Ahhhh, the unofficial final stretch of summer. For many businesses, these steamy days mean quieter schedules and fewer calls and emails. If that’s also your experience, this is a good time to do some digital detective work that could help prevent a delay or an emergency with your marketing when things are busier.
All too often, our agency faces delays with launching or adjusting digital marketing projects because clients don’t have thorough, up-to-date records for their digital platforms and assets. With a little housekeeping during your slow season, you can help prevent that. And we’re about to tell you how.
Web Domain Registration and Hosting: Who’s in Charge?
First, understand the difference between domain registration and web hosting, and make sure you’re on top of both.
Domain Registration: Your domain registration is like leasing your web address (e.g., www.acme.com), while hosting is renting space on a server where your website's files reside.
Your domain registration is the foundation of your online presence. Here's why it's crucial to have control over it and you need to be sure you have a working login:
- Renewal Notices: If you miss renewal notices, your domain could expire, leading to a complete shutdown of your website. We’ve gotten more than a few panicked phone calls from clients who thought their site was down, but it wasn’t. Instead, their domain had expired. Not only should you make sure you’re receiving the notices, but set calendar reminders to remind you before the expiration date.
- Account Access: Ensure you have the login details for your domain registrar account or know who does. Without access, you cannot manage your domain, update contact information, or respond to urgent issues.
- Ensure Ownership of Your Domain: It's vital that you, or an officer of your company, own your domain rather than an agency or webmaster who set up your site. Having ownership ensures that you retain control over your domain, even if you change agencies or webmasters. Furthermore, if the person or agency who owns your domain becomes unresponsive or you end your relationship with them, regaining control of your domain can be difficult and disruptive.
Not sure where your domain is registered or when it expires? A "whois" lookup will get you that information in a flash.
Web Hosting: Your web hosting company might be separate from your domain registration company. Keep track of your hosting account login details. Having administrative access to this account lets you manage your billing but also allows your webmaster or marketing agency to make necessary changes to your website. As with your domain registration, missing a hosting bill could take your site offline. Additional hosting items you should keep track of include:
- SSL Certificates: An SSL certificate lets your visitors know that the information they submit via your site is safe. Ensure your certificates are up to date. An expired certificate can lead to security warnings popping up for visitors and deter them from going further.
- Backup Schedules: Regularly back up your website to prevent data loss. Verify your backup schedules and ensure that backups are stored securely.
- Software Updates: Keep all website software, including content management systems and plugins, updated to the latest versions to avoid security vulnerabilities.
Website Forms: Kick the Tires
Your website forms are crucial touchpoints for customer inquiries, lead generation, and more. Here’s a quick checklist to ensure they are functioning correctly:
- Test Your Forms: Regularly submit test entries to verify that your forms are working as expected. Make sure you receive the submissions without any issues. Not seeing them? Check your junk or spam folders, or, if you use the focused inbox feature of Outlook, check your unfocused emails.
- Check Submission Recipients: Who’s receiving these form submissions? Verify the recipients and their email addresses. This is especially important if there have been staffing changes. We recommend using a distribution email address like sales@acme.com or inquiries@acme.com that forwards submissions to one or more recipient, so when staffing changes occur, you need to update only the distribution list instead of editing form settings (which sometimes requires help from a programmer). Set a calendar reminder to test your forms at least quarterly. While it’s rare for a form to stop working, it can happen!
- Workflow for Handling Inquiries: Ensure there’s a clear and efficient workflow for responding to form submissions. This helps prevent any leads from falling through the cracks.
Taking the time to address these housekeeping tasks during the slower summer months will help you avoid emergencies and ensure your online operations run smoothly. It also will help prevent delays in launching certain marketing initiatives.
Happy housekeeping, enjoy this last stretch of summer, and we'll see you in September!