Website hosting and poor performing websites

WEBSITE HOSTING AND POOR PERFORMING WEBSITES

Website hosting and poor performing websites can be related, advice and help from top website designers who understand how the search engines work

The worst thing you can do if you are based in UK is to have a website with a .com domain name and host it in the States. This is because if you do that then Google has no way of knowing that yours is a UK site. After all, the .com domain name is of no help in identifying it as a UK site and neither is the fact that the site is hosted outside UK. Consequently, your site would not appear if someone searched on google.co.uk for UK only sites.

WEBSITE HOSTING

You can get away with USA hosting if you have a .co.uk domain name, but for the relatively small amount extra that it costs, I would recommend UK based hosting every time. I've found the hosting service from NuBlue offers an excellent balance between quality of service and value for money.

Ongoing Maintenance

My final piece of advice when it comes to choosing a web design company is to check what their terms are regarding ongoing support. I have heard of some website companies that charge a fixed ongoing monthly fee for support and maintenance, regardless of whether you actually need it.

Only a few days ago, I was talking to someone who had just paid £600 to their website designer for half a year's maintenance. "What maintenance work have they done for you in the past six months?" I asked. "Nothing," they replied, "because we haven't needed anything."

I was horrified to hear that this company was charging its clients £100 per month for doing nothing.

POOR PERFORMING WEBSITES

I believe people should only pay for work that actually takes place. That's why I suggest working with a website design company that offers a use-based maintenance package whereby you pay in advance for a block of hours (at a reduced price compared to their standard hourly rate) and can then use these hours as and when you need them - i.e. only when work actually needs doing.

Conclusion

As you'll see, there are all sorts of potential pitfalls to watch out for when choosing someone to design a website for your business.

HOW THE SEARCH ENGINES WORK

So, my number one recommendation is to ask any companies you are thinking of working with to let you see their portfolio of past sites and also testimonials from existing or past clients. The best website design companies usually have a portfolio and client testimonials published on their own website anyway.

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If there is no portfolio and/or no testimonials, ask yourself why that might be. Perhaps no-one has said anything good about this web designer or perhaps they haven't been around long enough to have built up a decent portfolio of websites.

Even if they have got testimonials and example websites available for you to see online, it is worth following these up properly and asking if you can speak to one or two of their past clients to find out more in depth information about those clients' experiences of working with your prospective web designer....

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Website hosting and poor performing websites can be related, advice and help from top website designers who understand how the search engines work