If you are a small business owner you most likely have a million things on your mind at once. Imagine waking up one morning and your website is down. Talk about STRESS! You might have no idea what happened or what went wrong. Maybe you’ve been a bit negligent when it comes to website maintenance.

Pause with me for a moment and think about a few things.

  • When was the last time you updated your WordPress site?
  • Do you know if you have to renew your domain name soon?
  • Is your hosting plan really reliable?

Keeping up with the latest technology is an ongoing struggle,  so why not take advantage of those few variables in life that you can at least try to control.  Of course, even if you are doing everything in your power to keep your website up to date, sometimes things happen. However, there are some preventative measures you can take to lower these chances greatly.

Things you can do:

  • Be proactive when it comes to updating your plugins and the theme you are using.
  • Choose a hosting company that is well known with solid reviews and minimal downtime (if any).  Also be sure to keep  a support number on hand so you can be quick to act if you do ever have a website crisis.
  • If your domain name needs to be renewed set the date on your calendar and give yourself plenty of time to get this taken care of. In other words, try not to wait until day of.
  • Download all of your files frequently using the WordPress export tool.
  • Install a backup plugin that will automatically backup your full site and database files so you will never miss a beat if your data gets erased.

 

Lastly, make time on your calendar for routine maintenance.  By taking this approach, you can decide when and if your site needs to go down for maintenance. Yes, it can be an inconvenience for your customers either way, but at least you are in control. I am sure that any customer would rather see a “Down for maintenance – be back soon” over an “ERROR! something went wrong!” The latter will only give your customers the impression that you are not reliable.

Oh, and before you start panicking, calling your hosting company and alerting your customers that your website is down, be 100% sure that it is in fact down. You can use downforeveryoneorjustme.com to see if its just your local network that’s having a problem.