SSL certificate (that padlock icon you see before your URL)
RECAPTCHA and other form security (reduces spam submissions and emails)
Private server (reduces the risk of being housed with low-quality sites)
Regular password updates (and skip the obvious ones like [Hometeam][Year])
Minimize admin accounts (you’re only as secure as your least secure admin!)
Include a Privacy Policy (and make sure your team adheres to it)

And finally…

Protect client information at all costs! When someone fills out a form online, they’re trusting you with their personal information. Be sure your website follows all legal compliance regulations within your industry, and you store user info in a secure place.

4. SEO Optimization

To get any real benefit from your website, people need to be able to find it! SEO, or ‘search engine optimization’, describes the way your website communicates with search engines like Google, Bing, or YouTube, and lets them know what kind of content lives on your site. This helps them know when you’re a relevant result when someone is searching for a business like yours.

A well-organized, SEO optimized site will have the following:

Helpful, unique content with keyword-friendly copy
Quality user experience and great site speed
Compelling title tags and meta descriptions
Pages full of great copy, but not too full (somewhere between 300-1500 words per page should be a good place to start)
Internal links (linking to other pages in your own site) and external links (linking out to other high-quality resources)

Try this: to figure out which direction your SEO should go, put yourself in your customers’ shoes! What kind of things would they Google to find you? What kinds of questions to they have about your product or service? Do they know your industry lingo, or should you stick to language the average person would know? This will help you develop a keyword list you can stick to while writing content and page descriptions.

Is your website due for a makeover? Get in touch for a complimentary website audit and discuss how to make your site best work for you!

Tag: website

One Secret Weapon You Didn’t Know Your Site Needed