I remember being handed the keys to my first car.  The sense of excitement and anticipation was one that I’ll never forget.   Where would this chunky piece of metal and rubber take me?  Which tapes would I load on to my *tape deck?  Which scarf should I wear to match the car upholstery? And would that matter since I planned for my scarf tails to flutter in the breeze captured by my open window as I zoomed to the beach?

So imagine my disdain when my dad started prattling on about checking the oil….and how to change a tyre… and the best place to get the car serviced.  Talk about a party pooper!

Of course, you all know where this story is going, don’t you?  Flat tyres… overheating engines… lights flashing infuriatingly on the dashboard.  Dammit he was right.  Again!  Technical maintenance IS important.

And the same goes for your website.

And this… I found out the hard way.  It started with people tweeting me to say they couldn’t comment on my blog.  Hmmmm.  Then a few messages to say that my website kept crashing… up to 10 times (!!!) before they could finish reading the post.  Crikey!!  So I decided to do an automatic upgrade.  Cue website crashing completely.  omg.  Also… OMG!!!

Sometime later, Jess from Diary of a SAHM put me in touch with Michelle from Little Hero Hosting/Little Hero Designs.  Now you should know that tinkering “behind the scenes” on a website terrifies me, and the temptation to run away from the computer – forever – was high as soon as discussions about file transfer protocols et al commenced.  But Michelle was reassuring, professional and very competent.  Which restored my confidence immensely.  Not only did she identify and fix the problem at hand, but she identified an even bigger problem that may have seen The Bling Buoy sink rather dramatically.  And that’s when I learned about the importance of … backing up to your website.

But that was only the beginning.  There were many things that I learned during “the day The Bling Buoy nearly sank”, but the biggest one was that I still have a lot to learn about maintaining my website and blog.  So I was very relieved to discover the LHD/LHH blog, which has broken down these lessons into nice, manageable, non-scary posts that even a technophobe like myself can learn from.  You can also subscribe to the LHD/LHH blog if you want to prevent similar disasters from happening…. and maybe even improve your readership, the look of your website and SEO in the meantime.

“I’m high maintenance, but I’m worth it.” - Lara Logan

Your website is worth it too.

Disclosure: I am in no way affiliated with Little Hero Hosting/Little Hero Design and was not paid to write this review.  I just wanted to tell my lovely readers about my wonderful experience with them.

* some younger readers may not be familiar with the term “tape deck”.  I encourage you to google it as a valuable study in modern history, but essentially it’s a ginourmous version of the iPod that dinosaurs grooved to in the good ‘ole days.  And YES, music had been invented then…

Follow @theblingbuoy