An increase in business and website traffic is the dream of every online business. However, with growth comes new concerns, such as security and keeping up with the increased responsibility of an online business. There are ways your fledgling business can meet the demands and soar to new heights.
Step Away From Shared Hosting
Shared hosting plans are an excellent and economical choice during the early phase of your business. However, you may have reached the point where even unlimited shared hosting plans are not adequate. It is better to move to another form of hosting now, when transferring your website is easier, and before your customers experience slow loading times, or worse, crashes. Three options are virtual private servers (VPS), dedicated servers or colocation hosting through a place like http://colocationnorthwest.com.
If you are on the fence about managing your own servers, consider starting out with a VPS. The cost is typically lower and many companies that offer a VPS plan have semi-managed or fully managed options. A VPS may be a temporary fix. Although you have more space for running your business, you will share your VPS with other customers. Colocation services and dedicated servers are ideal if you want to focus on your business and leave the technology concerns to the professionals. Furthermore, both colocation services and dedicated servers do not share space with other customers. An added benefit of choosing colocation is you will own your own equipment, instead of renting a dedicated server.
Invest In Software Design
As your business grows, you may find that out-of-the-box software and popular content management systems (CMS) are not adequate for your business needs. Having endless bandwidth and processing speed will not matter if you do not have software that can keep up with your business. You and your designer can discuss both the client-side and server-side needs of your business.
For example, you may need real-time updates on merchandise in your store, such as items in stock and their price. Your business may benefit from customized software that works with the way you order items from suppliers and input inventory into the system. The endless opportunities to tailor your business software to your needs are imperative as you experience business growth, or if you decide to take your business in a new direction.
Effectively Manage Emails
Keeping up with your growing business is not only about technology, but also how you use technology to manage business-related tasks. Maybe you are using a single email for your business. It is difficult to reply to customers promptly and handle customer problems when you cannot sort through emails. Furthermore, emails from vendors, contractors or your bank can become lost in the crowd. Using software to manage emails is critical for keeping your business in order.
When you are selecting the right program for email management, consider how business emails are sorted and if the system works with your business. You might use a different email address for different types of email correspondence, or you may have a contact form on your website that allows customers to use a drop box to categorize their message. In either case, you want an email management program that can handle both types of correspondence, and will sort them again once they are processed by the program.
Ideally, you should have several people who help you manage emails, and the software program may use keywords or categories to direct the emails to the appropriate person. This is another advantage of having more control over your server; you can choose a program that runs directly on your server, instead of forwarding messages elsewhere for processing.
A profitable online business is a dream come true, but without the right technology, your dream can quickly turn into a nightmare. Investing in technology with infinite expansion capabilities and the ability to streamline your efforts can keep your business running smoothly, no matter the amount of growth.
Share26 February 2015
I recently switched my internet service provider. Once I switched, I was very happy with the speed and service. The internet moved so fast for me that I was on it playing games and messaging friends a lot more than usual. What I forgot was that I chose my internet package based on my past monthly use of the internet, which was low simply because our old service was so slow I didn't like using it much. I chose a package that was limited, and I realized my mistake when I used up all my plan data in just two weeks. Thankfully, my new provider allowed me to switch to unlimited mid-month. I created this blog to remind others to always keep an eye on their internet usage if on a restricted plan and call your provider if you need to change it.
