Whilst most clients here at Dental Media simply leave our team to look after all of their web assets e.g. their website, content management system, blog and domain name etc, some elect to do it themselves.<\/p>\n
This is fine of course, but looking after those elements does require a good level of diligence to avoid unexpected problems. Unfortunately we\u2019ve seen too many examples where a panicked client has called us to advise that their website has gone off-line, subsequently for us to find that they\u2019ve forgotten to renew their domain name or hosting. Whilst this is usually retrievable, there are risks involved, for example an expired domain name left too long can be lost or a website off-line for too long, de-indexed by Google.<\/p>\n
With this in mind, what are the key things you need to be looking out for if you do prefer to manage your own web assets and what needs to be done to avoid any problems?<\/p>\n
Your domain name is extremely important as this is effectively the address for your identity on the web. Usually a domain name is registered for one or two years, although it is possible to register for longer than this. As long as the domain is registered to you or your business, then you can use it as the address for your website, blog and emails.<\/p>\n
Domains can also be set to \u201cauto renew\u201d and this is the default setting we use for client\u2019s domain names. However, we do request that they notify us if the domain is no longer needed and periodically we have to hop into our domain management portal to update the settings for one of more of the hundreds of domains we look after on behalf of dentists.<\/p>\n
If you opt to look after your domain name yourself, you will need to manage the regular renewals to ensure you don\u2019t lose the domain. You will also need to allow us access to the admin panel so we can look after any DNS changes (for routing your website traffic and email etc) on your behalf. Please don\u2019t lose any of your details as problems logging in can result.<\/p>\n
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All modern dental websites<\/a> come with a content management system (CMS). These systems require fairly regular updates to ensure that the functionality and security is maintained. Where we look after websites for our clients, we carry out these tasks on a scheduled basis, ensuring that all stays working as expected and minimising the risk of hacking. We also make daily back-ups of all of the websites we host and manage to ensure that in the event of any problems, the previous working version can be quickly re-instated.<\/p>\n For our design clients who prefer to use our services on an ad-hoc basis, more often than not we long into their websites to find that they haven\u2019t completed important security updates and have lost a grip on the website back-up scheduling. In a few unfortunate cases, their websites have been hacked, spotted too late and without a viable back-up \u2013 a big problem requiring a costly clean-up!<\/p>\n Whilst the technical elements of your website and renewal tasks for your domain name are all very important as discussed above, don\u2019t neglect to update the content of your website and, where applicable, your dental blog too. The key reasons for this are as follows:<\/p>\n Perhaps the biggest area where our team has to intervene to make repairs is where a client fails to manage and maintain email boxes. Quite frequently we will receive a panicked call to advise that the practice email of email of a specific team member isn\u2019t working. This is usually caused by one of two key problems:<\/p>\nYour website content and blog<\/h3>\n
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Email systems<\/h3>\n
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