Your web hosting can play several roles in helping your website’s search engine optimization (SEO). Let’s take a look at how your web host can improve your SEO and what tools and services to look out for.
Basic SEO Improvement
Let’s start out with two basic components of SEO improvement. It’s now widely agreed that speed and security play a role in how well your website ranks in the search engines. So, it certainly makes sense to find a web hosting company with optimum data center locations and network and server performance, as well as a web host that protects your site from outside attacks as much as possible. Since I consider speed and security basic criteria for any choice of web hosting, let’s dive in a little deeper and see how else your web hosting company can improve your SEO.
Search Engine Submission
Although you can do this on your own, it can save you some time if your web host includes this service with your hosting plan. Bluehost is one company that includes some nice search engine submission tools free with your account. Also, Go Daddy’s new Search Engine Visibility service can submit your website to over 100 search engines (see below for more details).
Web Analytics
Web analytics data can measure how well your site is currently doing and help you determine what areas you need to improve on to get better search engine rankings. Some web hosting plans will help you integrate your site with tools such as Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. And, if your web hosting package includes cPanel, you should also have access to Logaholic—which can give you another viewpoint of your website data.
Keyword Suggestions and Tracking
Selecting and targeting the correct keywords and phrases are crucial to your SEO success. There are a number of tools you can use to find and track your keywords—some free and some that cost money. Some web hosts like Go Daddy and iPage offer this type of service as a separate product offering.
HTML On-Page Analysis
While it doesn’t get as much attention as before, the HTML code of your site can still have an effect on how well your site performs. If you’re using a content management system for your website such as WordPress or Joomla, most of the time your coding should be fine. However, the quality of the code of your WordPress themes can vary widely, so it’s still a good idea to periodically analyze your website’s code.
Search Engine Rank Tracking
If you’re serious about wanting to improve your SEO, it’s very important to keep track of how well your site is ranking and be aware of what trends may be occurring. Google Analytics is a good starting point. However, you can also get additional reporting tools from certain web hosting companies.
Go Daddy’s Search Engine Visibility Package
Go Daddy has recently begun to offer a separate SEO product that runs about $2.99 mo. called Search Engine Visibility. The package is intended to increase search rankings and get fast exposure for your website. The following items are included:
SEO Consulting
If you really don’t want to spend all the time needed for SEO, or you would like experienced professionals to assist you with the job, you’ll be happy to know that some web hosting companies are now offering SEO consulting services—for an additional fee.
For example, iPage sells their My Website Traffic service where their team of SEO professionals will run an SEO campaign for your website that includes:
Choosing a Web Host for SEO
So, putting it all together, what is the best web hosting for SEO? First, look for increased speed and security. Make sure your web host is utilizing multiple data center technology or a content delivery network. Next, decide how much of the SEO work you want to do or can do on your own. If you’d rather do the job yourself, look for search engine submission and web analytics tools that are included with your hosting plan. For even more help, consider an add-on service like the Search Engine Visibility package from Go Daddy. And, if you’d prefer to have a team of professionals do the majority of your SEO, consider a web host like iPage that offers an SEO consulting service.
How dose Hostinger compare to GoDaddy? Which web host is better? In this comparison of…