5 Best Hosting Providers for SEO: The Search Is Over
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This article will highlight the five best hosting providers for SEO, explaining what each provider is best at.
Seeing as you’ve clicked on this article, we’re guessing you have an idea of what SEO is. But for those of you who don’t know, it stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s the process of improving the visibility of your website on Google, which can be done in many ways.
Why is SEO important? Just think, you could have the most amazing website or ecommerce store in the world, but that won’t matter one bit if no one can find it.
Your hosting provider can impact your SEO. There are a number of features a hosting provider can offer to improve your website’s ranking on search engines.
We’ve done our research to find you the best SEO hosting providers. And they are…
- HostGator – Best for uptime and speed.
- GoDaddy Hosting – Best for server location and extra features.
- SiteGround – Best for SSL.
- InMotion – Best for backups.
- A2 Hosting – Best for help and support.
This article will go over each area of SEO, explaining which hosting provider is the best option for each category. Ready to find out the best hosting providers for SEO?
Enough talk, let’s s-e-GO!
Further Information
How to Host a Website – Go back to basics and learn how to start your hosting journey.
Best Web Hosting Providers – Can’t figure out which hosting provider is for you? Let us help.
Web Hosting Comparison Chart – Get a quick overview of each hosting provider.
Best Hosting Providers for SEO
The best hosting providers for SEO are:
- HostGator – Best for uptime and speed.
- GoDaddy Hosting – Best for server location and extra features.
- SiteGround – Best for SSL.
- InMotion – Best for backups.
- A2 Hosting – Best for help and support.
There are are some important SEO areas to consider when picking a hosting provider. We’ll briefly go over each one below…
Uptime
This is the amount of time the hosting provider stays up and running. In other words, it’s how long it actually works for. If your site experiences downtime and can’t be accessed, Google can penalise it.
Speed
Internet users don’t like waiting even 400 milliseconds for a website to load. High hosting speeds improve your rankings because they also improve the user experience, and Google wants everyone to have a good time, right?
Server Location
This is linked to hosting speed, in that how close you are to your server will affect your website loading speed. The more servers, the faster the website loading times and better search engine rankings.
SSL
This is your website security certificate. Google doesn’t like websites that seem untrustworthy, so investing in solid SSL will improve your search engine rankings.
Backups
If your site suddenly loses all its data (from a virus or hacker etc), there is nothing for search engines to rank. It’s therefore really important to consider a hosting provider’s backup offerings to save you from a disaster.
Help & Support
Comprehensive and efficient customer support helps keep your website running smoothly. Similar to uptime and backups, fixing your web hosting issues quickly keeps your site ranking well on search engines.
Best Web Hosting For Small Business – Learn how to host a site for your new venture.
The Cheapest Web Hosting – Discover the most cost effective hosting providers.
Best for Uptime: HostGator
HostGator Pros and Cons
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The longer your website actually stays up and running is the foundation for a successful website. Google doesn’t like faulty websites, because it wants people to find better quality websites more easily.
Based on our research, HostGator has the best uptime of 99.99%. It offers shared, VPS, WordPress, cloud, and dedicated hosting plans, so it has something for every type of site.
All new users can benefit from a $2.75 per month ‘Hatchling Plan’ for shared hosting, but this cost rises after the first year to $6.95 per month.
Learn more with our HostGator Review.
HostGator vs GoDaddy – Who wins? Click the link to find out.
Best for Speed: HostGator
HostGator Pros and Cons
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When picking the best hosting provider for SEO, there is definitely a need for speed. Having faster loading times is vital for the user’s experience, keeping visitors on your website, which will eventually improve your site’s rankings.
For speed and uptime, HostGator eats up the competition. It has the fastest hosting speeds and so users won’t leave your site because of sluggish loading times.
HostGator has a plan for every type of site. And it’s hard to beat on price too, with plans starting at just $2.75 per month.
Best for Server Location: GoDaddy
GoDaddy Hosting Pros and Cons
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In terms of server location, the more locations, the better. The location of your server has a direct impact on your website’s performance because the further away the server, the slower your site will load. This affects your search engine rankings due to a poor user experience.
Using cloud hosting? Then don’t worry. Servers are only used for shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting (the cloud uses satellites in space).
GoDaddy is the host with the most (locations), and so wins this category. It has seven, which means your website is never too far from a GoDaddy server.
However, GoDaddy is relatively more expensive than its competitors, with shared hosting costing between $2.49 – $19.99 per month.
Get more detail from our GoDaddy Hosting Review.
SiteGround vs GoDaddy – Which is right for you?
Best for SSL: SiteGround
SiteGround Pros and Cons
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Your Secure Sockets Layer is the protection your website needs to rank higher on search engines. It encrypts the data sent between the server and the user’s web browser. Google doesn’t like untrustworthy sites, having announced SSL would affect rankings in 2014.
SiteGround was one of the first providers to offer free SSL to all of its websites, and has always been one of the most vocal supporters of internet security.
