What is Website Maintenance?

With the advanced technology offered in today’s world, you no longer have to be a webmaster to create and run your website. A lot of small business owners have taken on the task of creating their website and also maintaining it. However, life is busy and many things get left to the wayside.

One main issue that website owners tend to have is keeping up with the maintenance of their website. During the creation of your website, you may have encountered a lot of plug-and-play scenarios. However, this would not be the case when it comes to maintaining your website. Let’s take a closer look at what website maintenance is and why it is so important.

What Is Website Maintenance?

Website maintenance would be the process of evaluating your website’s performance and health. It would include keeping up with security updates, publishing new content, improving traffic, and making sure that your website is pleasant for visitors to navigate through.

Believe it or not, the maintenance of your website is one of the most important parts of engaging with your audience and getting your customers to return. This means enhancing your Search Engine Optimization and improving your rankings on Google.

It does not matter how big or small your business is. You must make sure that you are maintaining your website. Otherwise, there will be no reason for your customers to return. Your customers want to see fresh content, new products, and services, and they want to understand what you are offering them.

You should treat your website maintenance like you do your car maintenance. There are certain things you have to do to keep your car running and in good condition. You have to put gas in it, as well as make sure the oil is changed, and all parts are in working order. Your website is no different.

If you are running on empty then your business will pay for it. Be sure that you are giving your customers the content that they want to see to keep them coming back. You have invested both time and money in creating your site, so making sure you do regular website maintenance will only help enhance your investment.

Over time your website may need an update. Hackers or scammers may easily access your site if your security is not up to par. These are all things that you need to care for regularly. Unfortunately, a lot of website owners create a site and do very little to maintain it.

Part of your maintenance is ensuring that your site is performing as it should. This means that you will have to run regular checks for viruses, malware, and updates. Regular maintenance is required to ensure that your site is running as it should be.

Why Is It Important to Do Website Maintenance?

We have already mentioned several reasons why website maintenance is important. Everything is digital nowadays, and having a well-maintained website is the backbone of your business. It is often the first glance that everyone will get of your business.

So, you want to make sure it looks pleasing but also gives your customers the information they need about your products and services. When you perform regular website updates and maintenance, you will be able to attract new customers as well as maintain your loyal fan base.

Let’s take a look at why this maintenance is so important:

Customer Experience

Everything should be about your customer. You want to make sure that everything you place on your website will benefit your customer in some way or another. If a customer comes to your site and experiences slow loading times, spam messages, and pop-ups, they will more than likely leave very quickly and never return.

Customers want to be able to access a site that is easy to navigate and pleasing to look at. They want to be able to find what they are looking for quickly. This can be done by ensuring you have a menu that allows for easy navigation. Always think about your customers when creating and maintaining your website.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vital in today’s digital world. If you do not have a good knowledge of SEO and how it works, you may want to consider hiring a digital marketing company to help you with your marketing.

Google is constantly changing its algorithms and business owners cannot be expected to keep up with all the changes. While you may want to try your hand at SEO, know that you may want to leave this part up to the professionals.

SEO is so important because it communicates with Google and lets them know what your site is all about. It is the language that helps Google to pull your site up when a keyword is searched. Google will be constantly analyzing your website’s keywords, its structure, organization, and errors.

If Google scans your sites and sees a lot of errors, duplicated pages, and poorly done redirects, your SEO ranking will decrease. This will cause Google to suggest other businesses over yours when a customer is searching for a keyword. It is critical that you optimize your website correctly so that you can drive traffic to your site.

Business Reputation

Your website will be a digital representation of your business. Therefore, you want to make sure that it represents your business correctly. People will judge your business according to your website.

If they come to your site and see that you have not put any new content on it for several years, they are going to assume that you do not engage with your clients regularly. This also may make them think that you will not be around to answer any questions that they may have.

People want to do business with those who take their business seriously. Engaging with your customers is vital. When you are thinking about website maintenance remember that your reputation is on the line.

Cost savings

The health of your website is something that should not be ignored. If you allow the performance of your site to go the wayside it will jeopardize your business. People do not want to do business with those who cannot invest in their own business.

