Website Maintenance And Management: Why Bother?

Websites aren’t a one-and-done job. No matter how well developed it is or how sleek and current it looks, your website needs to be maintained and managed post-launch.

Have you ever visited a website, maybe one of your competitor’s sites, only to find not all is well? Elements are out of place. There is a search button that isn’t functioning properly and maybe a security error? What a nightmare!

While it may give you a little bit of schadenfreude (hey, we’ve all been there!) to see an error in that case, but more importantly we have all felt that frustration when met with such an error when you are trying to make a purchase or read an article. So, what gives? 

Websites aren’t a one-and-done job. No matter how well developed it is or how sleek and current it looks, your website needs to be maintained and managed post-launch. Avoiding taking care of your website is like driving a car without doing regular oil changes and other frequent safety checks. You wouldn’t be driving that car for very long if you didn’t take the time to properly maintain it.

Your Website Is A Valuable Asset To Your Business

Not only do you need a website for advertising the products and services that your business offers, you also need it to build your brand image and get customer reviews or feedback. For a website to bring you results, it needs to look and perform at its best, for you and your visitors. Put yourself in the customers position. You go to a physical store and its products are strewn all over the place. There are no staff members to serve you. There is an issue with the card machine preventing you from completing your purchase. You’re not a happy customer right about now are you? Well, the web equivalent is a messy website that isn’t functioning properly, maybe it isn’t working for mobile customers? Slow load times are damaging.

Statistics show that a staggering 57% of shoppers will abandon a cart if they have to wait 3 seconds or more for a page to load. Imagine how many customers you could be losing if your contact form or shopping basket isn’t operating properly. Your website is an important asset required for the smooth running of your business. The digital space changes rapidly. Your website requires regular updates and routine maintenance so that it can perform optimally all year round.

Website Maintenance vs Website Management

Running alongside website maintenance is website management. Management involves managing assets and content to make sure that you’re keeping everything optimised and running as efficiently as possible. 

When it comes to websites, nobody wants to see a typo on the homepage, right? It’s as important to keep on top of your site’s content as it is to ensure that content is delivered on a solid and secure website.

We’d love to share some of the main reasons why we believe it’s important to maintain and manage your site.

1. Ensures Good Customer Experience 

You don’t build a website for yourself, you build it for your customers. It enables them to find your business. To discover the information they require with ease. It ensure it is straightforward for them to get in touch with you and/or buy your product/service. It is important that your website meets the visitor’s expectations. This means that strategies to improve user experience and eventually transform to conversion should be done regularly on your website. A poorly functioning website is bad for the brand image you want to sell to new clients, as well as to your existing clients and customers. So performing website maintenance can help you fix technical issues. Issues such as page loading errors, broken links, poor grammar, spelling errors and other issues that may arise eventually after website deployment. Do this regularly so that you can provide your visitors with the best possible user experience.

2. Reflects Quality Of Business

One of the side effects of not carrying out regular website maintenance is the possible negative impact it could have on your business. As much as we try to teach to not “judge a book by its cover”, the reality is, regarding websites, people do just that. A website is exposed to a high level of snap judgements that would affect someones perception credibility. 

Leaving brand names aside, let’s say we have the best phone in the world. Would you pre-order it, or buy it, if the website you’re ordering from doesn’t look professional? Of course not. You wouldn’t trust us, so this, in fact, would damage our credibility and make us lose customers. 

Not checking your website on a regular basis, and performing regular maintenance tasks might highlight some issues that you might ever be aware of, but your customer would. And that could cost you business. For that reason, you want to make sure you present your business at it’s finest through your website.

3. Website Maintenance Enhances Performance 

Something else which falls under good customer experience but we feel it needed its own category, is website performance. According to studies over 40% of visitors leave the website if it takes more than 3-4 seconds to load. Poor performance could be costing your business. Over time you will be more than likely wanting to add new information to your website. For instance, new content, new plugins, new features, comments and case studies etc. All of which might slow down the overall website performance, which includes loading speed. For that reason, it is always a great idea to optimise your website database. Get rid of unwanted plugins, delete spam comments etc. Furthermore, great website performance will add to your overall site ranking and in turn will affect where you sit on the search engine results pages (SERPS). 

4. Website Maintenance Improves Website Security 

This is a big one. Security is one of the main reasons that website maintenance is so important. With businesses and consumers relying more and more on the internet to sell and purchase products, the issue of security becomes increasingly crucial. One of the main components of website maintenance is keeping your website’s security measures up-to-date.

An outdated site is a vulnerable one. You don’t want to be potentially opening yourself, and your customers, up to hackers. Hackers are always at large looking for websites with security gaps or vulnerabilities to exploit. It is recommended that you perform regular maintenance in order to spot bugs on your site and promptly fix them to prevent attacks. The security of your business’s website plays a role in your SEO ranking as well. It can be said that performing security updates as part of your website maintenance can be beneficial for both SEO and for ensuring your site is always secure and trustworthy.

Website maintenance strategies may include, using strong and secure passwords (It goes without saying that you should always, ALWAYS use a complex password, (Please don’t use 123456). Removing old and outdated applications and backups and ensuring that no sensitive temporary files are available on your site. 

5. Protect Your Assets & Save Money 

Yes, performing website maintenance can save you money in the long run. You can achieve this by taking backups. If any mishap should befall your website, maybe it gets hacked or you could accidentally delete some of the essential files and you do not have a backup to restore it , that means all the money youinitially spent on your website development just went down the drain. We recommend having daily backups because a problem can strike at any time. The hit from your websites downtime could take a huge toll on your brand, especially if you run a business that heavily depends on an online presence for getting new leads or sell products.

6. Compatibility With New Technology 

The internet is a rapidly evolving space as new techniques and technologies are being rolled out and implemented for a better user experience each and every week. So it is required for companies with an online presence to regularly review the compatibility of their websites with these new technologies. For example, users may encounter challenges while trying to access your site from their mobile devices if you do not have a mobile-friendly website. Regularly reviewing, managing and maintaining your site and making use of these new techniques and technologies will ensure your website is adaptable and functions properly across all devices. 

Conclusion 

Maintaining your business’s website may not be at the top of your priority list. But as you can tell from the points mentioned above, website maintenance is linked to multiple aspects that make for a successful website. It is important for all organisations, both big and small. Regularly maintaining your site will improve performance. It will provide a safe and secure environment for your visitors. You have a lot to gain from regular website maintenance than not doing it at all.