Business owners who are serious about SEO sometimes overlook the obvious in the attempt to drive traffic to their site and start doing business. One of the obvious factors is choosing a good web hosting company. A good web hosting company is essential to SEO. After all, if your website is down for a significant period of time, then you can't exactly do business, can you? Here are 5 things to consider when choosing your web hosting company.



1. How Do They Advertise? One good way to find a trustworthy web hosting company is to look and how—and where—they advertise. Go to a local bookstore and check out the magazines for web developers. See which web hosting companies advertise there, and how big their advertisements are. If they have enough money to advertise in a periodical, then they're most likely legit. And most periodicals will pull advertisements if their readership provides negative feedback about the advertisers. Any web hosting company that is making enough money from customers to advertise in magazines is probably worth investigating.

2. What's Their Reputation? Check out online reviews from other business owners who are serious about SEO. If these businesses have good things to say about the web hosting company, then the company is probably trustworthy. This is easy to do simply by searching the name of the company with the word “reviews.”

3. How Much Does it Cost? You should be able to find a trustworthy, affordable web hosting company without any trouble, but any company that advertises their services for less than about $7/month should raise red flags for you. Some companies that charge very little for their services practice what is known is shared hosting. This means that they use a single server for more accounts than the server could actually manage if each account user was using all of the bandwidth allotted to him. If this is the case, you can probably bet that your site will have some downtime, and that can be detrimental to your SEO efforts.

4. Do They Guarantee Their Services? The one thing worse than significant amounts of downtime is the risk of losing all of your data. This means that you should only trust web hosting companies that offer a money-back guarantee. When you're researching a web hosting company, see what their refund policy is. This should give you a good idea of trustworthiness.

5. What Does Your Gut Say? Do your instincts tell you that this is a reputable company? Believe it or not, your gut is almost always a good indicator when making important decisions. So get all the facts that you can, and then listen to what your gut is telling you. Do they return emails in a timely manner? Do they talk to you in terms that a layperson can understand? These are all things to consider when shopping for your web hosting company.

There no overestimating the importance of a trustworthy web hosting company for SEO. Not only might you experience a great deal of down time if you go with a shady company, but you also risk losing enormous amounts of data; enough, in fact, that you can put your entire business at risk. So look for companies that are considered reputable by others in your business. Check out their advertising. Research their refund policies, and then follow your gut.

An SEO expert or internet marketing professional is also a great resource to consult when shopping for a web hosting company. They'll be familiar with the reputations of lots of companies and will be able to give you accounts of their first-hand experiences with those companies. Don't take unnecessary chances with your business. Find a web hosting company that will help you develop your business to its full potential!