Poor Uptime, No Leads

Uptime is essential for businesses that rely on their website to generate revenue, provide information, or conduct transactions. Poor uptime results in reduced business continuity, lost revenue, customer dissatisfaction, and damage to reputation, however it is often taken for granted or overlooked when considering website hosting. Therefore, it’s essential to choose a reliable web hosting provider that offers high uptime guarantees.

In this blog we will discuss the definition and importance of website uptime, the causes of downtime, the steps you can take to ensure your website stays up and running 24/7, and how to measure uptime.

What is Uptime and Why is it Important?

Uptime refers to the amount of time a website or server is available and accessible to users and in today’s digital landscape, having a website that is constantly available is essential for businesses of all sizes as visitors expect websites to be available and accessible at all times.

Whether you’re a small startup or a large corporation, having a website that is down for extended periods of time is detrimental to the user experience, and has a significant impact on search engine rankings, online reputation, perception, revenue, and conversion. Fundamentally, when a site is down visitors are unable to make purchases or access important information, therefore they are likely to leave and go to a competitor’s site, resulting in lost revenue.

What Causes Website Downtime?

Understanding the importance of website uptime showcases exactly why it must be the priority of all businesses with online presence to avoid the negative implications of downtime. Avoid the causes of website downtime and you can minimise the effects of poor uptime. Common causes include:

Server issues

This can include hardware failures, software glitches, and other technical problems that prevent the server from functioning properly.

Network issues

Network downtime can be caused by issues such as power outages, cable cuts, and congestion, which can prevent visitors from accessing the website.

Cyber attacks

Websites are vulnerable to a variety of cyber attacks, including hacking, denial of service (DoS) attacks, and malware infections, all of which can cause downtime.

Human error

This can include mistakes made during website updates or maintenance, which can result in the site becoming unavailable.

Traffic spikes

A sudden increase in traffic can cause a website to crash if it’s not equipped to handle the additional load.

How to Ensure Website Uptime

There are several steps you can take to ensure good website uptime:

Choose a reliable hosting provider

To avoid losing leads you are looking to achieve a highly available website with an uptime of 99% or higher (i.e. you need your website to be available to users almost all the time). This can be achieved using a reliable hosting provider that offers a high level of uptime and has a strong reputation for reliability. However, not all hosting services will be able to offer you an uptime as high as this (or they say they will, but underdeliver). Therefore, it is essential to choose a web hosting provider that offers a reliable service and has client case studies to back up their claims.

Monitor your site

Use website monitoring tools to keep track of your site’s uptime and alert you if it goes down. This will allow you to take action quickly and resolve any issues before they become a problem for visitors.

Implement a content delivery network (CDN)

A CDN can help distribute traffic and reduce the impact of traffic spikes, making it less likely that your site will go down during periods of high traffic.

Keep software and plugins up to date

Regularly updating software and plugins can help prevent downtime caused by security vulnerabilities and other technical issues.

Implement a backup plan

Have a backup plan in place in case of a server failure or other issue that causes your site to go down. This can include having a secondary server available, or using a cloud-based backup service.

Monitor for cyber attacks

Regularly monitor your site for signs of a cyber attack, such as unusual traffic patterns or changes to the site’s code. Take immediate action if you suspect an attack is taking place.

Test your site regularly

Regularly test your site to ensure that it’s functioning as expected and identify any issues before they cause downtime.

How to Measure Uptime

Despite taking steps to maintain uptime, it is important to monitor your uptime to ensure that your selected hosting partner is performing as they should, or if you are self-hosting, you must be alerted when your website goes down and how often so that you can avoid this.

Here are some top tools to monitor your website uptime:

• Ping: Checks if a server is online by sending an ICMP echo request to the server’s IP address. If the server responds, it is online; if not, it is offline.
• Port scanning: Use a tool such as Nmap to scan a server’s ports to check if they are open. If a port is open, the service associated with that port is likely running and the server is online.
• HTTP request: Use a tool such as cURL to send a HTTP request to a server’s web page. If the server responds with a status code of 200, it is online; if not, it is offline.
• Customer feedback: Be aware of customer feedback. Website visitors will often reach out if they are unable to undertake a desired action on your website. However, it is preferable to notice uptime issues before the visitor to reduce reputational damage.
• Monitoring software: There are several software tools available that can monitor uptime. These tools can be configured to send alerts when a server goes offline.

Always Staying Up

In summary, website uptime is critical for the success of any website. By taking steps to ensure your site stays up and running 24/7, you can deliver a positive user experience, maintain search engine rankings, improve the user experience, and protect your revenue. Despite the tips to maintain uptime, it is considerably easier, efficient, and cost-effective to rely on a partner hosting service that can be trusted and relied upon to ensure your website is always fast, secure, and reliable. However, this must be a reliable, experienced, and supportive partner to avoid negative implications.

For example, WaaS (websites-as-a-service) provider Creatify utilises world-class hosting infrastructure that allow their clients to benefit from a high, always up, average uptime of 99.9%. Additionally, they have an experienced team that can quickly rectify downtime, and provide their clients with monthly reports that showcase exactly how consistently reliable their website uptime has been, removing the need to undertake continual monitoring. Having a reliable website service provider, such as Creatify, allows you to relax knowing your website is fast, secure, and up, allowing you to focus on growing your online presence and reaching your business goals.