Before you can grasp how the right (or wrong) web host can affect content marketing strategy for your business, it’s important to understand exactly what content marketing strategies are. “Content” isn’t necessarily written; it’s actually anything that fills your website, social media page, or other platform and gives it an online presence.
The content can include blogs, videos, those all-important infographics, and even those annoying pop-ups you opted to include. No matter what the form, “content” needs to be of the highest quality and relevant to your audience; otherwise, it’s working against you.
For many businesses, especially of the eCommerce variety, the right content requires knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO). Basically, your online presence needs to give your potential visitors what they want, they need to be able to find it, and you need to be improving and updating that content constantly.
If that sounds like a lot of work, it certainly can be, but there’s more than that to consider. Without a great web hosting company, all your efforts might be in vain.
Customize your presence
Different web hosting companies offer different perks, downsides, and levels of customization. If you’re tech-driven and very much into personalizing your site, you need a web host that allows for maximum customization.
On the other hand, if you’re nearly a Luddite and need some serious hand-holding, you’re better off with a web hosting company that offers customer support in spades. You need to identify how much, or little, assistance you need and pinpoint which potential hosts will best match your needs.
Some hosts are going to offer more customization of the site than others. At the core, “web hosts” are companies that offer space on a server to store your website’s information and data, but they can offer so much more. Some firms might also double as content management companies, and help you to design your marketing strategy.
This can be a great boost to newbies, but it’s more likely maddening to veteran eCommerce owners.
The only thing that really matters
You can have the best website in the world, full of rich blogs that are SEO gold, and complementary “side websites” that have zero duplicate content but provide excellent links. But none of that’s going to matter if your web hosting is subpar or you’re sharing space with a server hog.
Whether you opt for dedicated, shared, VPS, or cloud hosting, you deserve an online presence that’s fast and accessible around the clock. Nobody is even going to see your content marketing if the server is slow or your site regularly goes down.
It’s crucial to have phenomenal content marketing strategy in place, but without a quality web host, that’s like putting on the Broadway performance of a lifetime but neglecting to unlock the doors to let people in. Too many site owners don’t even realize they’ve been stuck with a bad apple, that their site is slower than it could be (certainly slower than the competition), and that they could do better elsewhere.
Browse your own site from multiple platforms, check out the competition, and see how you really stack up. Something as seemingly minor as switching servers could vastly improve the impact of your content marketing strategy in no time at all.
