Just How Important is Solid Hosting for Webmasters?
A lot of people have all sorts of fuzzy ideas as to what hosting is and why it’s important to their business. In fact, a lot of people are under the mistaken assumption that hosting is really optional.
Just How Important is Solid Hosting for Webmasters?
Now, they’re not foolish enough to believe that an online business can live without hosting. They’re not dumb. However, they assume that any kind of web hosting service will do. In other words, they are under the impression that if you’ve seen one hosting company and realize how it works, then you’ve pretty much seen them all.
This dismissive attitude can actually undermine the business prospects and longevity of any kind of online business. Whether you run an online store where you sell your own stuff or you’re a dropshipper or you are running a network of blogs or you’re selling some sort of online book or online course through email or through videos, you need solid hosting.
Now, anybody can say that. In fact, sales representatives from these websites say that all the time. But to convince you, let me draw an analogy.
If you go to your favorite store, let’s say your favorite shoe store and you notice that they are closed when you show up at 11:00 AM on Monday, what would you think if they were closed again when you show up at 2:00 PM the next day and 5:00 PM the day after that? You might start thinking about the long term health of the store, right? After all, if they’re closed for the day, they’re not making any money.
There won’t be any flesh and blood individuals walking through the physical doors so they can help those people. Those people are not going to fork over their hard earned dollars for goods that don’t exist because they did not show up. Do you see how this works?
Well, imagine that happening online. When physical doors of local businesses, and I’m talking about brick and mortar businesses, are closed, there is no way they can make money unless they have an online presence.
The same applies to purely online businesses. If they are, somehow, some way, inaccessible to their customers, regardless of where these customers come from, then there is no possibility of business.
When people try to load the website by typing in their URL or clicking on a link, they see a “404” or “Page Not Found” error. If people can’t find you, they can’t do business with you. It really is that simple.
Unfortunately, a lot of people who are unclear as to the importance of quality hosting do not get this. They think that as long as people are able to find their online presence some of the time, they are good to go.
This is dangerous because if you are serious about truly making money with your online business, you have to make sure that it is visible all the time. This means that regardless of the time of day and people click on a link or enter some sort of search trying to find your website, they will be able to find you. If they can’t find you, then they would probably go to your competitors.
Now, you may be thinking that you’re still okay because as long as they can find you some of the time, you can still make money. Well, this is too much of an assumption to make because your competitors are eagerly vacuuming the traffic that you could have otherwise have gotten.
In other words, if you show up on a search engine ranking result, if you don’t get the hit or click, your customers would not disregard their search results. Instead, they would go to the next business that is second on the list.
Who do you think will get the business? Who do you think will get the sale? Who do you think they will trust? They would not have an opportunity to trust you because you never showed up. They never saw your site. You are invisible to them.
I hope this much is clear and I hope this wakes you up to the importance of solid gold hosting.
The job of a hosting company is actually quite simple. It actually only involves one thing and one thing alone. Their job, and their only job I would argue, is to ensure that you are visible to not just people in Australia, but to people all over the world.
And unfortunately, hosting companies are not created equal. Some are really good at providing uptime and they can bet the bank on it. Others are simply resellers and you get what you pay for. The choice is yours.