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How Does SEO Affect My Website?

SEO is the lifeblood of your website, and it will affect just about everything that happens with your site. Here are some important points any SEO agency would consider when thinking about SEO: keywords, links, title tags and descriptions, page titles, and headings. This article will explore each one in more detail so you can get a good understanding of how they work together to increase search engine rankings. Let’s dive right in!

Utilize Keywords

Your “keyword” is the word or phrase that people will type into a search engine when looking for your website. Google, for example, uses data from your common keyword to determine how relevant it is to a search result.

Plan for Links

Links are the currency of the web. Whenever you link out to another site, whether it’s sending someone to an outside resource or linking back to one of your own pages, that is a positive signal for search engines. The more quality links you have coming to your site, the better you will rank.

Check Your Title Tags and Descriptions

Just like how people use keywords to find your website when using search engines, people viewing your website will be using those same keywords to figure out if they want to stay. Your title tag and meta description are the titles that show up in search results next to your link, so make them compelling enough for people to click.

Create Unique Page Titles and Headings

Page Titles and Headers are the most important information on a page from an SEO perspective. You want your title tags to be interesting, but they also need to provide the reader with the information they were looking for. In addition, you will use subheaders throughout your writing to highlight certain topics. Just like how you used keywords in your title tags and meta description to match what people are searching for, use headers and keywords in your content so that both humans and search engines know what your page is about.

Alltogether, SEO can have a dramatic effect on how successful a web page will be. The more relevant information you provide with your keyword usage, links, title tags and descriptions, page titles and headings, the more likely you are to have people find your web page in search results. If you are unsure of how to link all this together, it’s time to hire an SEO agency to help you. Remember, the more SEO-friendly your web page is, the higher ranking it will have, and the more likely people are to find it!

PS: When designing and developing websites, Artkenya always uses pemium themes which are ‘SEO-friendly’. And when hosting your website with us, we install premium plugins that give you everything you need for fast, powerful WordPress SEO with industry-leading features like:

  • Automated SEO checkups and reports
  • Sitemap auto-generator and search engine notifications
  • Titles and meta descriptions
  • Full support for default schema.org types
  • Site crawls, scans, and reports
  • Automatic linking
  • 301 Redirects
  • Advanced social media sharing

Please contact us today for a free consultation.

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Why an SSL Certificate is Essential for the Security of Your Business Website

When seeking reliable website hosting services, you must consider keeping your site secure. Today, the standard is to make your site “HTTPS” instead of “HTTP” if you want to avoid the embarrassment of your visitors seeing a “not private” security warning.

What is SSL?

SSL stands for “Secure Sockets Layer (also known as “Transport Layer Security”.) and is a cryptographic protocol designed to provide communications security over a computer network. It involves scrambling data to make it almost impossible for hackers to read. Most websites these days have an “SSL Certificate,” which helps anyone who visits that site to feel safe. Having SSL protection increases the trust level among site owners and potential customers. The free version offers the same benefits as the paid version but doesn’t have a verified signature other than what a site owner might sign themselves.

How Do You Get an SSL Certificate?

Website hosting companies usually provide a free one through the “Let’s Encrypt” version. It offers the standard protection expected by most site visitors. You also can receive paid versions that usually come with advanced support and might cover a validation period of one or two years versus only 30-90 days. Either free or paid, you receive the option to order one for your website when you sign up for website hosting services.

Is an SSL Certificate Necessary?

If you just have an informational domain that doesn’t require visitors to register, you might not need an SSL certificate for your site. If you do have forms that collect sensitive information such as last name, phone number, birth date, or social security number, an SSL certificate is recommended. Even if you have a web form that just requires a first name and email, it wouldn’t hurt to have SSL encryption to make visitors feel better about signing up to your newsletter, special offers, and free products.

SSL Certificate Renewal

You can usually sign up for your domain at the same time you purchase website hosting services. When you do, you could coordinate this renewal service with your SSL certificate. Make sure you check on your domain status before it expires, which usually happens once a year.

You also can purchase multi-year plans that extend your domain ownership and SSL certificate out to at least two years or longer. Whether a year or more, make sure you keep both your domain and your SSL certification active so customers can find you.

PS: When signing up for Artkenya’s ‘Managed Web Hosting’ service, we provide a FREE SSL.

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Major websites hit by global outage

Many popular websites fell offline on Thursday in a widespread global outage of service.

Visitors attempting to reach some sites received DNS errors, meaning their requests could not reach the websites.

Affected services included Airbnb, UPS, HSBC bank, British Airways and the PlayStation network used for online games.

