Funny enough, most marketers don't have a backup plan in place when a server goes down and the money making entity, namely your Website is not accessible by existing and potential customers.



Here are three vital steps you must take to keep your online business running smoothly:

Step 1: Your Support Should Be On a Different Server or Host

When your business Website server goes down, there is not much you can do about it. It is a fact of doing business online, and unless you actually own your servers and pay an employee to maintain them, you are at the mercy of your hosting company.

Savvy Internet marketers know the importance of having customer service and support areas of the Website hosted on a different server or with a different hosting service altogether.

This means that if the main site goes down, the support site does not. Existing and potential clients can still access certain parts of your site such as their accounts. You can also use the support section of your Website to post alerts about the server situation on the rest of the site.

By keeping customer service and support services on a separate server or host, you are assured that you still have a certain level of continuity and communication with your customers, without dropping off the face of the Internet altogether.

Step 2: Choose a Hosting Company that Offers Auto Backup Service

Many quality hosting companies offer a backup service. This can work in one of two ways. The economy version of backup services means that your host will regularly (usually daily) and automatically back up the entire contents of your Website.

This means that if the server outage is severe and any of your Website content is lost or corrupted, your host has a recent and full back-up of the entire site that can be reinstalled when the server issue is fixed.

The better version of back-up services means that the hosting company actually has a mirror site so that if a server goes down, a visitor is automatically and seamlessly forwarded to the mirror site, which is an exact replica of your original site.

This type of service generally costs more money but if your livelihood depends on your site being up and accessible at all times, it may be well worth the extra money.

Step 3: Keep Off-Server Customer Information

You would not believe how many Internet marketers do not keep hard copy information of their customer database on a local computer. How silly is that? If the server goes down and damage is done, all this valuable information could be lost.

Furthermore, you need to be able to reach important clients when your server goes down. You need to make it a critical task to continually back up your customer information including name, address, telephone number, and email address and order history.

This way, when your servers go down, you can contact and reassure customers that you are working diligently to resolve the situation and your customers will feel connected and valued.