When you’re looking to get your website up and running and anticipating your new business, keep your sanity by being ready to handle situations that interfere with the functioning of your website. Use the tips below to troubleshoot common problems that can affect your Internet presence.
Your website took time and money to create so you should backup your website. While many web hosting services do backup your website or offer you the option to backup your website through them you’ll typically want to use an outside source for backing up your website to preserve your content independently from your web hosting company.
If your site is down determine whether it is on the web hosting company’s end. Some reasons your site may be down involve maintenance or technical problems. When you read advertisements about “uptime” that indicates how much of the time your site should be up on the Internet.
Make sure you pay attention to upgrades for the software that your web hosting company advises. Using upgrades is a good way to prevent problems that often come from software that is not upgraded such as taking up too much bandwidth being provided by your web hosting company which can result in interference with your website being published.
If you are on a shared server like most inexpensive web hosting plans and you’re noticing difficulties with your website in terms of speed of downloads or in terms of availability, contact the web hosting company. The company might suggest that you upgrade to a dedicated server account which will be more expensive, or they might explain that there was an issue with another company on your shared server.
Make certain that problems you’re having with your website aren’t coming from you. Sometimes your site will have difficulties or will contain material that will cause your web hosting company to suspend or even terminate your account. You will want to verify that your account is active.
Use social media to keep your customers informed about your business. If you have a Facebook page, a Twitter account or a blog, you can use those tools not only to amplify your presence on the Internet but to reach customers if there are issues with your website.
If you are unhappy with your web hosting company consider looking into new web hosting services before you feel compelled to change so that you can save time and have an action plan for doing so before you terminate your relationship with your current web hosting company.
Be careful about using free web hosting companies for your business. There are many advertisements for free web hosting. Some of these companies make money through advertisements and others are actually affiliate marketing programs. Be sure you research any web hosting company you are considering.
You can further protect your website content by getting copyright protection. Avoiding conflicts about the ownership of your content can make it easier for you to use or move your content from one web hosting company to another and make sure that your website is not taken down because of allegations about its content.
You can be more confident that your website will be accessible to customers and potential customers if you can cope with situations that might arise with your web hosting company. Use the tips above to troubleshoot when you see problems with your website.