If you're running a website, there are many factors you need to keep into account in order to make sure you're providing a good experience to visitors. There are a range of issues that could affect this, from slow speeds to hacking attacks that result in downtime. Preventing these is critical, as no-one is going to have faith in a site that's frequently down, or one that can't cope with increases in traffic without slowing to a crawl.
Minimise your downtime and keep your site running smoothly
It was noted by news and advice website Business 2 Community that if you want to use your website as a selling platform, this is even more important. The website noted that in many industries, 90% of purchasing decisions start with on online search, so if you can't offer a good service on the web, you're immediately at a disadvantage.
"If you cannot be found because your website is down you lose credibility, customer leads and sales," Business 2 Community said. Therefore, it was noted it's essential to use tools that can monitor your web servers and keep a close eye on their performance in order to minimise your downtime and keep your site running smoothly.
If you're not convinced, the site highlighted five key reasons for investing in these solutions in order to monitor and manage your website and alert you quickly to any issues, so you can sort them out before they escalate.
1. Protect your image
With new tools such as social media allowing news of problems to spread around the world faster than ever before, any issues that affect your website on a regular basis will be shared instantly and potential customers will be able to find out if you're a reliable firm to do business with. There's nothing that can harm the reputation of web-based companies quicker than customers being unable to get in touch.
2. Keep customers happy
With so much competition online, if you can't offer a high-quality service, it's easy for consumers to turn elsewhere. If you suffer from prolonged downtime, don't expect existing customers to stick around when there are other options out there, so it's important you make sure they can access your services at any time.
3. Prevent lost sales
If your website isn't online, obviously you can't make any sales. Business 2 Community stated that seven hours of downtime could result in thousands of dollars of lost sales, with this increasing for larger companies. For example, it noted a two-hour downtime for Amazon in 2007 cost it $3.48 million (€2.6 million).
4. Improve search ranking results
Google hates slow and unresponsive sites, so it will penalise these by demoting them in its search results. Fall off the first couple of pages and you can expect a significant drop in sales as new customers won't be able to find you.
5. Spot hacking quickly
Monitoring tools can let administrators know quickly if a web server comes under attack, allowing them to respond quickly to counter the threat before it becomes a major issue. Failure to act on this could see your site infected with malicious code that causes far bigger problems than just downtime, such as compromising databases and confidential customer information.
