A small business website is the equivalent of a physical storefront. Your online customers can’t visit you personally. All they know about you is from what they read online, and your website gives a preliminary impression about who you are and what you represent. Hence, naturally, business owners spend a lot of time and effort creating the best version of their homepage. However, they tend to neglect some other aspects such as how fast their site loads or are they implementing the latest security measures to protect their site against cyber-criminals. As we’ll come to see, these aspects play a critical role in your long-term success.
Why Do Small Business Website Owners Need to Care About Security?
According to Security Magazine, every 39 seconds there is an attack and every second hackers steal about 75 records. With an average of 30,000 websites being hacked every day (according to Forbes), business owners have reasons to worry about the fate of their site. Companies as big as Adobe, eBay, Yahoo, Marriott International, and Equifax have all experienced security breaches, causing immeasurable damages to their reputation and loss of trust from current and future customers. Security breaches are something you need to do everything to prevent it from happening in the first place because the aftermath damages after such incidents can be devastating to a company. Depending on the size and stage of the company, a single security breach incident can put you out of business.
The Importance of a Secure E-commerce Website
If you run an online store, chances are you need a secure way to process customers’ credit cards. In fact, any site storing customer records runs the risk of getting those records stolen once a hacker manages to get into their system. Once your customers learn that their data is not safe with you, their level of trust quickly drops, and it may be impossible to reestablish it no matter how hard you try. That’s why security measurements should be on the top priority list of any online business.
WordPress Is a Common Target for Malicious Hackers
Many companies build their online business on WordPress, the most popular CMS on the planet. However, using the most popular system has its own advantages and disadvantages. WordPress accounts for 90% of all hacked CMS sites and since 35% of all sites use WordPress, the number of hacked WordPress sites is staggeringly high. In fact, any site that is in PHP, the language WordPress is written in, has a good chance of being targeted by malicious hackers.
Is Your Website Taking Too Long to Load?
Statistics have shown that a few seconds more in loading time can cost you lots of potential revenues. In fact, pages that have a loading time of 2 seconds have a bounce rate of only 9% while pages having a loading time of 5 seconds see their bounce rate increase to 38%. Various studies concluded that if your site doesn’t load within the first few seconds, the average user will simply hit the back button to go visit another site. A slow website does not pose a security threat, but it surely costs you dearly in terms of revenues and conversions.
Reasons for a Slow Loading Time
When first building their online business presence, most people don’t pay attention to speed. In fact, depending on the web design service they pick, they may get a site that is optimized for speed and performance, or the opposite. Many web designers make the mistake of focusing on creating glamorous-looking pages without paying attention to performance optimization. However, the truth is, if a potential customer isn’t patient enough to wait for your site to load, they will not get to see that glamorous interface you have created. Below are some common causes of a slow loading site:
- Unclean code. If the codebase is not optimized for performance, your site will suffer.
- Big-sized images that take too long to load.
- Heavy Flash content.
- Too many HTTP requests.
- Not utilizing the right caching techniques.
- Too many ads on the page.
- etc.
How to Find Out If Your Site’s Loading Speed Is Acceptable
Knowing the current loading speed is the first step towards optimizing your site. There are many free tools to help you check your site’s loading speed. Google’s Page Speed Insights is one such tool. In fact, when choosing small business website design and hosting solutions for your online venture, insist on working with someone who is not only a great designer/developer but also a good webmaster. They will offer detailed reports on your site performance and work hard to make improvements.
What Small Business Website Owners Can Do to Make Their Sites Faster & More Secure?
So far, we have delved into the importance of having a secure and fast website. However, knowledge still doesn’t bring you value if you don’t take action. If your current website is not giving you the kind of conversions you aim for or if you have never discussed security measures with your web developer, it’s time to start making changes.
Choosing a reliable and trustworthy hosting service is the very first step towards securing your site. Most business owners are not tech-savvy, therefore, they need a hosting service with good tech support to assist them whenever necessary. By working with a hosting service that implements the latest security measures in their system, you have peace of mind to focus on your core business activities while the security part is taken care of by someone else.
A robust hosting service also possesses the right infrastructure to ensure optimal loading speed for your site. Once you’ve got the right hosting, it’s a matter of optimizing your site for better performance.
If you are looking for an all-in-one small business solution that takes care of everything from hosting, web design to CRM systems, contact us today for a free consultation. With a deep understanding of what matters to a small business, we provide the solutions to help you run your online business effortlessly.