SiteGround specialises in WordPress websites, offering WordPress hosting at every plan level. However, it’s actually one of the most adaptable hosting providers on the market. It doesn’t provide VPS hosting, but its WordPress hosting costs between just $6.99 to $14.99 per month.
Like the sound of SiteGround? Read our full review.
Best for Backups: InMotion
InMotion Pros and Cons
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Losing data means losing rankings. Why? Because search engines want safe and secure websites to be more visible online. In other words, they don’t want internet users to find websites that may get hacked or lose sensitive data.
InMotion is one of the best hosting providers on the market, and wins this category because it offers free backups as standard, and has really good customer support to help you if you lose data.
In our research, we found InMotion is best for shared and VPS hosting, but it also provides WordPress, dedicated, and reseller hosting, with prices starting from $6.39 per month.
Read our InMotion Review for more information.
Best for Help and Support: A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting Pros and Cons
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If your hosting provider comes with excellent help and support, you can keep your site running smoothly. This is exactly what search engines want, a safe, smooth, and secure website.
A2 Hosting came top in our help and support research. The aptly named ‘Guru Crew’ provides one-on-one assistance, offering a personalized support experience. A2 Hosting also offers 24/7 phone, live chat and email support, 365 days per year.
It’s not just there for great customer service, either. It covers all types of hosting and offers an anytime money back guarantee. This is a huge bonus, giving you flexibility if you change your mind down the line.
A2 Hosting provides unmanaged VPS hosting from just $5 per month, while managed starts at $33 per month.
Check out our in-depth A2 Hosting Review.
Best for Additional SEO Services: GoDaddy
GoDaddy Pros and Cons
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SEO is a complex system, so there are many factors and features that can improve your website’s ranking. For example, GoDaddy offers something called ‘Search Engine Visibility’. It scans your GoDaddy website and suggests some changes to help your website rank higher on Google.
Costing just $6.99 per month, it’s a really cheap helping hand. GoDaddy also offers free Microsoft Office 365 email, and free domains on most plans, so you can see why GoDaddy came top in our research for extra features.
GoDaddy has frequent discounts available, with shared hosting plans starting from just $3.50 per month if you sign up for three years.
Are There Any Other Hosting Providers for SEO?
There are plenty of hosting providers on the market that are good for SEO. Just because it didn’t win a category, doesn’t mean it provides poor SEO features. So what else is out there?
Bluehost is the second fastest hosting provider after HostGator. This means search engines will prefer your website to slower alternatives. Also, Bluehost is our best overall hosting provider on the market, and provides top-notch WordPress hosting.
1&1 IONOS is another good hosting option, providing SSL certificates and free backups across all plans. Also, Dreamhost offers plenty of storage space and has a 99.95% uptime which is quite high, and therefore good for SEO.
How Do You Choose a Hosting Provider for SEO?
When picking a hosting provider for SEO, there are some important things to consider. We’ve put together some handy tips to help you find the best provider for you more easily, these are:
- Does the provider have an impressive speed and uptime? Read customer reviews to get a more realistic idea.
- Think about its security offerings. Do you get free backups and SSL certificates on all plans or will they cost you more?
- How many server locations does it have? The more the better, because the closer your computer is to a server, the better it will perform.
- Do some research on the providers help and support offerings. The quicker you fix web hosting issues, the less your rankings will be negatively affected.
Best Hosting Providers for SEO: Summary
We’ve now shown you seven things to look out for when choosing a hosting provider for SEO. You also know which provider is best when it comes to each category. These categories include important areas like uptime, server location, backups, SSL, and more.
5 Best Hosting Providers for SEO: Recap
- HostGator – Best for uptime and speed.
- GoDaddy Hosting – Best for server location and extra features.
- Siteground – Best for SSL.
- InMotion – Best for backups.
- A2 Hosting – Best for help and support.
And remember when choosing a provider to look at the provider’s speed and uptime. It’s impossible to reach 100% uptime, but choose one with 99.9% and above.
Think about security and backups to help keep your website safe, and search engines happy.
And lastly, make sure you’ll have access to 24/7, comprehensive customer support to fix your issues quickly, and maintain your rankings on search engines.
Now you know how choosing the right hosting provider can really improve your website’s ranking on search engines.
Best Hosting Providers for SEO: FAQs
Which is the best hosting provider for SEO?
HostGator offers the most effective SEO features available. It has the fastest speed and uptime of any provider we’ve tested (99.99%) which is crucial for improving your site’s ranking, and it offers SSL and backups on all plans.
How does a hosting provider affect SEO?
A hosting provider can impact SEO in many ways. The better brands will have the features to help improve your site’s rankings, like high loading speeds, excellent uptimes, free website security and lots of server locations. These are all things search engines like to see in a website.
Which hosting provider has best help and support?
A2 Hosting is the best for customer support, with their ‘Guru Crew’ offering 24/7 help 365 days of the year. It also has an excellent knowledge base so you can find solutions quickly and easily, which is vital for maintaining your rankings on Google.
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