Why choose an Australian hosting company over an overseas brand?

Written on 05 September, 2012 by Karen Lim-Sam
Categories Web Hosting Tags web hosting

In the last few years, a variety of overseas hosting providers have emerged alongside Australian counterparts – companies that claim to offer serious savings when it comes to your online presence. But web hosting isn’t an area of your business where you should sacrifice quality over cost, and doing so can have serious implications for your customer relationships as well as your bottom line.

Here are four reasons to opt for a local provider for your web hosting.

  1. Higher support levels

    It’s no secret that time is money in the business world. Dealing with an overseas hosting provider can often subject your business to lengthy time differences and restrict your support levels to that country’s business hours. Being unable to access support when you need it can put your online business at severe risk. Australian hosting providers, however, work the same hours as your business and will always be on hand to troubleshoot and resolve issues.

  2. Speed of information

    If you host your website overseas, you might incur slower site load times – a fact that could deter potential customers and negatively impact online performance. Although this is unlikely to be a major issue, it could cost you your competitive edge.

  3. Update cycles

    Conflicting working hours can affect more than just your support levels. Overseas hosting companies often run updates at times that best suit their local customers, but might represent your heaviest period of site traffic. This can cause your website to become slow, sluggish or even crash during hours where it could be generating profits.

  4. Search value

    There is no denying that local, relevant websites are key to achieving higher search rankings. Opting for an overseas hosting provider could mean sacrificing your relevance in the eyes of Google and could confuse the search engines as they attempt to ascertain your location. It is a risk that may not be worth taking.

So when it comes to deciding a hosting provider locally or internationally, although it may be that you are saving money in the short term by choosing an international provider, just keep in mind that it could seriously threaten the long-term success of your business.  Be sure to invest in a reliable, local web hosting solution so that you can concentrate on running your business.  And be confident that your online presence is in good hands.

Netregistry is an Australian owned and run company with it’s hosting services all locally based in Sydney, Australia.  If you would like more information regarding our web hosting packages visit our hosting package pages or call us on 1300 638 734.

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