If you improperly maintain your site you could experience downtimes

which would cause you to lose business. It could also lead to hundreds of dollars to fix whatever is wrong with your website. Being consistent with your website maintenance will help deter the need to spend money on website repairs.

What Are Website Maintenance Services?

Now that you understand more about website maintenance you may be curious as to what services may be included in a website maintenance plan. Once you have designed your website and have it up and running, it is time to start maintaining it. Here we have broken down the various tasks that need to be done and how often you should do them.

Annual Tasks

Make sure your website’s domain name is renewed.

Evaluate your website each year to see if your design needs updated.

Do an audit of each page on your site to ensure it has accurate information.

Evaluate your best-performing blogs and see if you need to update them.

Quarterly Tasks

Evaluate your site and see if there are areas that you could improve upon.

Check all of your graphics and photos and see if they need to be updated.

Make sure all your website content is up-to-date.

Update any meta descriptions and meta titles that are missing.

Be certain that your website is mobile-friendly and looks good across all devices.

Be sure to test out all of your forms, pop-ups, and call to action buttons.

Evaluate your advertising and marketing campaigns.

Check the health of your website and make any adjustments that are needed.

Monthly Tasks

Test loading speeds. If your site takes more than 3 seconds to load then you need to seek the help of a web developer.

Evaluate your security and if there are any issues make sure they get resolved quickly.

Check over your website’s statistics and see where you can make improvements.

Check out your local search visibility.

Weekly Tasks

Look for any 404 errors. If you find any make sure you fix them or 301 direct them.

Make sure that your core plugins and website software are updated.

Post relevant content at least once to twice a week. This will improve your SEO traffic and help search engines understand your website more.

Look for any broken links and fix them.

How Much Does Website Maintenance Cost per Month?

We understand how busy you are as a business owner. Website maintenance can feel like a total pain in the butt. You have to learn what you can handle and what needs to be passed on to a professional.

Your time is money as a business owner, so if you have to devote hours to figuring out how to even perform these maintenance tasks you will be better off recruiting a digital marketing team.

Here is just one example of what a website maintenance plan costs. Please be advised that all digital marketing companies vary when it comes to pricing.

Price Per Month

$5 – $30 (domain name + hosting services)

$5 – $100 (domain name + hosting + updates + marketing + backups)

$35 – $300 (domain name + hosting + updates + marketing + backups + content + design)

$150 – $1500 + (content + code customization + customer data)

$300 – $2000 + (staff of developers to keep a close eye on the maintenance)

These are just estimating to help you get an understanding of what things cost. Your digital marketing company will more than likely offer different types of plans. There are three main types of plans, which include:

Monthly Plans – Each month the company will keep up with the security, functionality of your site, and updates. This type of plan will offer different features and will highly depend on the marketing team that you go with. They will more than likely offer you monthly reporting to help you understand what is going on with your website and what they are doing to improve it.

Hourly Plans – These types of plans are great for businesses that do not need help with regular maintenance. They just need a little work done to their site to get it performing better.

After-Hours Plans– If you have a site that needs 24/7 maintenance some digital marketing companies will offer after-hours support plans. This means that your site will be monitored day and night.

What Does a Website Maintenance Plan Include?

It all comes down to the marketing team that you go with and what they offer. Here is a quick rundown of some of the services that would be included in a maintenance plan.

• Website migration
• Hosting services
• SEO updates
• Plugin updates
• Managing website up-time 24/7
• Security and malware scans
• Full mobile compliance
• Content updates
• System and software updates

What Are My Options When It Comes To Website Maintenance?

You have a few options as a business owner when it comes to maintaining your website.

• Hire a digital marketing team to take care of all your maintenance.
• Maintain your website by yourself. Just be sure you are ready to devote the time that is needed.
• Build an in-house marketing team. This is an expensive option because you have to consider salaries, benefits, and all other overhead costs.
• Hire out some of your work as you see what is needed to maintain your website.

Let’s Design For You Website Maintenance Service

If you are a small business you may be wondering, “how am I going to pay for website maintenance?” No site is too small or too big for us. Let us take a look at your website and show you what we can do. Here at Let’s Design For You, we used the most innovative tools to ensure your website is properly maintained. Call us today for a free consultation.

Read the original blog here - What is Website Maintenance?