How to prevent big unplanned expenses for your website
In whatever segment you are working — B2C, B2B, C2C or C2B — your website can always be a fabulous business tool. However, sometimes your site may bring about big unplanned expenses. So let’s discover some of the ways it may develop “big black holes” in your budget, and, of course, how you can prevent it.
Some cases when your website can cause big unplanned expenses
If you lose some important data
In case of loss, damage, or, still worse, malicious interception of important data, the consequences for your budget can be significant. This data might include credit card or other financial transaction information, your company’s essential industrial information, some technical inventions, client databases and much more.
If your situation is urgent
Emergency rates usually exceed regular maintenance rates by 2x or 3x. This is because a support team has to work outside their business hours in order to quickly recover your hacked website or fix other urgent issues on it. Of course, it’s better to prevent than to fix an issue.
If your website is down for a long time
Having your web resource down or inaccessible for a long time means that your traffic leaks away (together with your reputation), which may lead to very tangible budget losses. It can happen due to server troubles, hacker attacks, and more.
If your website is not open to changes
It is sometimes necessary to modify, extend, or update something on your site, but it can lead to large expenses of time and money because of the low level of your website’s maintainability (serviceability). The main reason for a lack of serviceability is a messy code and non-adherence to coding standards during its creation.
Ways to prevent the above-mentioned unplanned expenses
But don’t worry! All you need is to take the necessary measures. You can prevent hurricanes from carrying away your house’s roof by strengthening it in advance, and you can do the same for your web resource.
Good hosting / monitoring
Never hear the words “your site is down.” It should always show a smooth performance, no matter how many users visit it. For this, choose a reliable hosting provider, with secure 24/7 monitoring services.
Regular backups
To prevent data loss, or help quickly restore the lost data, it is important to do regular backups of databases, website files, and more. Most hosting providers offer this service.
Increasing the maintainability
Any modifying, extending, or updating you do to your web resource shouldn’t cost you too much if your site’s serviceability is increased through a good code review and optimization. This will make the site much cleaner and easier to work with, so you will avoid big expenses.
Drupal updates
As keystone of security, Drupal updates should never be ignored. The Drupal community is very serious about keeping the security on the high level and quickly “catching” any possible vulnerabilities. So every update helps keep your web resource safe. Since we specialize in the Drupal CMF, we’ve used it as an example, however, updates are important when it comes to most platforms.
The power of security modules
Drupal also offers plenty of useful modules will help you protect your website. So consider installing and configuring the Hacked!, the Diff, the Devel, the Security Kit, the AES Encryption, the Captcha, the Paranoia, the Masquerade, the Scheme, and other security-enhancing Drupal modules.
Using the HTTPS protocol
Nowadays, many websites are switching from HTTP to HTTPS protocol, because it helps protect your data privacy. This is a way to prevent hackers from intercepting or modifying your information or using your site in malicious ways.
The easy solutions that combine it all
So many recommendations, and there are many more that deserve to be mentioned! Drudesk website support is ready to help you with any of them (secure hosting, installing and configuring useful modules, doing updates, switching to HTTPS, enhancing the serviceability, and so on).
However, here are the quickest and easiest solutions that combine a lot of what has been mentioned above.
- A website security audit will help reveal absolutely all its weak points, recommend how to replace them with strong ones, and implement best practices, so your site is a well-fortified castle.
- Regular maintenance will offer you constant care of your site with all the necessary action taken in time. You will avoid unexpected troubles and expenses, so your budget stays intact.
Let’s discuss the best options that will secure you against big unplanned expenses related to your website. And if your site ever surprises you with something big and unplanned, let it be astonishing traffic gains, mind-blowing profits and incredible joy!