Your website isn’t just a digital brochure; it’s the face of your brand, your virtual shopfront, and often your most valuable marketing asset. But as any website owner or small business can attest, having a live website is only half the battle. Keeping it maintained, secure, and optimised is crucial for its success.
What Is Website Maintenance?
Website maintenance refers to the regular tasks required to keep a website running smoothly. This includes everything from updating content and plugins to ensuring security patches are applied. It also means making sure your site looks as good under the hood as it does to visitors.
For small businesses, website maintenance may not always seem like a priority, but neglecting it can lead to broken functionality, outdated content, and even cybersecurity risks.
Why Is Website Maintenance Important?
Here’s why regular website upkeep is essential for any small business or website owner:
1. Keep It Fresh – Content Updates
Your website needs to reflect your business as it evolves. New services, promotions, or updates should be properly showcased. A regularly updated website not only retains current visitors but is also ranked better by search engines. There is also nothing more irritating for customers than to be given out-of-date information on contact details or opening times.
2. Ensure Security – Software Updates
Cyberattacks are not reserved for big companies; small websites are often targeted due to fewer protections being in place. Regular maintenance ensures security patches are applied to plugins, themes, and backend systems, reducing risk. This is vital for the website itself, as well as the users.
3. Optimise Performance – Speed Optimisation
Website speed and functionality are vital to providing a seamless user experience. Large media files, outdated plugins, or unoptimised code can slow your website down, leading to higher bounce rates. Regular performance checks can mitigate these issues but also help with other maintenance tasks, for example, the larger a website gets, the longer it takes to back up and restore. To help with this, regularly checking for any large files that are no longer needed can help keep things streamlined.
The performance of the website will also assist with the editing experience, making updating the website quicker and easier.
4. Improve SEO – Boost Rankings
Search engines prioritise websites that not only deliver a great user experience but are also active and updated. By maintaining accurate metadata, a well-structured design, and engaging blog content, your site’s visibility can skyrocket. Regular reviews of the content strategy will also help you highlight any areas that you can be improving on, helping to expand the overall SEO strategy of the website.
5. Prevent Breakdowns – Website Uptime
Not maintaining your site is like not servicing your car. Small issues can snowball into big problems if left unresolved, potentially causing downtime or costing more to fix in the long run. Small, regular maintenance helps to keep things ticking along, and a lean, optimised site is a lot easier to work with should something happen. For example, a large site can take significantly longer to transfer to new hosting, which could prolong downtime should there be issues with the existing hosting, etc.
For more on preventing issues, see our blog post on: Website Resilience Action Plan
Key Maintenance Tasks for Website Owners
If you’re managing your website in-house, here are some essential tasks you should regularly perform to keep things running smoothly.
1. Backup Your Website Regularly
Ensure that you have a recent backup ready in case something goes wrong. Automated backup solutions can make this process hassle-free. This should be the first thing you do before any other maintenance tasks so that if anything goes amiss, you can roll the website back to a previous state. Backups should be stored “offsite” from your website, this will mean they stay accessible should something happen with your hosting account. A popular solution is to sync them to cloud storage, such as Dropbox or OneDrive.
2. Update Plugins and Themes
Outdated plugins and themes not only affect your website’s functionality but can also pose security risks. Make it a regular habit to apply updates where necessary. We check all of our WordPress sites multiple times a week as part of our Website Maintenance & Support packages, this is because updates are released regularly, and only checking now and again could leave the website vulnerable.
3. Monitor Analytics
Track your website’s performance by using tools like Google Analytics. Identify areas of improvement, whether it’s user engagement, speed issues, or high bounce rates on specific pages. Keeping a list of your key pages can help you focus your efforts, for example, if your key product page is not getting much traction, it’s time to review it and see why. You could look at the visitor numbers and see what changes you could make to the menu position or calls to action to help boost the visibility of the page.
4. Test Functionality
Check forms, payment gateways, and other interactive features regularly to ensure they are functioning correctly. Broken forms or checkout pages can lead to lost revenue, updates to your website, plugins or changes to external systems can all impact the functionality.
5. Update Content
Maintain fresh, engaging, and accurate content. Updating blogs, adding new services, and keeping your brand message relevant, drive customer trust and SEO rankings. Checking key information such as opening times or contact details is vital for your customers’ experience with your brand.
6. Optimise for Mobile
With the majority of traffic coming from mobile users, make sure your design is responsive and provides the same excellent experience as the desktop version. All too often, the mobile side can be neglected, leading to a poor experience for your mobile visitors.
The Benefits of Professional Website Maintenance Support
Managing a website while running a business can be overwhelming. That’s where professional website maintenance support services come into play.
Stress-Free Management
Hiring a dedicated team alleviates the burden of technical tasks, giving you more time to focus on core business activities. With a maintenance expert backing you up, you can run your business worry-free.
Advanced Features Managed for You
If your website includes e-commerce, booking systems, or other advanced features, professional support ensures these critical elements run smoothly, creating an optimal user experience.
Security From Threats
With cyberattacks on the rise, experts continuously monitor and install advanced security measures to safeguard your website. This proactive approach reduces downtime and protects against financial loss.
SEO and Performance Enhancements
Website maintenance services often include options for periodic SEO reviews, optimising metadata, and improving load times. This enhances user engagement and boosts search rankings.
Do You Need Professional Website Maintenance Support?
If you’ve struggled with updating your website, fixing broken plugins, or keeping track of performance metrics, professional maintenance support might be for you. We can ensure that your site stays up to date, secure, and performing at its best without lifting a finger.
We can even offer training and ongoing support to ensure you and your team can handle updates and content changes with confidence. From simple updates to hands-free management where everything is handled in-house, we have you covered.
Final Thoughts
Website maintenance may not seem glamorous, but it’s the backbone of a reliable and efficient online presence. By keeping your site secure, fast, and up to date, you’re investing in the long-term success of your brand and business.