One popular DNS provider, Akamai, reported “an emerging issue” with its Edge DNS service.

It has now tweeted that the issue has been fixed and “the service is resuming normal operations”.

Internet outage monitoring platform DownDetector had reported thousands of problems from its users across dozens of platforms.

We have implemented a fix for this issue, and based on current observations, the service is resuming normal operations. We will continue to monitor to ensure that the impact has been fully mitigated.

Previously it said the issue had been a “partial outage” – and some users reported being able to access some compromised services in different regions.

As some websites began to appear again for users in Europe and the US, others in Asian nations continued to report problems.

DNS – short for Domain Name System – turns the human-readable web addresses we use, such as bbc.com, into addresses that point to a computer server somewhere online.

Disruptions often mean that a web browser cannot find the content it is looking for.

Other affected services reported by DownDetector included:

  • Banks such as Barclays, Lloyds, TSB, and Halifax
  • Gaming services including Steam, Call of Duty, and EA
  • Streaming services on Channel 4 and ITV

It is the second such widespread outage in two months.

In June, cloud computing provider Fastly had an interrupted service which took down a large number of high-profile websites around the world, including many international newspapers and government websites.

In that case, it later emerged that a settings change by one customer had inadvertently affected the entire infrastructure.

Note: Luckily, none of artKenya’s hosted sites were affected by this outage. Learn more about artKenya’s hosting packages here.

Read the original post on BBC News here: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57929544

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What is Cloud Hosting?

Cloud hosting is a type of web hosting which uses multiple different servers to balance the load and maximize uptime. Instead of using a single server, your website can tap into a “cluster” that uses resources from a centralized pool. This means that even if one server fails, another kicks in to keep everything running.

Visualise the cloud as a web of different computers which are all interconnected. As more machines are hooked up to the network, more resources are added to the overall cloud.

With cloud hosting, you get a part of the so-called cloud cluster. As opposed to traditional web hosting, where you get a certain amount of space from a single server.

The main benefits of cloud hosting include a major focus on uptime, isolated resources, easy scaling, and a dedicated IP address.

Cloud hosting architecture

The architecture of cloud hosting differs from the setup used in regular web hosting:

Most shared hosts use a centralized approach where one server holds multiple websites. But if that server goes down, so does every account in it.

On the other hand, the distributed approach of cloud hosting solves this problem. Since each website is “distributed” across multiple locations, you’ll get no downtime in case a server in the cluster experiences a problem.

Large websites such as search engines and social networks use the distributed approach, as no single server could handle such the load. Big projects like these either build their own cloud hosting architecture or they hire resources from a cloud hosting provider.

What kind of websites use cloud hosting?

The types of websites that use cloud hosting are as varied as those that use regular hosting, but there are cases where it’s particularly popular.

If a website is mission-critical, meaning that the company can’t function without it, then cloud hosting is a good idea. It’s also chosen by many e-commerce stores, lead generation sites, corporate websites and high-traffic projects.

At the same time, cloud hosting makes it easy to scale in case you need more power. This makes it appealing to news agencies and publishing firms who expect traffic surges or huge numbers of clicks on their posts.

Ultimately, it’s a pretty good choice in most situations, which is why it’s able to rival shared hosting and virtual servers.

Does artKenya offer cloud hosting?

We surely do! Our cloud hosting starts at just KES 3000/month and includes a dedicated IP address, 40 GB disk space, 3 GB of RAM and more. All of our accounts are fully scalable and feature extensive security measures to keep your data safe. Our plans also include:

  • CloudFlare integration
  • Free domain name registration
  • Lifetime SSL certificate
  • More goodies!

Our cloud hosting infrastructure uses the latest technology and best practices, and reliability and performance are guaranteed.

The future of cloud hosting

Cloud computing, in general, is becoming more and more important for our modern society. The technology can bring many industries and business the cutting edge in the online world. Web hosting is just the tip of the iceberg, but it’s also the cornerstone that makes cloud possible.

Don’t be surprised when you see cloud hosting forming the backbone of everything from digital health records to property databases, legal agreements in the upcoming future!

Learn more about our cloud hosting plans

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What makes the best WordPress hosting?

At first glance, it may seem easy to choose the best. Although, in reality, it’s quite a frustrating process when you don’t have pointers that could help you decide what is the best choice for you. So, let’s get straight into it.

