I’ve been working on (and with) web servers for over 10 years now.

My very first job was to setting up and configuring search engine software for the clients who bought the software that the company developed in-house. Now, other than having needed a few basic system requirements that were essential for the software to run effectively, there were no real strict requirements we had to stick to in order for the software to work optimally.

Fast forward many years later and it feels as if the landscape has undergone a radical metamorphosis. Let me explain.

Many of the articles that list the more important aspects of how web design and SEO go hand in hand touch on the domain and hosting. And, whilst reading these, a trend started to emerge from them. It became apparent that your hosting and domain name play an influential role in both web design and SEO, far beyond the basic roles they embodied so many years.

Now, of late Google has partly been responsible for this change. With the rise of Google’s search engine that has gone from strength to strength and their strict guidelines for what a website should and shouldn’t do, web hosting has now become something that one has to thoroughly research before committing to a web host.

In my earlier days, web hosting was much simpler; you registered a domain, added your hosting account, and you’d be done. There weren’t any other more important factors that you needed to consider.

As computers and mobile phones got faster, smarter and more complex, so did the web, all in an effort to be able to keep up with the rapid changes in technology. Along with it, your website had to be faster and it had to serve its contents to an ever-growing market of consumers who became more mobile. That gave birth to the best practices we’ve seen emerge in SEO, too.

SEO became more than just ranking high in Google. It became a way of marketing that is ever changing.

And, I might be wrong here, but from my experience, it all starts with your web hosting and your domain name. Web hosts saw this opportunity to adopt newer and faster technology into their data centres. Hosting became much faster, much more streamlined and the need to serve content to an audience who needed news or information now became more and more important (and essential). The same can be said about domain names, too. More domain extensions became available as did the actual domain name you chose; brand names were being traded in for keyword rich domains in an effort to maximize on SEO potential.

A good domain name and its web hosting are like your address and the foundation upon which you’re looking to build your house. Both are beneficial and both are equally as important.

Now, I can imagine that all of this might sound like a negative thing, like something that’s destroying the “sanctity” of what web hosting was. That is not the idea. All of these changes and shifts in what web hosting has become up until this point in time have been beneficial to the natural progression of the industry. The problem, though, lies in the fact that many businesses and individuals dismiss these important changes outright.

A good domain name and its web hosting are like your address and the foundation upon which you’re looking to build your house. Both are beneficial and both are equally as important.

And, like a house needs a good, solid foundation upon which it needs to be built, so too does a great functional website along with a successful online marketing campaign start with solid and reliable hosting account and a domain name that can aid a business’ online presence.

Now, this might be disputed by others in the industry, however, from my own experience, the success of whatever one tries to do online – be it with web design, SEO, etc. - your choice of web hosting and domain name remains the cornerstone of those efforts.

Take, for example, these two points: to Google, website speed and website security are two of the biggest factors it considers when ranking your website in its search engine. A good web host can take off your website’s speed with servers that are built for speed. Granted, site speed is also influenced by how your website has been built, too, hosting help as a start.

Most hosting companies also provide a way for websites to be secure and to show that, too. This not only tells its users that you take security seriously, but Google sees this as a sign of trust, as well. And, in today’s world of e-commerce and the like, security is something one simply cannot overlook.

It also doesn’t hurt that there are a plethora of hosting companies who have emerged over the years who have dedicated themselves towards supplying the best web hosting services at the best price.

But, although a lot of people in the industry will have a different point of view when it comes to hosting, I firmly believe that web hosting should be a solid foundation for your online presence, no matter what.