Our attention is increasingly focused on the online world, and with the widespread adoption of mobile devices, and rising data speeds, accessing a website has never been easier. There is also more choice than ever before for online users, with social media apps competing with traditional websites for our attention. In this crowded and competitive marketplace, how can you make your website stand out from the crowd?
With Black Friday and Cyber Monday just behind us, and the Christmas and January sales on the horizon, the cost of downtime is a question that should be of concern to all business owners and e-commerce managers. It should be a concern, but is website downtime always given the consideration it deserves in your business? A company website is a critical component of any modern business, but for businesses who rely on online sales, it really is of paramount importance.
We’ve all experienced websites which are unreliable, and appear to be offline when we need to access them. Perhaps you have had a similar experience with your own website, and know how damaging downtime can be to your bottom line and to your brand image. Whether a website is ‘down’ for an extended period of time, or for a matter of minutes, it can be extremely frustrating for anyone who is trying to access the site in that period.
You are probably well aware of the negative impact downtime can have on your website and your company as a whole. Any period of downtime can quickly result in lost sales and leads, a factor which multiplies depending on the average traffic your website usually receives. What’s worse is that those lost sales and leads are likely to go to your competitors, as frustrated potential customers shop elsewhere for the product or service they were looking for on your website.
If you’re a business owner, or are responsible for the maintenance of a company’s web presence, you will know that website downtime can happen at the most inconvenient of times. Unplanned downtime is never welcome. Your website is the online face of your business, and any period in which it is inaccessible to your clients and customers can damage the reputation of your brand.
An extended period of website downtime is the stuff of nightmares for companies large and small. For a company such as Amazon, even one single minute of downtime can cost as much as $220,318.80 according to the latest calculations. For smaller companies, that figure will be minuscule in comparison, but it’s a number which can quickly snowball the longer your website is offline.
Whatever the nature of your business, whether you are a freelancer or an online retailer, the quality of your website is key to the success of your organisation. A well-run website serves as the online storefront of your organisation, acting as the destination point for people who are searching for the services you provide or the products you sell. Are you confident that you have all the main bases covered when it comes to the management of your website?
Are you starting up a new business website, or just looking to change hosting to a new provider? Identifying the right web host for your website can be a real headache for businesses. There are so many providers out there, all offering a variety of features that all appear quite similar, making it difficult to determine which hosting is right for you. To help you choose a web hosting provider, we will first aim to help you define the hosting needs for your website.
Black Friday has quickly become the biggest retail event of the year in the UK, and sales and marketing staff are busy preparing themselves for what can be a make or break week for businesses. What started as an American shopping tradition following Thanksgiving has spread in recent years to become a worldwide phenomenon, with shoppers holding out for Black Friday and Cyber Monday (the online shopping equivalent of Black Friday) to buy gifts ahead of the Christmas holiday season.
When it comes to website and search engine optimisation one of the first topics that comes up is page speed. In the case of SEO, for example, we know that Google looks at page speed when determining the ranking of pages in its search engine. There are many means of measuring page speed, but little is known about how Google themselves distinguish a slow loading page from a fast one.