The first thing to check is if the host, which you’re considering to use, meets recommended requirements for WordPress support:

  • PHP 7.3+. In this case, I would recommend PHP 7.4. WordPress websites present faster execution times and less memory usage when using PHP 7.4, compared with previous versions. Just make sure that your WordPress theme and plugins are updated for the recent release. Also, it’s worth mentioning that PHP 7.4 comes with many other exciting features.
  • MySQL 5.6+ or MariaDB 10.1+. Make sure that your potential host uses a secure and high performing relational database management system (RDBMS). An industry-standard like MySQL or MariaDB with its cutting edge features like GIS support should do the trick.
  • HTTPS support (SSL/TLS). HTTPS is a secure extension of HTTP. Websites that install and configure an SSL/TLS certificate can use the HTTPS protocol to establish a secure connection with the server. The goal of SSL/TLS is to make it safe and secure to transmit sensitive information, including personal data, payment, or login information. SSL/TLS is a must whenever confidential information such as usernames and passwords or payment processing information is being transferred.
  • LiteSpeed web servers (LSWS). I would definitely recommend this, although it isn’t a requirement. LSWS increases the performance and scalability of web hosting platforms through its event-driven architecture. So, it has the capability of serving thousands of clients simultaneously with a minimum usage of server resources such as memory and CPU. To put a cherry on top – WordPress has the LiteSpeed Cache plugin developed by LiteSpeed engineers. It vastly improves the loading speed of your website.

Since many of the hosts meet these recommended requirements, it shouldn’t be hard for you to find an attractive web host. After you’ve done that, there are other things to check:

  • Price. Keep in mind that you don’t need to choose the most expensive hosting or plan to get the best quality. There are hosting providers that are perfect for WordPress hosting, and for a simple website that doesn’t require many resources, you can get a deal from KES550/month. So, your budget doesn’t have to be huge!
  • Uptime. One of the most influential aspects when choosing a web host. What you should settle for is a host with an uptime of at least 99.9%.
  • Support. Time to time, things get complicated or confusing. In this case, hosting providers have customer support agents who do their best to help you out. What you should look for is if they provide 24/7 live chat support. I believe that this kind of support is the most effective when solving technical problems. Sharing structured, easy to read instructions, making it easy for a client to follow, even without much technical knowledge.
  • Easy WordPress installation. If you’re merely a beginner, using a CMS could be overwhelming. So, it’s a bonus if a hosting provider offers WordPress auto-installer. Just fill the required fields and click “Install”!
  • WordPress tutorials. Some web hosts got your back on that part – many WordPress and web hosting related tutorials (*). Not a must but a good thing to have within a hand’s reach.

(*) Artkenya hosting includes a full suite of WordPress video tutorials.

Artkenya hosting meets all of the above requirements. Click here to check out our competitive hosting plans.

The last thing left to do is to choose the right plan for your website. It isn’t too hard of a task when you know what each plan is best used for:

  • Shared hosting. The most popular type of hosting. It isn’t the best option for websites receiving lots of traffic but a really excellent and cheap choice for blogging and small businesses.
  • VPS hosting. With Virtual Private Server (VPS) you get dedicated server space, so it’s a more secure and stable solution than shared hosting. However, it’s smaller-scale and cheaper than renting an entire server. Perfect for high-traffic blogs and established websites.
  • Cloud hosting. This type of hosting uses multiple different servers to balance the load and maximize uptime. This means that if one server fails, another kicks in to keep everything running. The main benefits of cloud hosting include a significant focus on uptime, isolated resources, easy scaling, and a dedicated IP address. If a website is mission-critical, meaning that the company can’t function without it, then cloud hosting is a good idea. It’s also chosen by many e-commerce stores, lead generation sites, corporate websites and high-traffic projects.

Artkenya offers all of these hosting plans (VPS hosting on request). In addition, we offer ‘Managed Web Hosting’ on our Cloud server, which includes a full suite of maintenance, SEO and security tasks.

In the end, it all comes to many choices when trying to discover the best. As you can see, there are numerous things to consider, but it’s well worth it to dedicate time for some research and make sure that your website is in the care of the most significant web hosting company you could find. Hopefully, this answer will aid you in finding the best fit for your project.

Go ahead and contact us today to find out more about web hosting, email hosting and web development!

 

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artKenya fully supports PHP 7.4

We would like to proudly announce that from now on, artKenya Hosting is fully compatible with the newest PHP version 7.4. Your website speed and performance is a key priority for us and this is exactly what PHP 7.4 offers.

This PHP update is focused on optimization for performance and is one of the most feature-packed releases.

In terms of website performance, every millisecond matters. It has a significant impact on your bounce rates, SEO and visitor satisfaction in general.

Together with our servers with Litespeed technology, artKenya offers the fastest speeds for your website at most competitive rates.

Go ahead and contact us today to find out more about web hosting, email hosting and web development!

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