Your hosting infrastructure is the backbone of your website’s success. Whether you’re running a startup or a large enterprise, you need to be prepared for whatever the day throws at you. One day, you have steady traffic, and the next, thousands of new visitors are overwhelming the servers. And just as quickly, things can go in the opposite direction.
Luckily, there are some steps you can take to manage traffic spikes and lulls while ensuring operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
What are Traffic Spikes and Lulls?
First things first, what exactly are traffic spikes and lulls? A traffic spike refers to an abnormal or sudden increase in your site’s visitors. It can occur if one of the blog posts goes viral or a marketing campaign kicks off. Seasonal events and high-demand product launches can also lead to increased visitor numbers.
On the flip side, a sudden drop in your site’s visitors is called a traffic lull. It can occur due to various reasons, such as search engine algorithm updates, technical issues with the website, lack of marketing efforts, seasonal changes, loss of backlinks, and security issues.
Strategies for Handling Traffic Spikes
Here are three changes you can make to your hosting environment to handle a traffic spike:
Upgrade to a Better Hosting Plan
As a small business, using a shared hosting plan makes sense. However, when your site expands and receives thousands of new visitors, your current plan might not be able to accommodate the changes. Slow page load speed and server load errors are common signs. Upgrading to a better hosting plan, such as cloud VPS hosting or dedicated hosting, is your best option.
Optimize Your Site
The next best thing you can do is to make your Liquid Web hosting infrastructure as lean and efficient as possible. Minimize scripts, optimize images, and use efficient coding practices. Consider lazy loading to reduce page load speed. This will help you cater to a large number of new visitors without compromising on user experience.
Use Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)
Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) allow you to distribute website content across a network of servers. This will reduce the load on your primary server and prepare your site for more traffic.
How to Manage Hosting Environment for Traffic Lulls
So, the worst has happened, and you’re experiencing comparatively low visitors. Here are three changes you can make to your hosting infrastructure:
Monitor Server Resources
Take a deep dive into your server resources, including CPU, RAM, and bandwidth. Review the unused resources and scale down as much as you need. This will help you save costs.
Fix Technical Issues
Technical issues can cause a sudden drop in website traffic in your hosting environment. A broken plug-in may have disabled some of your site’s features, resulting in a decrease in visitors. Reach out to your hosting provider to file a complaint and get the issues resolved.
Clear Cache
Outdated cache files can prevent site visitors from seeing your content. Clear the cache and optimize the site to ensure proper indexing and to increase viewership.
