With A Business That Uses The Internet Comes Responsibilities
Today’s lesson is about being responsible (for your website or blog). At the risk of sounding like your mother, I want to share a few details with you that you may not be thinking enough about. This blog post applies to everyone with a website or blog, whether Speedy Sites developed it for you or not. Having an Internet presence (website or blog) or using Internet-based services brings with it some responsibility.
People that don’t “live” on the Internet like we do, are quite often forgetting to do some “required maintenance” for their website or blog. The tasks that follow should be taken very seriously, because ignoring them could result in:
- No access to email – in or out, maybe permanently (read on)
- Not getting orders / inquiries from your website
- Your website disappearing from the Internet
- Loss of the control of your website name
- A loss of your businesses credibility
- Your customers getting upset and / or leaving you
Do these things really happen? YES! Speedy Sites has been involved in three situations just like the ones above – IN THE LAST FEW MONTHS!
The following tasks are absolutely required if you want to be on the Internet. Look at them as a “cost of doing business” on the Internet. Just like filing your taxes, sending out invoices, and helping customers. It is all about protecting your assets, your business, and your livelihood.
So, here are six of the most important, but VERY often overlooked tasks that should be executed, without fail, on a regular basis:
- Is your site on-line? – Check your website or blog to make sure it’s on-line – daily, or weekly at least. If you go longer than usual without getting emails, check your website! Generally, if your site is not on-line, your email won’t be going through.
- Is the credit card “on-file” current? – This is HUGE! At the same exact time every year, you need to check the expiration of the credit card on file with your hosting company and (if different) the company you registered your domain name through. In some cases, even if the hosting and domain name are with the same company, they are considered different purchases and will store the credit card in two different places. Worse yet, if you cancel a credit card due to loss, divorce or theft, you effectively have no credit card on file! If you lose the “lease” on your domain name, it can cost many hundreds of dollars to get it back. If it’s “expired” for too long, other companies will register it and you may never get it back! If you lose your domain name, you no longer get emails at that address – EVER! Remember, when you “register” a domain name, you’re just “leasing” it for as long as you pay to keep it registered. If you stop paying, someone else can lease it and you’ll never get it back. Nobody truly “owns” a domain name. Don’t get fooled by this. But, responsible people can lease it for life. Also, if you use an autoresponder service, email service, shopping cart service, or any other web-hosted service that you pay a monthly fee for, check those credit card expirations.
- Are your Internet assets backed up? – Every time anyone modifies your website or blog (be it code, photos, copy, or other) you need to make sure “someone” makes a back-up copy of your website files. These backups can be on CDs or DVDs or flash drives – it doesn’t matter. Store those back-ups in a safe place, preferably in multiple locations. All hosting companies don’t do this automatically for you. It usually takes less than 10 minutes to do, but is almost always overlooked. Without backup copies, your web designer would have to redevelop the site from scratch. Can you say “EXPENSIVE”? If you use an autoresponder service, email service, shopping cart service, or any other web-hosted service that contains a database of your information (your client’s email addresses, your product data base, etc.) – BACK IT UP! We’ve seen servers crash, service companies go out of business and hacker attacks that have caused companies like your to lose 1000’s of email addresses, entire product databases, autoresponder content, website content and much more. This leaves you with the only option of closing up shop, or spending the time and money to re-create all this from scratch. Can you say “EXPENSIVE”?
- Do you know your IDs and Passwords? - If you own a website or blog, you likely have IDs and passwords for your website access through FTP, reporting tool, control panel, forum administration, and other aspects of your on-line presence. Did you save copies of the emails with this information when your hosting company set up your hosting account? Can you find them when you need them?
- Do you know the contact information? – You have technical contact names / phone numbers, and email addresses registered with your hosting company and domain registrar for your website. You also have the credit card type, number and expiration date stored with the some companies. You may need to know (for security reasons) all this information to get technical support for your website or email if you have problems. When problems happen and you need to call for help, will you have those numbers handy? If not, they may not be able to help you. Did you save copies of these emails when your hosting company set up your hosting account?
- Do you know your server information? – Your website or blog runs on a “server”, or a computer that your hosting company owns and maintains for you. It has a name, an “IP address”, passwords to access it, user names to access it, incoming and outgoing server names for your email, port numbers, etc. This information is critical for the resolution of some problems. Did you save copies of these emails when your hosting company set up your hosting account? Do you have them handy?
Print this blog post now. Put in on the wall near your computer. USE IT! Please.
Speedy Sites doesn’t normally maintain this information for you. We can help you with these tasks, if needed. We can also recommend a strategy for maintaining and protecting your passwords and critical server data, if needed.