Marketers, picture this…

You’ve just launched a new, global advertising campaign for your brand. You’ve finally got that six figure marketing budget you’ve been pushing for. You’ve projected the campaign that will drive your online sales into the stratosphere.

The campaign goes live! Customers flock to your site ….and your website falls over.

Lost sales, damaged brand reputation and a customer service department in crisis – just three of the potentially disastrous consequences of a brand’s website going offline.

Spikes in web traffic due to breaking news stories, big promotional campaigns or key e-commerce periods should be great news for marketers, but website downtime can result in brands missing out on big slices of income. Modern consumers are time-poor and have very little patience. Break their buying journey and they are likely to look elsewhere.

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So how can we minimise downtime?

Step 1
The most important first step is to ensure you’ve selected a robust web hosting partner. What does their infrastructure look like? Who do they work with? What are their uptime vs downtime figures? Start by ensuring you’re not likely to have any serious performance issues long-term.

Step 2
Work with your new web hosting company to arrange the best package for your business and draw up a service level agreement (SLA). Note that you may need to adjust your hosting budget accordingly.

Step 3
Consider ramping up your server hardware around key sales periods like Black Friday or Boxing Day. Look at your website’s existing spike history, or take into account your industry data as a whole.

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To summarise, investing in appropriate levels of web hosting with a robust web hosting company is likely to pay for itself in the long-term. In the short-term, it helps to avoid the headaches associated with the financial and reputational risks associated with website downtime.

If you have any questions about website downtime or need assistance with your website hosting give our experts are here to help! Get in touch today. One of our Digital experts would love to help!