Unlike at individual levels where we can sometimes do some things with half-conscious daze and luckily walk away unharmed, the business environment is quite different. Despite every business decision made not guaranteeing a direct ticket to avoid challenges, spotting the essential motivations behind every choice makes it a lot easier to work through problems when they arise. Choosing the right location for your web hosting is one such scenario.
According to the leading search engine provider, Google, your servers’ location plays exceptionally minimal to no role at all in your search rankings. Nevertheless, the reality can be pretty hard to take on web hosting and location matters, as we will unfold in the subsequent paragraphs.
Effects of web hosting location on website speeds
We live in an age where most networks are adopting fiber optics technology engineered to transmit data at the speed of light (3 x 108 m/s). Suppose data between your users and host is transmitted at the speed of light; your web page is likely to experience a 10-millisecond delay in displaying the queried information for every 1000 kilometers. Which still delivers a good user experience.
Notably, your website’s latency (the minimum time taken to transmit data between a visitor’s browser and server hosting the browser) is impacted by the distance between your servers and web user and is in-compressible. This means the closer your target audience to the servers, the faster your website will load for them.
Therefore, the higher the latency experienced by your website, the higher the bounce rates as a result of crawling webpages.
How can web hosting location and legal issues impact your e-commerce?
Did you know that your website is governed by the country’s internet regulations, where the hosting provider is located? For instance, the Australian Government, in 2018, passed Encryption Laws that require companies to provide law and security enforcement agencies access to encrypted data.
When targeting users in Australia but in disagreement with the Encryption Laws, you might be forced to place your website’s content on a server not in Australia. This can affect your conversion rates based on the latency offered by your hosting provider.
How does the server location affect the geo-targeting of your e-commerce?
Evidently, due to legal restrictions, server location can affect your geo-targeting campaigns due to delayed load times that deliver a compromised user experience. If you are facing challenges in collaborating with a web hosting provider in the same geographical location as your target client base, you can boost your e-commerce experience by leveraging on ccTLD or Webmaster Geo-targeting tools. They will allow you to define your e-commerce target audience by country.
Knowing your hosting needs will inoculate your business from hosting related issues
Overly, to ensure that you best serve the needs of your e-commerce business, it is recommended that you evaluate the hosting needs of your online enterprise. This requires a gut-wrenching analysis, especially if you are targeting an international client base governed by different internet laws. For more information you can visit the following Website Developer in Melbourne for full information on hosting location and regional hosting requirements.