Your website should remain active and accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for many reasons.
Maybe you’re a business that relies on online sales to make money – if your site is down, you’re losing out on potential profits. Or perhaps you’re an organization that depends on people being able to access your website for information. And if it’s not working, they might not be able to find what they’re looking for. In any case, it’s essential to make sure your website is always up and running smoothly.
Downtime can be frustrating for website users, regardless of the reason. Whether the site is down because of a coding issue or a server overload, the result will be a frustrated user who is likely to leave your site. That’s why it’s vital to make sure your site runs as smoothly as possible so that users don’t lose patience and leave your site.
If you’re running a WordPress website, it’s necessary to be aware of the best practices for preventing downtime. You can keep your site up and running smoothly by following these tips – even during peak traffic. And that means more happy visitors (and maybe even more sales, yay!).
The Importance of Preventing Website Downtime
Make sure your website is always accessible, no matter what time or night a user visits it. If your website isn’t working correctly, that sends a huge red flag to your visitors.
You need to keep your website accessible at all times for visitors. If your website is down or missing, it will give off a wrong impression, and they are less likely to come back. Ensure your website is always up and running to ensure the best user experience.
It’s not just crucial for your website to look professional and convey expertise – it’s also vital that users feel safe and secure browsing it. Suppose your site is experiencing intermittent or continued downtime. In that case, you’re not going to make a positive impression – especially if you’re in the SaaS industry.
If you’re like most website owners, losing site visitors is terrible news – it usually means losing income. And if your website goes down for any length of time, the consequences can be even more severe. A study by the Uptime Institute found that 62% of respondents lost more than $100,000 due to significant or severe website outages. What’s more, 15% of those website outages cost upwards of $1 million.
If you run a website, no matter how big or small, it’s vital to understand downtime’s impact on your business. In 2013, Amazon lost $3.48 million due to an outage – and that’s just one site! If your website makes money, it will lose money due to an outage. That’s why it is so important to have a plan to minimize the impact of outages.
If your website is constantly going offline, it’s not just annoying your visitors – you’re also risking a lower ranking on search engines. High bounce rates can make it clear to Google that your site isn’t trustworthy or authoritative. So if you’re looking to keep your ranking high, make sure your website is always up and running!
The 6 Best Practices for Preventing Website Downtime
Having an online presence is always risky, but there are many ways to mitigate that risk. By being aware of the risks and taking steps to protect your site, you can minimize the chances of an outage. There are a few things you can do to help avoid website downtime.
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1 – Pick a Reliable Web Hosting Company
Selecting a website host is critical to ensuring your site stays up and running. You want to find a host with a good track record of minimal downtime. This will help keep your site online and accessible to your audience.
When looking for a web host, it’s crucial to find one that offers enough storage space, strong SSL, a solid uptime guarantee, reasonable prices, etc. And a responsive customer support team who can help you is also necessary. It can be tricky to find the right hosting company – there are so many out there!
If you’re expecting a lot of traffic, it’s crucial to find a server that can support it. Do your research and find a hosting company with a good reputation. You don’t want your website to go down in a busy holiday season!
Finding the right web hosting company can be a daunting task. Don’t let price be your only consideration when making your choice. Cheap hosts often compromise on features and services, leading to frustration. Instead, focus on finding a host that fits your needs and budget. You’ll be glad you did.
Finding a hosting provider that offers a tiered pricing system can save you some money if you’re starting. Research your options and find the best provider for your needs. Additionally, make sure your host offers the tech integrations you need to run your site effectively.
If you’re looking for a hosting provider that can offer you zero downtime, Rovity is a perfect choice. Our servers are always up and running, with an average uptime score of 99.99%. Plus, our servers are optimized specifically for WordPress websites, so you can ensure your website will run smoothly.
2 – Increase the Security of Your Website
If you want to keep your website up and running smoothly, it’s necessary to make sure that it is as secure as possible. A safer website will help hinder hackers and other malicious activity, which can cause your site to go down. However, simply installing a security plugin is not enough – you also need to take further steps to protect your site. For example:
1 – Adding HTTPS to your website is more important than ever. It keeps your data secure, but it also helps your SEO ranking. Your website host should come with a built-in SSL/TLS certificate. Still, if that’s not available, you can get a free SSL certificate in a few different ways.
2 – It’s essential to ensure that all traffic is sent over HTTPS between the users and server. This will help keep your site safe and secure. Luckily, it’s easy to redirect your site from HTTP to HTTPS.
3 – If you’re still seeing mixed content errors on your website, it’s time to take action! Mixed content occurs when some of your website’s resources are served over an insecure connection (such as HTTP) and others over a secure connection (such as HTTPS). This can cause security warnings in web browsers and affect your site’s ranking in search engines.
4 – If you’re like me, you’ve probably neglected to update your WordPress site for a while now. Maybe you’re unsure if the new updates will break something on your site. Well, it’s time to face reality and take some time to inspect your plugins and themes for possible compatibility errors and necessary updates.
5 – Adding a CAPTCHA to your forms can help increase security by ensuring that only humans submit information. This is an easy way to add an extra layer of protection to your site and can be implemented in just a few minutes.
