How many times have you gone to a website only to discover that it is down, and you are unable to access it? We all know how frustrating it is to not be able to reach a site on the web. Most of us are going to turn around and search for another site that will provide a service similar to the original site. Many will never go back to the first site again.
Now think of that from an operational standpoint. Every time your website goes down, frustrated customers who have just wasted valuable moments of their lives are going to go straight into the arms of your waiting competitors. Many of these customers will never come back to you. For every second your website is down, you are losing potential business. Not only that but the more often your site goes down, the less likely it is to show up in search engines. So, not only are you losing the customers already coming to your site, you are losing valuable web presence as well.
No matter what time it is for you, there is somewhere in the world where people are just beginning their day. While it may not seem like your website going down at 3 am is a big deal to you, to the person in Australia who is sipping their morning coffee while browsing the internet, this is a very frustrating thing indeed. The world runs on all time-zones, and your website should as well.
You may know that website downtime is an inevitable issue. Some may call it a necessary evil. You may even have checked with your website hosting services providers to ensure a 99.9 percent uptime rate. The question is, how do you really know if you are getting that 99.9 percent uptime that you are paying for? Furthermore, if you are experiencing more downtime than you had thought, how exactly does it affect your business?
The truth is that website downtime can affect a business in a number of ways – possibly even in ways you haven’t considered. To fully understand why it is so important to keep on top of your website’s downtime, you need to know what that downtime is doing to your business.
So, in this scenario invest in a service that will monitor your site and let you know when it may be shutting down. Research the cause of the downtime and determine exactly with your web hosting provider and ways to fix it. Ensure that your website is up and running around the clock. Do not lose valuable customers simply because you have overlooked such a significant issue.