When you advertise online, what is next worst thing that can happen besides getting little response?

Imagine spending $5,000 on a permission-based email marketing campaign that generated an excellent 10% response - sending you an avalanche of targeted prospects. But your website goes down exactly at that very moment!

This is a scenario that most online marketers experience at least once in their marketing career. I went through it a few times in recent months due to bad service from my previous web hosting provider.

What exactly does your business lose when your website goes down?

Loss #1: Sales

Take your total annual sales and divide it by 8,760 hours in a year and you will arrive at sales volume lost per hour of downtime.

For example, if your business generated sales of $100,000 online last year and your website goes down for 18 hours, you would have lost sales worth at least $205.48!

This figure will be even larger if you exclude non-working days.

Loss #2: Advertising Dollars

If your website goes down after a major marketing campaign, it is almost certain that you will lose every dollar invested. When your potential customers cannot access your website immediately after they click to it, don't expect them to try 24 hours later.

Loss #3: Goodwill

If your website is down often or your visitors frequently have trouble accessing it, they lose faith in your business credibility. In this highly competitive online market, your customers can easily become your competitors' customers!

What can you do to prevent your website from failing you? Here are some practical tips.

Tip #1: You Get What You Pay For

If you pay $9.95 monthly for your web hosting package, you're not likely to get first-class technical support. Don't expect your hosting provider to have support staff available to take your call after office hours.

They will probably take 12-48 hours to restore your site - if you manage to get through their online support system - which probably would be down too.

Tip #2: You Need Live Phone Support

Use a hosting provider who have real support staff available 24/7 to take your phone call anytime.

Don't be fooled by some hosting companies who say they have phone support when it is actually just a "Leave a message after beep tone" voicemail option.

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