We’ve all discovered first-hand how tricky technology can be when it decides it’s fed up of making life easy for us all – and those who own and maintain a website know this frustration with technology extends to website maintenance too. Error codes where error codes have no business being, problematic updates that should have been simple, slow page speeds with no discernible origin…there are plenty of frustrations that come with website ownership. While some of these annoyances are unavoidable, there are a number of things you can do to keep your business’ online presence as stress-free as possible.
Our number one tip? Separate out your domain, DNS and email hosting.
Now this might seem counter-intuitive and like the very opposite of simplicity but if you bear with us and read our three points below we hope you’ll be convinced by the end of this post.
Security
If you’ve woken up to the nightmare of downtime across the board you’ll understand why this first point might just be the most important.
If your website and email service are hosted on one platform, what happens when one element goes down? That’s right, everything else goes down with it. If your website is unavailable and your emails are hosted on the same server, you’ll more than likely see the exact same issues with your emails. That means you can’t update customers via your website and you can’t receive their emails, or send your own to reassure them that things will be back up and running as soon as possible.
While it’s impossible to avoid downtime completely, at least if your website and emails are hosted independently you should (unless there’s an unparalleled disaster!) never see both key parts of your online presence suffer downtime at the same time.
Specialism
You wouldn’t go to the optician to get your teeth looked at, so why would you use a web host for your emails? There are exceptional web hosts and exceptional email providers but it’s nigh-on impossible to receive exceptional service for both in the same place.
Instead, we recommend picking a separate web host, domain registrar, and email provider. It might take you a little longer to research the best of the best but it’s well worth the legwork in the long run, we promise you.
Web hosts are built to host websites and email hosts are first class in all things email. Your business deserves only the best support, not second rate, so specialism is the way to go.
Sanity
Separating out your web and email hosting might require more initial effort on your part but it will help save you time and stress in the long run, we guarantee it.
Let’s say you’ve been with your email provider for a year but you’re not quite happy with the service you’re receiving. If your website and emails are hosted together? It suddenly gets time-consuming and complicated, and you may find yourself staying with a subpar provider just because it’s easier. However, if your emails are hosted separately all you need to do is look for a highly recommended new provider – thus, you maintain control over both your sanity and your business’ online presence!
