Risks of cheap hosting for your business

1. Image loss and fewer customers through a slow website

• HTTP / 2 protocol
• PHP7 Version
• Number of Customers / Domains per Server
• Response times of the server

2. Your customers do not know your business

• Bad Performance leads to bad ranking
• Your website sends negative user signals

3. Infringements of data protection and lack of security

• HTTPS
• 1-click WordPress Installation

4. Lack of support for questions and errors

5. Your website is not available

• Lack of scalability
• Internal Server error

Many website operators are unaware of the risks that low-cost hosting can bring to their online business. Although the site is not part of the core business of your company, it is important to think about the location of your site. Because bad hosting can have negative consequences for the entire company, not just the online business.

1. Image loss and fewer customers through a slow website

A fast website is an important factor for a professional and successful web presence.

The following points are directly related to the hosting you choose and the speed of your website:

HTTP / 2 protocol

If your hosting provider does not offer the HTTP / 2 protocol, you’re missing out on real speed benefits. This includes:

• Multiple requests can be answered simultaneously by the server without having to manually summarize the CSS and JS files first.
• Thanks to “Server Push”, files are already “preloaded” before they are requested by the browser and are thus available faster.

The resulting reduced load times not only lead to an improved conversion rate, but Google also crawls the page more often and faster. This will ensure that new content is indexed faster.

A persistent rumor is that the HTTP / 2 protocol can only be used in conjunction with encrypted connections. This may still apply to the predecessor of HTTP / 2 (SPDY protocol from Google), but is no longer the case. However, some browsers, such as Google Chrome and Firefox, support the protocol only in conjunction with an SSL certificate. In order to comply with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (DSGVO), you should switch your website to HTTPS.

PHP7 version

Another feature that you should consider when selecting your host is the ability to enable PHP version 7. This allows, for example, to run 374 requests per second on a WordPress Website. For the 5.6 PHP version only 191 queries are possible. This increases the performance of your website, which can ultimately lead to a better search engine ranking.

Number of customers / domains per server

Another not unimportant indicator is the number of customers per server. The low-cost providers like to share 1,000 times and more a server. The huge traffic that comes with it makes your website slow. How many customers share a server is not communicated openly by all web hosts. You should therefore try to get this information before deciding on a hoster. As a guideline, I can recommend you to select a server on which not more than 20 customers frolic.

Response times of the server

If your server takes more than 1.5 seconds to respond, you could lose more visitors and thus potential customers. Although slow servers can be cached, it is better if the server has a short response time from the outset. How long your server takes for the answer, you can find out with the free Byte Check Tool .

2. Your customers do not know your business

Bad performance leads to a bad ranking

Since performance is Google’s ranking factor, long website load times have a direct impact on your site’s search engine listing. A bad performance can also indirectly lead to a ranking loss, as the user signals decrease.

Your website sends negative user signals

If it takes a long time to load your page, many of your visitors will return to the Google results page. This increases the so-called Return-to-SERP rate which causes Google to rate your offer as “not relevant” in relation to the search query. This negative user signal leads to a ranking deterioration of your website.

3. Infringements of data protection and lack of security

HTTPS

Despite the “Let’s Encrypt” initiative, which allows encrypted transmission of data on the Internet for free, an SSL certificate is still not included in all shared hosting packages. As already mentioned, since the entry into force of the GDPR, however, an encrypted connection is mandatory for all websites that process personal data, which is the case for almost any website.

If you have not converted your website to HTTPS, I strongly advise you to do so in order not to violate the new privacy standard.

1-click WordPress installation

WordPress can be installed with many hosting providers with just one click. However, this type of installation differs from hoster to hoster. The following information should be obtained from the hoster of your choice beforehand, should you choose this installation method:

• What is the username? – He should not be admin.
• Are the security keys automatically generated in the wp-config.php file? – That should be the case.
• What is the prefix of the database? – He should not be “wp_”.

If one or more of these points are not met, your website loses a lot of security in a one-click installation.

To avoid this, you can of course also perform the installation manually.

4. Lack of support for questions and errors

After updating, one of my clients only got a white screen when they visited their website, the famous “white screen of death”. After a call to his hosting provider he got the answer, that was a WordPress problem and they were not responsible.

While this may be true in some cases, the way it communicates to you as a customer is crucial. There are also hosting providers who are very familiar with WordPress and also offer special managed WordPress services.

Therefore, always pay attention to customer reviews and experiences before deciding on a hoster.

5. Your website is not available

Lack of scalability

Sometimes a link from a well-visited, popular website to your site will bring your server to its limit. Because shared hosting servers are not designed for such peak loads. The result may be that your website is unavailable for a while.

Internal Server Error

If you’ve been running a website for some time, chances are you’ve already encountered the error message “Internal Server Error”. The odds are even higher if you run a WordPress website on a cheap shared hosting. This error can have many causes, but often it is complicated scripts that are executed by some WordPress plugins and exceed the “processing time” provided by the host. You should therefore compare the “max. execution time” provided by the hosting company.

Conclusion
In conclusion, one can say: the better the hosting, the better the website’s performance, the happier the visitors are, the better the user signals and the better the chances for a good ranking in the search engines. The risks for your business are thereby minimized.

Therefore my tip:
With limited budget, I recommend you to invest a little more in the hosting and custom WordPress Theme. Do you think the same? Do you think that cheap hosting can harm your online business?