Nowadays, increasing numbers of entrepreneurs are deciding to either set their new businesses up online or take their existing business online. There are plenty of reasons for this. Operating online is just a whole lot easier and cheaper than running a traditional brick and mortar store! You don’t have to worry about commercial property rent or commercial energy bills. You don’t have to hire as many members of staff to fill the space, or pay for the space they require. What’s more? You can operate around the clock without opening and closing hours, you can easily access an international audience with the simple addition of international shipping, and in the retail world, you are less likely to experience problems with theft.
So, if this sounds good to you, you’re going to have to begin the process of taking your business online. Once you have started this process, however, you will have one key concern: keeping your business online. Here are just a couple of steps that you can take in order to ensure that everything keeps running as smoothly as possible!
Outsource Your IT
Seeing as your business is likely to become increasingly dependent on IT as time goes on, it’s extremely important that you have someone, or a team of people, managing your IT. This will ensure that you and your staff can complete the jobs expected of you throughout each business day, without problems accessing software, or issues with security breaches developing. The easiest way to ensure that your IT is well taken care of is to engage with professional Managed IT Services. This is a way of outsourcing the work to professionals who know what they are doing, lifting a whole lot of responsibility from your own shoulders and preventing you from having to go through the recruitment and training process involved with curating an in-house IT team.
Remember Domain Renewal Dates
When you set up your company’s website, you’ll probably find yourself purchasing a domain – this is the web address that users will type in or be directed to when they access your website. Generally speaking, it will be your brand name followed by “.com” or another area code. However, it is extremely important to remember that when you buy a domain, you do not purchase it outright. Instead, you will purchase it for a set amount of time from a company that specializes in selling domains. You will have the rights to the domain for around one year, or more depending upon your deal. It is extremely important that you know your domain’s renewal date, so that you can log in and purchase the rights to it just as it is about to run out. If you fail to do this and your website’s domain expires, customers and consumers will not be able to access your web page when they type your domain in or click links leading to your domain. Instead, they will face an error page and will not be able to browse your stock, process transactions, or find details to get in touch with you. Refreshing your domain ownership on time will prevent this problems from occurring.
The steps to take your business online may seem simple and obvious, yet so often they are overlooked or not taken seriously. Following the above steps will help to ensure that your business has a professional and reliable online presence at all times!
