The Coronavirus pandemic has presented a varied set of problems for businesses across the globe. From lockdowns, disruptions in the supply chain, travel restrictions — the list is endless.
Online businesses seem to be better equipped to tackle the problems that this pandemic has thrown up. What’s more, with lockdowns still prevalent in most parts of the globe, people are online all the time. Ecommerce has steadily increased. So, if you’re a website owner, you should be leveraging all this to your advantage.
On the other hand, if you don’t have a website for your business, now’s the ideal time to start one.
This article looks at some of the major problems that websites are facing due to the pandemic and explores a few ways that can help you overcome those problems.
Website challenges due to COVID-19
Let us understand the common and prevalent website problems and their solutions:
1. Security
Security is perhaps the biggest challenge that websites face these days. Cyberattacks are on the rise during the pandemic, with the number of websites that are getting attacked going up. People are online more than ever before, and that makes for a great hunting ground for cybercriminals.
INTERPOL has even had to issue statements saying that cybercrimes are rising at an alarming rate and people should protect their identities and their websites better.
Protecting your website from cyberattacks should be on the top of your priorities. Data breaches can end websites. People don’t like it if their data is leaked. There are many aspects involved here.
- The first one is to choose a web hosting company that actually cares about security. Web hosting companies that take security seriously will have multiple firewalls and malware scanners to ensure that their servers and your websites are all safe.
- Opt for a dynamic hosting solution that offers advanced data protection. Among the many web hosting types, Dedicated Server Hosting offers the highest data privacy and protection. However, Dedicated Servers may not be affordable for all.
- Cloud Hosting is emerging to be a viable and affordable web hosting solution that offers advanced data protection. With Cloud Server Hosting, your data is stored on multiple servers, eliminating any single point of failure, and ensuring high data redundancies. You can host your website with Cloud Hosting and ensure optimum data security and protection, along with advanced DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) and malware protection.
- The next step is to use malware scanners exclusively for your website. Most web hosts will allow you to install these applications. So, use them.
- Also, close all unused open ports and prevent applications from going online unless it’s absolutely necessary. If you have root access to your website server, this should be a simple task. If you do not have root access, you can request assistance from the hosting provider for this.
- Apart from this, ensure that all your applications are up to date. This is a common but significant mistake that gets repeated a lot. Updates often carry important security patches. Delaying their installation will turn out to be a disaster in the long run.
- Also, ensure that your website is SSL certified. SSL certification encrypts the data when a browser sends it to your server. Only your server has the key to decrypt that data. This way, you can mitigate the problems of a MiM (Man in the Middle) attack. Additionally, when you get an SSL certificate, your website gets a green lock next to the URL, and that increases trust. People shop from websites that they trust.
2. Website speed
Given that online businesses are booming and that lots of people are online, it’s important for businesses to reach out to as many people as possible.
That being said, the general state of internet speeds across the globe took a hit during the high peak of the pandemic. Internet speeds went down because of the sheer number of people using the internet. In fact, In times like these, it’s crucial that you do everything that you can to keep your website as fast as possible.
A web server, where your website is hosted, has finite resources, and with those resources, it can cater to a finite number of requests. If the requests (traffic) goes higher than a certain number, the server gets stressed, and you will see the speed going down.
This is especially true in hosting types where the resources of a server are shared, in some way or the other. A server is having to deal with peak traffic of multiple websites at the same time, which in turn will bring the speed of your website down. And if you know anything about websites, you know that a slow website is a bad website.
There are several ways to deal with these website challenges.
- If you have a global audience, then you need a CDN. A Content Delivery Network is a collection of edge servers around the globe that will serve content quickly to users across the world.
- Along with that, you will also need to enable caching for your website. When you enable caching, browsers will save crucial items on your website locally – things like your logo, site layout, primary colours of your website, and so on. This means that your server will not have to serve that content every time.
- Finally, take a look at your website design. Is it too media heavy? Are there too many high-resolution images or videos? Does your website carry too many animations? If the answer to those questions is yes, then you need to simplify your website design. A simple website with less media on it loads faster.
3. Scalability
Scalability is a problem that a lot of website owners are facing during the pandemic. In fact, governments across the globe have been on the receiving end of this problem. Websites to find vaccines have crashed in the US and other parts of the world.
Traffic has gone up, but with their existing resources, they aren’t able to cater to everyone. They need more resources, and adding those resources isn’t turning out to be as easy as they thought.
This is, in no way, restricted to governments. Websites across the world have faced this problem and at its heart, it’s a problem of scalability. Solving this problem is crucial.
The only way to ensure good scalability is by choosing a good web hosting partner that allows enough headroom for you to grow. With a good web hosting company, scaling up resources should literally take a few minutes and a few clicks. If your website is growing steadily, but you aren’t able to scale your resources, that’s a problem.
For starters, your website will slow down. However, the more important point to note is that if you’re on a steady growth path, you’re going to need to grow steadily too. So, it’s not going to be a one-time affair. If you feel that your current web hosting provider cannot accommodate your website, it’s better to just shift to a company that can.
Conclusion
The pandemic has brought about a variety of problems for businesses all across the globe and in all sectors. Online businesses and websites aren’t an exception. While some are finding it difficult to manage their traffic, others are struggling with managing their growth.
Solving fundamental problems like security and speed are important if you want your website to grow. The first step to solving these problems is to partner with a web hosting company that knows what it’s doing.
If your problems seem a bit too much for your current web hosting provider, just switch over to a company that can actually deliver safe, fast, and reliable hosting. ResellerClub offers free data migration with our SSD Cloud Hosting plans.
Our fully Managed Cloud Hosting solutions are pre-integrated with a CDN, Varnish cache, cPanel, and free SSL. Additionally, enjoy one-click resource scalability, 24×7 customer support and a robust SSD (Solid State Drive) Storage.
Websites today are tackling the rising challenges of the pandemic. However, awareness, attention and timely intervention are crucial to ensure that your website works uninterrupted, no matter the situation. It is imperative to identify your website problems and find relevant solutions.
So, how are you tackling these newer challenges? Let us know in the comments below!
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