Again, the answer to this question is a resounding yes.<\/p>\n

And here’s why.<\/p>\n

The domain name for your website is connected to a certain IP address, and this address indicates your chosen FTP hosting server’s location.<\/p>\n

For instance, if the server is in Finland, Google will think that your website caters to internet users in Finland. Still, the language you use on the site may have an impact on how Google ranks online search results based on location, too.<\/p>\n

Also, Google understands that sites ending with “.com” are focused on the United States, whereas those ending with “co.uk” are focused more on U.K. internet users.<\/p>\n

If your goal is to have your website target mostly customers around and in your local geographical area, you ideally want to pick a website hosting service with a server that is near your business area.<\/p>\n

Shared Hosting<\/h2>\n

Some website hosting companies today provide shared hosting services.<\/p>\n

These services allow potentially thousands of domain names to share an IP address, which includes sharing the same storage space and bandwidth as well.<\/p>\n

However, if you use a shared service that hosts those annoying spammer websites, too, this can drastically harm your company site’s rankings in search engines.<\/p>\n

As a general rule of thumb, search engine bots won’t necessarily look down on your website if just a handful of spammer websites are in your company’s hosting space with you.<\/p>\n

But if your legitimate domain is like a diamond in the rough in your shared hosting service because you’re surrounded by spammers, search engines, including Google, may begin to raise their eyebrows.<\/p>\n

The moral of the story? Ask the website hosting service you’re interested in using how many spammer sites would call your shared hosting address home, too.<\/p>\n

A dedicated server offers the benefit of not only helping you to avoid sharing space with spammers but also improving your site pages’ loading speeds and your site’s performance overall.<\/p>\n

In other words, it’ll help your SEO and thus your bottom line long term.<\/p>\n

Consideration of Downtime<\/h2>\n

Looking for a way to ruin your SEO? Choose a website hosting service that loves downtime.<\/p>\n

You work hard to run your business and maintain your website, so sure, you deserve some downtime every now and then.<\/p>\n

But not your server.<\/p>\n

In the server world, downtime is essentially the time during which your site cannot be accessed because of issues with the server on which it is hosted.<\/p>\n

When the server is down, potential clients cannot get to your website. And neither can search engine bots.<\/p>\n

This may not negatively impact your online search engine ranks right away, but if it becomes a repeated problem, Google bots may start thinking your website is unreliable.<\/p>\n

The result? Seriously damaged rankings for your website. Customers might even get the dreaded “Unavailable” message in your website’s meta description area when they see your company in their search results.<\/p>\n

Ouch. Nothing like being open for business and ready to make money but having a “Closed” sign on your front door.<\/p>\n