A company’s website is the bread and butter of their business. Without it, they will fail to attract customers or effectively promote their product or service. It is therefore incredibly frustrating when a website suffers much downtime. While you may feel a little helpless when your site goes down, there are things you can do to counteract the problem as much as possible.
Check If Your Website is Actually Down
This might sound a little obvious, but you must double check if your website is suffering from downtime. For example, your website might not be down at all; you could simply be suffering from a poor internet connection or you could have a browser problem. If in doubt, telephone a friend and ask them to test your website to see if it loads for them.
Identify the Cause of the Downtime
You might not be an IT expert, but you can take steps to identify the cause of the downtime. You can check if there is a programming error or a DNS problem. Also, there could be hardware issue affecting your internet connection. There could even be a problem with your domain; you might not have paid your monthly hosting bill and all it will take is for the hosting payment to have your site back up and running in an instant.
Contact Your Web Hosting Provider
If your website remains down and there is no explanation, you should contact your hosting provider, who will aim to identify if the outage is due to a problem on their end or if they can load a back-up version of your website. A dependable company will strive to have your site back up and running as soon as possible, or could offer tips to help you resolve the problem with your IT support team.
Inform Your Visitors on Social Media
You will want to inform your customers if your website has gone down, so they know the problem is just temporary and they don’t head to a competitor. Write a post on the likes of Facebook and Twitter apologizing for the technical difficulties with your website, but stating the site will be back soon.
This will also allow you to explain the problem to your audience, communicating that this is a rare issue that you are attempting to resolve. You never know, your website could be back up and running before you have even published the post, but it is worth informing your clients or customers in the meantime.
Follow-Up
If the problem persists, follow-up on the outage with the hosting provider or an IT specialist to resolve the issue. If you believe the problem is due to the hosting service, you could always change providers. Look for a reputable, cheap hosting solution with excellent reviews and a transparent service.
Remember to remain calm during the downtime, which will ensure you easily discover the cause of the problem and identify a solution.