Why Website Maintenance Is Important
Your website is the virtual face of your online business. The first thing a visitor encounters while trying to reach you online is your website. Upon reaching on the website, within seconds a visitor will take the very important decision that whether it is worth their time or not and to stay on it or not. For that reason, website maintenance is one of the key success factors for your business.
The majority of business owners understand the importance of having a website. So they get the ball rolling and create a website, they even set some expectations, they want to be on the first page of Google.
Who doesn’t? Everyone builds a website because they want more business.
But often after launching the website they simply forget it exists, they never look at it again, ignoring website maintenance entirely. 6 months, a year later:
- They realise they haven’t really got any results out of it – There is a saying: You get out what you put in.
- Worse… they might actually discover that their contact form wasn’t working properly, or something else that was preventing their customers from contacting them or purchasing their products – So they could have lost potential customers because of that, right?
- Or even worse than that, they might realise that their website was hacked – So all the effort they’ve put in building the website, the investment they made, it’s all gone.
If your site isn’t properly maintained, chances are you’re losing valuable clients or customers – and that is going to impact your business’ bottom line.
In order for a website to bring you results, it needs to look and perform at it’s best, for your visitors, right? For that to happen, regular website maintenance is required, to make sure that every component that is part of your website, is working properly.
Keep your website up to date – don’t lose customers for no reason!
And should any issues come up, you know you have a maintenance system in place, ready to handle any problems relatively quickly, so you can get back to business.
So let’s dive in deeper and look at some key elements, as to why website maintenance is important, and what should you be doing.
Website Maintenance Is Important For: SECURITY!
Security is the number one reason why website maintenance is important. It doesn’t matter if your business’ website is on WordPress or some other platform, if it utilizes many plug-ins or not, or if you have an online store – hackers around the globe are always searching for a vulnerability and preventing security breaches before they happen is essential.
When your business uses WordPress or a similar content management system (CMS), it’s important to make sure that you are always running the most up-to-date version. This ensures that WordPress’ latest bug fixes and security patches are installed on your site. Usually hackers exploit the weaknesses in the website’s outdated software and security patches. Old outdated websites are easy targets for them.
Different kinds of updates impact a website in many different ways. These updates may come from extensions or plugins used for e-commerce purposes, added or customized functionality within your web design or even SEO services, and more. There are also regular updates from internet browsers, server-level updates from your web hosting platform, and search engine algorithm updates that require consistent website maintenance to stay on top of.
Some updates require manual intervention and cross-referencing with your current website configuration before updating, while others occur automatically and can affect different elements of your website content and associated digital marketing.
Every site should be backed up regularly in case something happens and the site needs to be rebuilt or reinstated.
We recommend having daily backups because a problem can strike at any time, that’s what we also do through our website maintenance packages.
Backing up your website typically helps you to stay ahead of:
- Website hackers
- Breakdowns by website updates
- Errors by your employees
Website maintenance involves making regular backups, which can help to minimise damage when a problem occurs. With a simple click, you can restore all your files and get your site running smoothly again.
Website Maintenance Is Important For: Providing The Best Possible Customer Experience.
Above everything else, it’s important to understand that even though we think we’re building a website for our business, we are actually not. We are building a website for our customers, so they can find our business, find with ease all the information they need, and make it easier for them to get in touch with us, or buy our product/service. Isn’t that right?
It’s important to follow the latest web design trends, and double-check if your website is in line with them. The biggest one right now is having a Mobile Responsive website.
Stats show that more than ¾ people use a mobile device when buying something OR researching for a product or service. If your website is not Mobile Responsive it will result in a negative experience, because people will have a difficult time navigating through to find all the information they need.
The best way to optimize your site for mobile is to stay on top of the constant evolution of devices and viewports.
You’ll also want to make sure that all the links and contact forms are working correctly. Same goes for staff contact information, company phone numbers, social media icons, pricing lists or menus… When customers encounter outdated information this reflects poorly on your business and often results in a negative experience.
Website Maintenance Is Important For: Driving Search Engine Traffic And Boosting SEO Rankings.
You will drive traffic to your website and improve your search rankings when you add new content. Part of routine website maintenance is making sure that content is correct and fresh. The more you update your website, the more search engines will raise your rankings. Conversely, search engines will reduce your rankings if your site is infrequently updated.
Keep your current customers happy and excited about your products and services by routinely updating your website to offer them relevant, interesting, shareable content and give them a good reason to take action. Actionable items you would like your customers to do include things such as coming to the store for a special product or sale, signing up for an event, making a donation or conducting an online purchase. An easy way to update your website and drive traffic to it is to regularly add content to your blog, publish an online version of an e-newsletter you send out, or become active on social media platforms. Let your customers know you care about them and value their engagement with your business or brand.
Regular website updates are a cornerstone of any viable SEO strategy.
The performance of a website it’s influenced by many factors. One of them is hosting company. As the saying goes – cheap is not always good. And this is definitely NOT the place where you should think of saving some money. Having a good hosting company plays a major factor in the performance and loading speed of a website.
Over time, as there is new information being added to the website, new content, new plugins, comments, etc… All these might slow down the overall website performance, which includes loading speed.
Therefore, it’s always good to perform a regular website maintenance, optimize your website database, get rid of unwanted plugins, delete all the spam comments, etc.. various tasks which should be included as part of a website maintenance service.
Website Maintenance Is Important For: Website Performance.
Something else which falls under good customer experience, however, we felt like it deserves its own category, is website performance.
According to different studies, over 40% of visitors drop off (leave the website), if it takes more than 3-4 seconds to load. How much could this be costing your business?
The performance of a website it’s influenced by many factors. One of them is hosting company. As the saying goes – cheap is not always good. And this is definitely NOT the place where you should think of saving some money. Having a good hosting company plays a major factor in the performance and loading speed of a website.
Over time, as there is new information being added to the website, new content, new plugins, comments, etc… All these might slow down the overall website performance, which includes loading speed.
Therefore, it’s always good to perform a regular website maintenance, optimize your website database, get rid of unwanted plugins, delete all the spam comments, etc.. various tasks which should be included as part of a website maintenance service.
Contact us today to learn more about our website design and development process and how regular website maintenance can provide the stability you need to grow your business.