6 – Are you doing everything you can to keep your WordPress site secure? If not, you need to conduct a full security audit. This means checking for any possible gaps in your security and filling them in. You don’t want to leave your site vulnerable to attack and let it down!
7 – If you’re running a WordPress site, it’s essential to ensure that your security is as tight as possible. There are several great security plugins available, and it’s worth installing them all as appropriate. One of the best plugins for keeping your site safe is Wordfence. It does a great job protecting your site from malware and other threats.
3 – Pay Attention to Your Page Speed
You should be concerned about page speed if you’re running a website. It’s been shown repeatedly that slow loading speeds can negatively impact SEO rankings in the SERPs. It can also cause your site to appear down even if it’s not. This is enough to turn away many users immediately.
People are always looking for ways to make their websites faster and more efficient. Google has been known to rank sites based on user experience, so your speed must be up to par. Unfortunately, suppose there are too many requests between the server and the user’s web browser sent back and forth. In that case, the server can stop responding or even lock up the user’s browser.
Keeping track of your website’s performance is key to ensuring that your visitors have a good experience. By monitoring your site speed and bounce rate, you can identify any areas where you need to make improvements. You can also use performance monitoring tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights to get more detailed information about your site’s performance.
4 – Back Up Your Site Frequently
If your website goes down, it’s essential to have backups. A good backup plugin can help you make backups a regular practice.
When keeping your website secure, you can never be too careful. That’s why it’s important to use plugins wisely – and always make sure that you have a backup plan in place.
Making backups of your website is essential for keeping your site safe and secure. Having multiple backups significantly increases the chances of restoring the site quickly to a current version. And more backups made at regular intervals help ensure no content is lost if your site does happen to go down.
No one ever wants to experience their website going down. Thus at Rovity, we have your back – we offer 24x7x30 backup so that you never have to worry about your website crashing or going offline. Plus, it’s free! So please don’t wait any longer and sign up for our WordPress-optimized hosting plans to have peaceful moments.
5 – Understand HTTP Error Codes That Result in Downtime
It can be alarming when your website starts throwing up HTTP error codes. Still, it’s essential to understand which ones could potentially result in website downtime. Here are some of the most common HTTP error codes for your reference:
- Err_Too_Many_Redirects: You’ve been redirected too many times if you see this message. This can happen when you use 301 and 302 redirects too often. Be sure to use them carefully, or you could run into this error.
- Error 403: If you see the error message “403 Forbidden,” it means that you, or someone else on your site, is trying to access a page or file that they don’t have permission to see. This can be caused by a permissions issue or by a problem with your file token.
- Error 404: There’s nothing more frustrating than clicking on a link and getting a 404 error. Sometimes it’s because you made a mistake, but other times it’s because the website is down or there’s been a change in the URL. Whatever the reason, it can be not very pleasant when you’re trying to get somewhere and you can’t.
- Error 500: If you see Error 500 on your website, there’s something wrong with the server causing it to crash. This can be a big problem since your site is unavailable to visitors. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do about it except wait for the server to be fixed. But you need to know that your plugins, themes, or other configurations will also cause 500 Errors.
- Error 502: If you’ve ever seen the error 502 messages, you know it’s not a good thing. Your traffic is routed through the wrong gateway, and users cannot access your site. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do about it except try to find out where the problem is and fix it.
- Error 503: If you’ve ever seen the error 503 messages, you know it’s not a good thing. It means your server is unavailable to handle requests, which could be due to several things – from a temporary glitch to a more severe issue. Sometimes, you need to reset your server or firewall.
6 – Ask an Experienced Developer or Your Host for Help
If you’re not a coder, owning a self-hosted WordPress website might mean that you need to get help from a professional developer at times. This is especially true if you want to make changes or updates to your website. Thankfully, plenty of developers can help you out – all you need to do is find the right one for you. So, if you need some help, be sure to reach out to a few developers and see who can best meet your needs.
No one is perfect, and even the best of us has broken a live site at some point. Having a professional involved in your web development process can help you fix all the loose screws to avoid your website going down. Working with an experienced developer can prevent these problems and keep your website up.
If you’re lucky, your web hosts will offer friendly support. If you have any issues with your site, you can reach out to them for help, and they’ll be more than happy to assist you. Rovity is one such host that offers excellent support – so if you’re having trouble, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Summary
If your website is constantly down, you’re losing out on potential customers and revenue. You’re also losing the trust of those who try to access your site during the outage. No website is immune to outages, but you can ensure your site’s downtime is minimized with the proper precautions.
If you’re like most business owners, you probably cringe at your website going down. It means lost sales and a degraded reputation, but it can also be incredibly costly. That’s why it’s critical to prevent website downtime as much as possible.
What’s your top priority when it comes to preventing website downtime? Let us know in the comments!
If you’re looking for a WordPress-optimized hosting company that can help you prevent your website from going down, Rovity is an excellent choice. We offer 99.99% uptime so you can live peacefully, and your website will always be up and running. In addition to our reliable uptime, we also have expert technicians who are available 24/7 to help you with any issues that you may have.
