Our businesses now rely on email and website to communicate, sale and distribute products. Having your website or email offline for a day can result in huge losses. So how do you protect your business? How do you reduce the risk?
- Back up your website. Always have a copy of your full website (files, images) offline so that should the online website go offline you have a fresh copy to upload and get back up. I don’t mean a back up with your web designer or web developer or your hosting company. Have a copy of of your website file in your full customer. These other agents can be the second option.
- Back up your emails. Nothing fancy here. You can use Microsoft Outlook to download the mails from the server to your machine. Other options include Mail on Mac or Thunderbird. With a mail client you will always have your emails on your local machine. Should the live server have an issue you are protected.
- Use a reliable web hosting company. Sometimes you may not have the relevant information to gauge reliability. Does your developer or hosting company respond to you in time via emails or on phone? Do they help you or guide you when you have a problem, even if it is not a hosting /server problem?
- Retain an active social media presence. Have at least Facebook and Twitter page. If your website is offline, you will still be able to reach your customers and direct them to a new website or update them when you expect the website to come online.
- Have an email service provider. My favorite is MailChimp. You can easily write an email to your customers database and advice them of the technical hitch you are experiencing, when you think it will be resolved. This way your customers are not left on the dark on what is transpiring.
