Most business owners think about design content and SEO when they’re setting up their website, but web hosting often gets forgotten. We strongly advise against this. Your web hosting is basically the foundation that holds everything together online so if it’s not solid all that work and money on amazing content and fancy design ends up not being as valuable as it could be.

At Slinky Web Design we’ve been in the online space for over two decades and we’ve seen many businesses make this exact mistake. They’ll spend thousands on a beautiful website design and months perfecting their content strategy only to go for the cheapest option when it comes to hosting. When their website crashes during an important sales period they watch all their hard work fall apart.

Even a small issue with your web hosting can undo months of work. If you site crashes just when customers are trying to find you or it loads too slow, people move on to the next company in a few seconds. We’ve all been there, clicking on a website that takes forever to load and just moving on to the next Google result instead.

Hosting

Think of web hosting like the foundation of a house. You can have the most beautiful architecture, and the highest quality materials but if the foundation isn’t solid the whole thing will come crumbling down. Your website works the same, it needs a sold foundation.

From boosting your revenue and keeping site traffic flowing smoothly to protecting your website and backing up your data, the right web hosting service can make your business shine while competitors struggle with slow unreliable sites that crash during busy periods.

But here’s what most people don’t realise, hosting affects your search engine rankings too. Google’s made it pretty clear that site speed’s a ranking factor and they’re getting more strict about it every year. If your hosting’s slow you’re not just annoying visitors you’re actually hurting your SEO efforts.

We’ve worked with clients who were doing everything right with their SEO but they were stuck on page two of Google results because their hosting was dragging down their site speed. Once we helped them switch to better hosting their rankings improved within weeks, which is always good to see.

The Type of Hosting

First, decide which hosting option is best for you by researching online or contacting a professional web hosting service provider who can guide you in the right direction.

For a rough analysis, four hosting services are available, shared hosting, dedicated hosting, managed hosting and and Virtual Private Server. Shared hosting is a more affordable choice that suits start-ups but may not be as scalable as dedicated hosting, where no resources are shared and you have the whole amount of disk space and bandwidth.

Shared hosting is like living in a crowded apartment building. You’re sharing resources with hundreds of other websites, which keeps costs down but means your site’s performance depends on what your neighbours are doing. If someone else’s website gets a traffic spike or starts hogging resources, it affects everyone else.

This can work for small businesses just starting out, but it’s not a long term solution if you’re serious about growing your online presence. The main problem isn’t just performance – it’s unpredictability.

VPS hosting gives you more control and dedicated resources. It’s like having your own unit in a building, you’re still sharing the physical server, but you have your own space that doesn’t get affected by other tenants. This is a good middle ground for growing businesses that need more reliability than shared hosting can provide.

Dedicated hosting means you get an entire server to yourself. It’s expensive but you have complete control and don’t have to worry about other websites affecting your performance. This makes sense for larger businesses or websites with high traffic volumes.

Managed hosting is when the hosting company takes care of all the technical stuff for you. They handle security updates, backups, performance optimisation and monitoring while you focus on running your business. Its more expensive but for many business owners the peace of mind is worth it.

Reputation and Customer Service

When your website goes down you need help fast. The quality of customer support can make the difference between a minor hiccup in your week and a business threatening disaster.

24/7 support sounds impressive but the reality is that some providers just have junior staff answering phones overnight who don’t know how to fix your problem.  They will act as a safety blanket and gently let you know that someone will be with you during business hours. Which isn’t very helpful when your website is down and losing you money.

A reliable and established hosting provider with dependable service is the best choice because you will have the peace of mind that there is an expert out there to help you resolve any issues in case of a sudden glitch in the system. If your website crashes and there is no one you can readily call, it will be an even more frustrating situation than it has to be.

Look for reviews and testimonials about them online and ensure they offer 24/7 customer service. While staying within your budget is essential, consider investing in a premium service to build a strong name for your business in the long run. Don’t compromise quality over affordability.

Before choosing a hosting provider test their support quality. Send them a technical question and see how quickly and thoroughly they respond. Are their answers helpful and knowledgeable? Do they seem like people you’d want to work with when you’re stressed about your website being down?

Location

If your target audience is primarily in Australia but your website’s hosted on servers in the US your visitors are going to experience slower loading times because data has to travel further.

We’ve seen businesses improve their site speed by 30-40% just by switching to hosting providers with servers located in Australia. For a local business targeting Australian customers this can make a huge difference in user experience and search engine rankings.

Some businesses prefer to keep their data within Australia for legal reasons especially if they’re handling sensitive customer information.

Downtime

Let’s talk numbers for a minute. Downtime isn’t just inconvenient, it’s also expensive.

For e-commerce sites every minute of downtime translates directly to lost sales. But even if you are a service based company, downtime on your website can cost you. If potential new clients, or even existing ones cant get to your website when they need your services they may go to your competitors instead.

Aside from the immediate loss in revenue, you also damage your reputation. Nowadays customers are quick to voice their opinions and complaints about your slow website, even if they don’t realise how damaging it is. One person’s frustrated tweet can reach hundreds of their followers damaging your brand reputation, which can be more impactful in the long term than your loss of sales during the downtime.

Search engines also track if your site is unavailable often. If Google’s crawlers can’t access your site regularly it can hurt your search rankings. Downtime not only causes immediate losses but also affects your long-term visibility online.

Most reputable hosting providers offer 99.9% uptime guarantees but that 0.1% can still mean several hours of downtime per year. For critical business websites look for providers offering 99.95% or higher uptime guarantees.

Website Speed

The speed of your website isn’t just about keeping your visitors happy, it directly impacts your conversions. Even a one second delay can cut your conversions by 7%, which is pretty scary when you think about it.

If your website’s bringing in $100,000 a year that one second could be costing you 7,000 annually. E-commerce sites get hit even harder. Amazon worked out that every 100ms of delay was costing them 1% in sales, which is a huge amount when you when you think about how many sales they make every day.

When you think about the money side to things, suddenly paying a little extra for hosting doesn’t seem so bad.

Security isn’t optional anymore

Website security is a major concern for businesses of all sizes. Unfortunately nowadays cyber attacks are becoming more common and even more sophisticated. Small businesses are increasingly becoming targets because they have weaker security than large corporations.

Your hosting provider plays a crucial role in your website’s security. They should offer basic protections like SSL certificates regular security updates malware scanning and firewalls.

We’ve worked with clients who’ve had their websites hacked because they chose hosting providers that didn’t prioritise security. The actual cost of cleaning up the remains of a security breach is far more than any hosting cost.

Regular backups are important. If something goes wrong with your website, you need to be able to restore it quickly. Some hosting companies automatically backup your site for you, while others assume you do it yourself or charge extra for it.  

Making the right choice for your business

After two decades in this industry we’ve learned that there’s no one perfect solution for web hosting. The right choice depends on your business type, budget and where you want your business to go.

Start by honestly assessing your current needs and realistic goals. A small local business probably doesn’t need enterprise level hosting but don’t go too cheap.

Your website’s often the first impression potential customers get of your business. Make sure that foundation’s rock solid because everything else you build depends on it working when people need it most.

At Slinky Web Design we’ve seen firsthand how the right hosting choice can transform a business’s online presence. Don’t let poor hosting be the weak link that undermines all your other digital marketing efforts.