Building your site to be fully scalable is a concern for many businesses. Websites need to be able to handle large increases in usage and traffic, some of which can be unpredictable. For businesses that see a significant amount of activity on their site, a lack of scalable architecture can lead to lost opportunities. Building a scalable site is challenging but is a necessary task for any business wanting to have a long-lasting online presence.
Invest in the Right Technology from the Start
Many companies make the mistake of assuming they can start with a small website and grow it later on. However, a scalable website is an entirely different type of design than a small and simple website. Companies may find that they need to reinvest their funds into completely redesigning their website when the time comes.
Instead, a company can save money by creating a fully scalable website at the start. This will allow them to grow unhindered throughout the company’s evolution and make changes as necessary. Certain businesses can easily foresee that scalable system architectures and strategies will be necessary for their sites, and that these need to be used at the beginning of the production phase, rather than introduced later when traffic is bringing their site’s response time to a crawl.
Identify your Company’s Needs
When creating a scalable website, it’s crucial to understand the requirements of your business. If you’re not doing anything challenging on your site, your biggest concern will be bandwidth. For those who are running an ecommerce website or providing customer service, however, your website is an incredibly important source of revenue, a segment of your marketing campaign and a means for creating customer relationships. You’ll need to plan and scale your website according to these needs.
Consider Cloud Hosting Services
Cloud hosting services have become synonymous with scalable architecture for a reason. Cloud services are, by their nature, extremely scalable. Many of the largest companies on the Internet are all hosted on the cloud because of this scalability. Cloud servers offer the ability to take advantage of a practically limitless amount of resources and to build upon resources as required. Although cloud hosting isn’t always required or even feasible, it can be a very compelling option for those that will need flexibility in the future. If you’re planning to be running a PHP-based website, it’s recommended that you locate a PHP hosting provider who can manage your Web servers for you while you handle the demands of your online storefront.
Don’t Develop too Far too Fast
The main feature that scalable software provides is the ability to start out small and then grow. Consequently, it’s important that you don’t focus on adding too many features or technological improvements to your website before you really need it. This could simply lead to spending unnecessary amounts of money. Instead, your website architecture should enable you to build upon it when it becomes necessary and feasible.
A lack of scale can be extremely detrimental to both a website and the company it serves. Without scalable architecture, you may find yourself outgrowing your current website and need to completely revamp your online system before you can continue to grow. This can cost a company significant amounts of money through downtime and lost opportunities. A scalable website doesn’t need to be expensive; it simply needs to be planned with the future in mind.