Website Monitoring 4: Content & Links

Some florist website vendors will make changes to your website. Their intentions may be good, but you may not always agree with their decisions and you probably won’t be aware of them.

One example involves links. Some website providers will include a small link that says something like “Power by Floral Websites Inc.” with a link back to their own website on one or more pages. This is fairly standard.

Other providers prominently feature large artwork, links and text promoting their own services on the website you are paying for. Most florists understandably do not want this – they are paying for a website that serves their business, not promote their vendor. They also realize that it doesn’t look professional – serious companies don’t have websites that aggressively promote the vendor that supplies them.

An even bigger concern is products. Some providers will, as part of seasonal updates, add new products to your website. Some of these products may not be the kind of thing you want to feature on your site, while others may not be something you sell at all - some providers will add products that are actually sold by the website provider and shipped direct.

Many florists don’t want to include those products on their websites, but they generally won’t notice until they happen to stumble across them or see them showing up on sales reports.

That leads into another issue – links that take the customer from your website to the provider’s website where they can then buy directly from them. Again this is something florists generally want to avoid.

A monitoring service can help with all of these concerns. The same way you can configure checks so you are alerted when a certain page on your website is not available, you can also be alerted when certain text or links appear. You can then make (or request of your vendor) the changes that you need.