Image by JasonBechtel via Flickr

If you’re shopping around for a new web host you may have noticed that not all web hosting packages are created equal.

Most hosting features are easy to compare and contrast, but there’s one crucial factor that a lot of people overlook. Speed!

Why do you need a fast web host?

Although the overall performance of your website depends on a lot of different factors, your choice of hosting partner has a significant role to play.

Server specification, the number of accounts sharing server resources and the capacity of your hosts network infrastructure will all have an impact on how quick and responsive your web pages feel… and that’s important.

Faster web pages could improve search rankings:

Google has been talking a lot recently about making the web faster. Check out this Google video for some background on how and why the world’s leading search engine believes a faster web is a better web for everyone:

As part of their initiative to promote a faster web experience for their users, prominent Googlers like Matt Cutts have indicated that site speed could become a factor in search rankings in 2010.

Historically, we haven’t had to use it in our search rankings, but a lot of people within Google think that the web should be fast. It should be a good experience, and so it’s sort of fair to say that if you’re a fast site, maybe you should get a little bit of a bonus. If you really have an awfully slow site, then maybe users don’t want that as much.

Google’s Matt Cuts talks site speed with WebPro News in December 2009.

Faster web pages improve user experience and conversion

Once people find your site it’s a “no brainer” that more responsive web pages are much easier for them to navigate.

Web users are an impatient bunch. They won’t wait around for your content to load;  instead of twiddling their thumbs they’ll use their index finger to click through to a competitor’s site.

Improving the performance of your web pages (and the speed of your web host is a part of that) will help you to retain more of your site visitors for longer, and ultimately convert a higher proportion of them into subscribers, firm prospects and paying customers.

LetsHost takes hosting performance seriously

Here at Letshost we understand how important hosting performance is to your online business. That’s why we invest in the very latest web server technology and state-of-the-art hosting infrastructure.

We believe we strike the ideal balance between cost and performance for our hosting customers – check out our Irish web hosting options today to see how we can help your online business to thrive.