If you’re a company owner who takes your website for granted, do you ensure it’s regularly maintained and checked for malware? If not, hackers may have already got in without you even knowing it! And when hackers get in, they can create havoc – causing you to unintentionally irritate and offend your clients – who won’t remain your clients for long.
Many people believe that when a website is hacked, it’s pretty obvious – it just crashes, right? Well no – today hacking is far more sophisticated. Hackers like to keep well under the radar so they can collect information, install malware and merrily spread infection to other users and servers as far and wide as possible, all the while evading detection.
Here are 4 reasons you’ll lose clients when your website is hacked:
- Offensive content is added to your site
As sure as eggs is eggs, when hackers alter your website content, they don’t add images of cute kittens or beautiful scenery – they opt for more unsavoury content.
The result? Whether your clients realise your site has been hacked or think this is the kind of content you want to share, they won’t be staying around for long, and you certainly won’t have made a good impression.
- Visitors are told your site is unsafe
When someone lands on your website they receive a warning message advising them that the site they are about to enter is unsafe and could damage their computer – your website is on a blacklist.
The result? Clients will quickly close the tab and steer well clear of your website in future.
- Clients and many others receive spam emails
Thousands of people may start to receive spam emails from your website when it’s been hacked – even if you’re not aware of it. If your company hosts websites for others, the problem may even extend to their domains.
The result? Unhappy people who don’t appreciate receiving spam emails from you. Most will delete your emails – if they get through their spam filters; others may report you as a spammer and after multiple abuse reports, your entire domain is likely to be blocked. Either way, you shouldn’t expect any of these people to want to become your customer in the future.
- Your website is ooooh sooooo slow
As a company owner you probably don’t navigate around your website very often. But if it has been hacked it may be working very slowly and your customers will be the ones to suffer.
The result? Customers will simply get frustrated by your sluggish website and won’t bother to stay around to learn what your company could offer them.
In the above scenarios you may be in blissful ignorance that your website has been hacked and consequently may lose many existing and potential clients in a matter of days. If you’re lucky, one of your clients will alert you to the problem but really – what does that do for your credibility in their eyes?
It’s far better to maintain your website regularly, with malware monitoring and regular back-ups. Then in the event your website is hacked the malware can be removed as quickly as possible.
The online world is far too competitive for you to lose clients to your competitors when, with simple website maintenance, the problems could have been avoided in the first place.
