The world of online business can be ruthless at times though it grants huge payouts for businesses that do it right. ‘Survival of the fittest’ applies here as well. But then again, there are startups that just grow at an incredible rate. So obviously there should be a formula for that kind of success.
The basic survival kit for businesses in the digital world
For a business to survive in the wild, harsh environments of the digital realm, it requires
- An appealing website
- A dependable web hosting provider
- Excellent marketing and SEO strategies
- Patience
Now, the first one in the kit is a no brainer. A website is basically the business’ identity in the digital world. It generates revenue, acquires more customers, retains them, and is capable of more. But there is a catch. For the website to be effective, it needs a home – a place where it will be secure and nourished.
This is where the second item in the kit comes into play.
(The third and fourth item in the kit are another story for another time)
A Dependable Hosting Company
Dependable can mean anything good, like reliable, safe, supportive, secure, robust…
The company makes sure you have the right web hosting service for your business so that your website is at its best at all times. This means great server response times, excellent uptime, adequate bandwidth and storage, 24/7 customer support etc. But these are all obvious facts anyone familiar with web hosting would know.
So what does it mean for your business if the hosting company is not that dependable? For starters, surviving the online business world becomes difficult.
Your website becomes vulnerable to a number of threats.
Threat to Data Integrity
Business emails, financial transactions, customer feedbacks, customer credentials… These are all data that feeds a business. In the case of your business, you could use these data for a lot of things from improving operations to optimizing business strategies. You don’t want this data to fall into the wrong hands or lose it to malicious programs like viruses or malware.
A DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack on the server which overcomes even the firewall means chaos. Even the administrator won’t be able to access the data in most cases. A hacked server which automatically keeps sending spammy emails is another example. The email service provider might block the DNS server from where the spammy emails originate. This means authorized account holders won’t be able to send mails.
If your hosting company isn’t competent, this could ruin them and your business in no time.
Physical Threats
The host will have the servers secured at remote data centers in most cases, promising that your data will be safe. But there are a lot of hosting providers out there who still doesn’t have the right security measures to prevent unauthorized access to their data centers.
A dependable hosting company would have 24/7 physical security, biometric access and deployable emergency protocols to protect this data. A data center without adequate security means your data is accessible to those who have access to the data center.
Server-related Threats
This is something you should give a lot of importance to. The server is supposed to give 100% uptime for websites. But that’s technically not possible. A reliable host server will offer an uptime of 99% or higher. Anything lower than that is looked at with doubt in the industry.
Apart from this, the server may experience a lot of technical issues. You would want your host to resolve the issue immediately before it starts to affect your website’s performance. An unreliable hosting company means you can’t expect them to fix it all in time.
A dependable hosting provider on the other hand will have a team of professionals ready at all times to answer your calls and troubleshoot the issues.
Conclusion
A dependable web hosting provider works akin to a bank. Banks secure your valuables in their lockers. There will be many lockers. But a user can unlock only those lockers that he’s authorized to unlock. Security protocols ensure that. The bank is responsible for providing that level of security to safeguard those valuables. A dependable host does the same.
Even in a dedicated server hosting solution where the server houses only your website, and there is no other user in the server who can access your website’s data, there should be security mechanisms to secure those data should someone try to access it externally. A dependable host will have that.
So basically, the difference between a dependable host and an undependable one is that the former ‘will’ have everything required to keep your website and its data safe and secure, while the latter ‘should’ have those things to fulfill the same purpose. ‘Will’ and ‘Should’.
So back to our topic…
What is the future of your business without a dependable hosting company?
Honestly,
THERE IS NO FUTURE!!!
Start with a dependable hosting company by your side, and you will only have to focus on your business, and not on keeping your website intact.
