You built a website for your business to market your brand and drive sales, but too much downtime negates all these advantages and can even cost a lot more than your gains. However, your website going down doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s something wrong with it, or that there’s nothing that can be done about it.
Here are some things you can do to minimize downtime.
Understand what caused the downtime
Whenever your site goes down, you can usually fix it as long as you know what caused it. The downtime can be the result of traffic overload, hardware failure, software failure, problems with your server, site coding mistakes, or DDoS attacks.
For most businesses, the server’s system outages are often caused by a hardware failure on their server. Downtimes can also be deliberate when web hosts are updating their server maintenance or update.
Once you understand the cause of the downtime, you can easily prevent it in the future.
Use a reliable host
If you experience plenty of repeated incidents of server downtime, perhaps you should switch to a new web hosting service. You need to be extremely selective when choosing a provider. Extensively research which hosts have a solid and consistent uptime track record. These services are usually more expensive, but you will get what you pay for. You will likely suffer excessive downtime if you go for the cheapest option.
Secure a managed hosting provider
Choose a managed hosting provider that specializes in the website creation tool you are using. These services carefully monitor your website performance, and automatically perform backups, updates and configurations. They handle much of the work in managing your site, so you can focus on your business.
A good hosting service keeps you posted regarding the status of your website. If they detect something wrong on your end, they will notify you to prevent downtime from happening. They should also prioritize the security of your site by notifying you of any suspicious login and brute force attack. Once you hand over most functions to a trustworthy provider, managing your website should be much easier.
Purchase a website monitoring service
Your website may be going down more often than you think. All websites tend to experience downtime, but if it occurs frequently, you might lose a bulk of your customary revenue, especially if it goes down during peak sales times.
A website monitoring service or plugin records your website’s uptime and downtime, and automatically notifies you every time your site goes down. Most of these services are able to diagnose the problem, as well, so you can fix it immediately.
Boost website security
Security is crucial in sustaining your website’s uptime. Hackers force your website to go down so they can access sensitive data. Once they gain access, you will have worse problems than simply the loss of revenue due to downtime, as hackers can now use your data for malicious activities.
Minimize your website’s potential access points for hackers. Install security plugins and follow the best security practices to boost your site’s overall protection. Improving your website security does not require you to be tech savvy. You only need to do thorough research and get the best plugins for your specific security needs.
The more downtime your website experiences, the further you get from your business goals. Pay close attention to your website protection to utilize your online presence in achieving success.
