Does Your Company Need Better Web Hosting (and How to Tell)?

Companies can be befuddled when their website keeps reporting errors when loading a page or it’s just too slow. If one co-founder is more technically savvy than the other, they may get it in the ear about it. However, the webserver likely isn’t in their building at all, so to an extent, it’s not their fault (don’t let them hear us say that though). 

If you’re struggling with your web app or website because it is responding sluggishly, you may need better web hosting. Possibly, you’re just unclear about how to tell either way? In which case, fair enough. This article is aimed at pointing you in the right direction. 

Web Hosting Isn’t All Alike

Web hosting is marketed using different hosting plans in an attempt to make it simpler to understand. However, because the technology under the hood isn’t straightforward, that runs into difficulties. 

YourTopBlog’s informative articles about web hosting will help. So, give them a read because it will clarify a lot that’s unclear about it. Dealing with a web host and being better informed is useful because their answers will be more readily understood. 

Our basic explanation for hosting is that for affordability, nothing beats shared hosting. But it’s generally slow unless selecting better web hosts, and even then, you can do better for only a little more per month.

A VPS plan is superior and only costs 2—3 times as much. It’s generally run using faster servers with fewer sites being hosted. This makes them quicker and more reliable. Admin-related controls are also included with a virtual private server plan too. This isn’t the case with shared hosting plans. 

Top-tier Web Hosts Stand Apart

While there are numerous web hosts, many purchase their access from other data centre providers. There has also been considerable consolidation in the web hosting industry, which hasn’t been altogether a good thing. 

Top-tier web hosts do charge a premium, but that’s relative to the usually low starting cost for many hosting plans. A hosting plan with Siteground, Cloudways, or WP Engine is going to provide better site performance than an also-ran web host that doesn’t excel anywhere. 

What About Google’s Web Core Vitals?

Google launched Core Web Vitals to encourage site owners to make their websites operate more quickly. With the increasing move to mobile usage by users on 4G and more recently 5G connections in a few places, sites struggle to load in under 3 seconds on a smartphone.  

Scoring well on Core Web Vitals is helpful to ensure visitors don’t abandon the site before it’s had a chance to load fully. The scoring indicates where the bottlenecks are. It also avoids Google ranking the site poorly because of poor results.

Faster hosting, including speed optimizations, is the ticket to resolve most Core Web Vital scoring issues. 

Putting on the Finishing Touches

Using quicker DNS resolving technologies, like those offered free by Cloudflare, can reduce loading times a bit. 

Web servers with faster processors and more memory that aren’t already overloaded with sites provide a faster time-to-first byte (referred to as TTFB). This gets the site loading sooner, rather than later. 

When using Core Web Vitals to check speed scores, it’s an easy matter to confirm if your hosting is too slow. While sites can be reconfigured to operate quicker, they can never overcome a sluggish host or inferior hosting plan.