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Running an online business can be extremely challenging. In order to have success with an online store or ecommerce website, you need to make sure it stays running on a consistent basis. The last thing you want is to lose customers due to a hard to use or unreliable website.
Experts agree that slow load times are the leading cause of website abandonment. Most online business owners think that as long as they can keep a watchful eye on their website, it will stay working properly. What happens when you go on vacation or need to take a break due to health reasons?
The following are just some of the things you need to do to keep website uptime during breaks.
Adequately Monitoring Your Website is a Must
When trying to keep your website running like a well-oiled machine, investing in 24/7 monitoring is a great idea. Most IT companies and hosting providers with offer this automated monitoring for a reasonable fee.
Some business owners think they can handle this monitoring on their own manually, but this is rarely the case. When you take a vacation or breaks, your website may fall apart if you do not have the right professional monitoring in place.
Often times, these monitoring programs will send out alerts and error log files when problems occur. If you want to learn more about how to interpret the log files, be sure to check out windows logging basics – the ultimate guide to logging. This page is filled with information about why logs are generated and how you can address the issues found in these alerts.
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Reduce the Number of Unnecessary Dependencies Your Site Has
In the past, business owners would build websites with desktop users in mind. This was because up until a few years ago, most of the traffic a website received was from people using desktop computers. Now that over half of the traffic online is from mobile devices, the method used to construct new websites has changed.
Modern websites are designed with mobile users in mind. Building your website like this can help you reduce the number of dependencies your site has. As time goes by, you can add more and more elements that may appeal to the remaining desktop users you have. Consulting with a web design professional is the best way to find out how to approach the building of a new website.
Keep a Close Eye on Web Hosting
One of the main causes of things like slow loading pages and website crashes is unreliable web hosting. Some business owners try to go the cheapest route possible when it comes to hosting their new online store. While this may seem like a smart idea, it can actually create a lot of problems over time.
If you are using a shared hosting system for your website, it will often lead to slow load times and instability. This is why you will need to find a hosting provider that offers virtual private servers. These types of servers are both more reliable and easier to scale when needed. While you will have to pay a bit more for quality VPS hosting, it is definitely worth the money.
A Content Delivery Network Can Be Helpful
Most online stores have a number of images and videos embedded in the homepage. If a person is trying to access a website far away from where your servers are based, it may take them a while to get the content on your homepage to load. Instead of dealing with the problems this can cause, you need to consider using a content delivery network (CDN).
In essence, a CDN is a cloud-based system that provides a person the fastest load times by connecting them with servers closest to the area where they live. Embracing the power of a CDN can help you increase website load times. Before choosing a CDN provider, be sure to do some research to find out how much success other online business owners have had with a particular product.
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Make Sure Your Website is Secure
Another important thing to focus on when trying to keep your website up at all times is security. The biggest mistake most online business owners make is treating the security of their site as an afterthought.
By doing simple things like purging the plugins you use and updating software regularly can keep your website safe. Often times, hackers will use the holes created by outdated software to infiltrate a network and wreak havoc. If you don’t have time to manually update your programs, using cloud-based software is a great option. This type of software will update automatically, which can take a lot of stress off of your plate.
The only way to get the right website management tools in place is by working with experienced IT professionals. Once these professionals perform an audit of your existing website, they can provide you with the guidance you are looking for.
