In today’s digital world, your website is more than just an outlet for information — it’s your storefront, your brand’s reputation, and oftentimes it’s the first impression people will get when they encounter your brand. With that in mind, if you are looking for a website solution and aren’t already a hugely technical-savvy person, how do you know that you’re getting what you pay for? We’ve put together a few tips for you to keep in mind when it comes to your brand’s website.
- Find a Premium Hosting Company
There is a plethora of hosting providers out there that offer a wide range of servers and deals, which may be overwhelming at first. It’s important to not just go with the best deal because a super-low monthly cost most likely means that quality will suffer — keep in mind, you get what you pay for. You need to consider two things when choosing a host outside of just the cost: First, what will your site’s uptime and performance be? And second, if something does happen, will the hosting company help you resolve the issue before it harms your business?
- Choose a Solid Platform as Your Content Management System
At Catalyst, WordPress is our platform of choice, and when set up and maintained properly, it’s the best in class for hosting anything from a personal blog to a Fortune 500 enterprise. The primary factor behind WordPress is that after you have a professional create your website, you should then have the necessary access to make updates to your website’s content as need be.
- Make Sure Your Site Is Protected
Just because you find a rock-star hosting company and have a great-looking website created doesn’t necessarily meant that you have everything you need to succeed in this digital world. It’s a great place to start, but don’t forget to take measures to ensure that your website and digital assets are protected from evil doers.
- Have a Plan for Disaster Recovery
In addition to having a secure website that lives online for the world to see, you need to have a plan for if the unspeakable happens and your website loses files. There are a lot of third-party services out there that help with this by providing daily backups. We recommend incremental backups of all website and database files every 24 hours. This ensures that you can roll back to a good point before the disaster occurred without losing a significant amount of information.
- Locate a Strategic Partner
Finally, after all of the technical requirements are taken care of, you can focus on your business needs. You should find a partner that can help you plan a strategy and execute those recommendations to improve your online presence. This could mean running a paid search campaign or monitoring your online reputation on review sites such as Yelp and Google+.
At Catalyst, we combine state-of-the-art tools and technology with cutting-edge strategy to make sure our clients’ websites are not only up and running, but are acting as effectively as possible to represent each client’s brand. If you have questions on where to begin for your next website, let us know, and we can help you get started on the right foot to avoid unnecessary time and money being wasted to later try and fix an issue.