Have you ever had an issue where your website went down or could not be found on Google at a crucial moment? It happens to business owners every single day.
It’s scary, right?
Your website is a window into the world for your business. Whether you use it as a brochure to show potential customers what you can do, or it’s specifically set up to generate leads or sales.
What happens when those leads or sales stop and your website is offline or hacked?
A quick checklist
- "Your site can't be reached." That usually means there is an issue with your internet connection. Check a few other websites and see if they can be found.
- "500 - Internal Server Error." Check with your hosting company.
- "Your connection is not secure". Your SSL certificate may have lapsed. Check with your hosting company.
- You see a website parked page or similar. Is your domain's DNS correct?
- The website is blank. This could be a fatal error due to a problem with the website's code or your website could be hacked. Time to contact your web designer or developer
- The website is super slow or not fully loading. This could be caused by a number of issues including your website has been hacked!
For more details, check out this article: What to do if your website is down.
If you are one of my website care plan clients - contact me straight away!
The importance of having a care plan.
We had someone approach us recently who had experienced exactly this scenario. They had had their website designed elsewhere and had decided to look after it themselves. The customer didn't need to add a lot of new content so they had not logged into their website recently. They also had not carried out any maintenance. On the day that they contacted us, someone had contacted them as they had searched for their website on google and it wasn't there! In fact, when they asked us to investigate, we showed them how Google had indexed many pages they had not created - they had been hacked! Immediate panic set in.
Thankfully we were able to help them clean up their website and restore their good ranking on Google again.
Just like your car, your website needs regular maintenance. It’s a vital part of your business and the vehicle that helps potential customers to learn more about you.
If you don’t maintain your car, eventually it will break down. You may get lucky for a while, but nothing lasts forever. You can't ignore the oil light for too long! In fact, you should probably pull over straight away!
You invested in setting up your business, building your brand and creating a website that showcases the products or services that you offer. Protecting your investment is an important part of being a business owner.
So how do you protect your investment in your website? What would a better plan do to help you avoid any issues?
The best option for most business owners is to hand over maintenance tasks to a trusted company that will look after your website on an ongoing basis. This is often referred to as a “Website Maintenance Plan” or a “Website Care Plan”. Read about our Plans.
If you want to look after the website yourself. Download our guide below which will explain how to care for your website.
Are you keeping your WordPress website protected?
Download our guide to understand how to evaluate the success of your website, how to care for your website plus tips that will help you make improvements today!
A Website Care Plan provides you with peace of mind. It allows you to stay focused on growing your business and serving your customers, while experienced professionals look after your website and keep it safe.
At Kitchen Table Web Design we provide Website Care Plans for our clients on an ongoing basis. Every month we’ll carry out updates to your website, perform maintenance tasks and ensure that your website is in good order.
Don’t leave your website maintenance to chance. There is a better way that provides you with peace of mind and the reassurance to allow you to focus on your business.
More on Website Care
Don't Rely on your hosting company for backups
Don’t rely on a hosting company for backups. Probably they aren’t specialists when it comes to website maintenance. (The exception would be WP Engine which provided an excellent backup service with redundancy). If your only backups are stored on your website server and if your website is hacked, your backups may be corrupted as well. Ideally, you will have your website backed up elsewhere, perhaps even in 2 different locations.
Have a disaster recovery plan
Do you have a disaster recovery plan so you know what to do to restore your website easily?
Don't try to do everything
It’s a common trait for business owners to try and do everything themselves especially us with our Kiwi DIY ethos. But there are some things where it is important to call in a professional. Letting someone else carry out the maintenance work on your website will save you time and in the long run, money. Most business owners (or their employees) do not have the experience to look after their own websites. If your website is hacked and you don't have adequate back-ups, depending on the maliciousness of the hack and how long it has gone unnoticed, you may be looking at a website rebuild.
Are you keeping your WordPress website protected?
Download our guide to understand how to evaluate the success of your website, plus tips that will help you make improvements today!
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