It happened. A home improvement prospect found your website address. They clicked over to give you a few seconds of their perceived invaluable time and you were no where to be found. Your website hosting sucks, so instead, they seen this:
What will they think? Maybe you’re out of business? Maybe you don’t pay your bills?
Either way, nothing that they think will be good. Why would this happen?
Here’s some possible ‘website down’ scenarios:
1. Your website hosting service sucks
Yup, possible scenario 1 is that you’re paying for a less than average website hosting service. It happens. Some over worked IT guy has a big set of computers in a back room of his home, and that’s where your website lives, next to his cat’s fur dust. When those computers overheat due to negligence, or he’s out of the country for a wedding (seen it happen), your website goes down. And there’s nothing you can do about it.
2. Your hosting service sucks part 2
There’s more sucky scenarios. You’ve been in business a while. Say, over 10 years. That’s when you first launched your business website. And, at the time, you got sold by a nice local guy who had all this internet stuff figured out. But at the time, he was 50 years old. He knew all the available technology and trends. But now he’s over 60. And doesn’t care so much for the newer trends. And now you’re investing in SEO. And traffic spikes to your site are too much for his outdated technology. Now your website is down Friday afternoon. And he’s out on his boat. And there’s nothing you can do about it.
3. You didn’t pay your bill
This one I see too often. It’s not because you don’t pay your bills. It’s because you didn’t know the bill was due. In true internet fashion, hosting services will notify you the bill is due, and your website will go down if you don’t pay, all by email. 2 months due, 1 month due, 5 days due, service terminated, all by email. No phone call. No letter in the mail.
But you check your email. The problem is, you signed up with hosting with companyname@aol.com years ago. You don’t have access to, or check that email anymore. You’ve matured to a respectable you@companyname.com email address.
This scenario gets really bad when you’ve leased your domain at the same time as this hosting service. When your domain expires, SOMEONE ELSE CAN BUY IT.
How to prevent your website from going down
There’s a few ways to prevent this. One is to obviously pay a webmaster to take care of it for you. Or if you’re a DIY type, purchase reliable hosting.
Keep your email on file with your hosting service up to date, and give a backup if available.
Since we only deal with WordPress websites, we recommend website hosting services that specialize in providing service for WordPress websites. After years of testing, we recommend SiteGround. Their 24/7/365 customer service is phenomenal.