What to Do When Your Website Goes Down
So you’ve created the best Montessori website you’ve ever seen, if you do say so yourself.
Your content is as enlightening as it is captivating, your design the epitome of elegance and your navigational capabilities are off the charts. You’ve created a rich experience for all your visitors, present and future . . .
Except for the ones who won’t get to see it when your website goes down.
Not only will your current clientele be unable to access information they need, but the longer it takes to fix, the more prospective parents you may be losing. Forever.
We want to help, which is why we’ve put together this handy troubleshooting checklist:
- Have you made any recent changes to the site? This is typically the most common cause of website problems.
- If you’re running a WordPress site, find out if any of your themes or plugins
have recently been upgraded. You can do this by checking your WordPress
Dashboard Updates Screen.
- Speaking of WordPress plugins, they are sometimes prone to compatibility
issues. You can check this by disabling them all and then reenabling them, one
by one, to see if you can pinpoint a culprit.
- Pro tip: press “CTRL+SHIFT+i” (or “OPTION + CMD + i” on Macs) while
viewing your website OR right click and select “Inspect”. Either one of these
actions should take you to the developer’s console, where you can check for
conflicting scripts, errors, etc.
- Check with your host. Sometimes hosting providers experience technical
issues or are down for maintenance. Also, there’s a chance that your site has
exceeded the limits of your chosen plan.
- Last, your host support may tell you to run your previous backup. Which is
why you need a host that provides backup. We use WP Engine because it not
only performs a backup every day, but also any time there’s a major file update or
WordPress version upgrade.
Does this sound overwhelming?
You aren’t alone. Even the best websites built by knowledgeable and talented developers will have problems. The key is to have a support system ready when those problems strike. Whether you’ve tried the steps above to no avail or really would just rather have someone else deal with it, Nido Marketing is here.
Here’s an example:
We host and manage BergamoSchools.com, the website behind Matt Hillis’s Montessori schools. This website receives between 3,000 - 5,000 unique visitors each month and plays a massive role in the day to day lead generation, enrollment, admissions, and functioning of all four schools.
On December 28th, it went down at around 5:30pm in the evening, just when parents are getting home and going online.
We were notified right away because of our suite of monitoring tools and what followed was a 21 email thread between a team of 5 members working to get the website back online.
Around 8:00pm, we had the site back up. And that was with a full team dedicating their attention to solving the problem.
What would happen if your website went down? Do you have a team that you can call? That you trust?
That’s us
As the only marketing agency in the world founded by a Montessorian to focus exclusively on Montessori schools, we’re the best source for inspiration, guidance, expertise and innovation for any Montessori school interested in boosting enrollment, expanding and continuing to evolve as providers of the most exceptional primary and secondary education in existence.
But we’re more than that.
We’ve gathered a team that consists of not only of Montessori experts and marketing sharpshooters, but also website specialists and WordPress gurus who are available to either help in a pinch or, if you prefer, perform ongoing and daily maintenance of your website.
Simply put, Nido Marketing is your one-stop source for the promotion and advancement of your Montessori school. If you’re interested in learning more about our website support or any of our other services, we invite you to reach out today.
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