How can regular website maintenance keep your site secure & SEO-friendly (Part I)
Regularly taking care of your website is super important to keep it safe and easy to find on the internet. Just like how you gotta keep yourself looking good and stylish to get noticed, your website needs regular attention to catch people’s eyes. If you don’t update it often enough, people might forget about it, and it might not show up as much in online searches (bye-bye rankings). Let’s now talk about some stuff you need to focus on in website maintenance.
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Chrisa
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Chrisa
Why Invest in Website Maintenance?
So, you know how websites are built for a purpose, right? It could be anything, like selling products, sharing information, or providing services. But just making a website is not enough, you need to maintain it to achieve its goals. For starters, website maintenance includes tasks like monitoring web traffic, updating content, ensuring website security and much more.
Now, you could do it all by yourself, but we would say it’s always best to hire a web developer or a digital marketing agency because all these can be very technical and time-consuming. Plus, it’s easy to make mistakes that can cost you a lot of money in the long run. So, it’s always better to budget for web maintenance costs ahead of time to avoid any unexpected costs later on.
And remember, though web maintenance costs might seem like a burden, it’s a small price to pay for the peace of mind that comes with knowing your website is always up-to-date and running smoothly. Let’s now see some of the benefits in detail.
Website Maintenance Essentials
1. Security and Software Updates
The internet can be a dangerous place, and website security is no joke. Hackers are always on the lookout for vulnerabilities they can exploit to gain access to sensitive information, so it’s more than important to stay up-to-date with software updates and security patches to keep your website safe.
Did you know that over 30,000 websites are hacked every day? According to a report by Cyber Crime Ventures Magazine, it’s estimated that cybercrime will cost the world over $10.5 trillion annually by 2024. Right. You heard it right. These statistics highlight the severity of the issue and the importance of taking website security seriously.
Websites built using third-party software or e-commerce platforms like WordPress, Wix, Shopify, Squarespace, etc. require regular software updates to keep them secure and functioning properly. These updates can introduce new features, resolve bugs, and ensure compatibility with the latest web browsers and security patches. By staying up-to-date with these updates, you can ensure your website functions smoothly and doesn’t experience any issues.
2. Regular Backups
Regular backups are, let’s say, like insurance for your website – providing a safety net in case anything goes wrong, such as a hacking mishap or data corruption. By backing up your website regularly, you can ensure that you have a clean slate to restore your site promptly in case of any data loss.
And if you need a real-life scenario to resonate with, imagine you run a blog and you’ve spent countless hours creating and curating content that you’re proud of. However, one day, your website gets hacked, and all your content is lost. Without a backup, you may lose all your hard work and have to start from scratch. And this is where regular backups come in handy. Why? Simply because by backing up your website regularly, you can restore your site quickly and easily, ensuring your content remains safe and secure.
Plus, backing up your website before any updates is, in general, a good practice to follow. Sometimes, updates can go wrong, causing issues with your website, so having a backup ensures that you can quickly restore your site to its previous state and avoid any potential data loss.
3. Plugin and Theme Updates
Theme and plugin updates are like giving your website a fresh coat of paint and new features, as they bring new life to your website’s look and feel, enhancing both the visual aesthetics and functionality. For instance, updating your website’s theme can improve the overall user experience by making it easier to navigate and more visually appealing. A new theme can also introduce new features, such as better mobile responsiveness or improved shopping cart functionality for an e-commerce website.
Similarly, updating your website’s plugins can improve its performance and compatibility with the latest web browsers, Google’s algorithms and other security patches. Plugins are often used to add new features or functionality to your website, such as social media integration or contact forms, so their regular updates can also resolve any bugs or issues, ensuring once again that your website remains current and secure.
➡️ Read More: Why having a good UX website matters?
4. Content Updates
Now let’s talk about content! Your website’s content is like your wardrobe. It needs to be updated regularly to keep up with the latest trends and stay relevant –to keep your website’s content fresh and exciting, you need to give it regular scrutiny.
Did you know that websites that publish more than 16 blog posts per month get 3.5 times more traffic than websites that publish fewer than 4 blog posts per month? That’s right! According to HubSpot, regular content updates can significantly increase your website’s traffic and engagement.
So, to keep your website’s content up-to-date, you need to have a regular flow of new blogs, products, features, and more. This not only keeps your visitors engaged and interested but also helps with search engine optimization, after all, you need to remember… Google is your number 1 reader! In addition to all these, revisiting and updating your content is equally important as it allows you to remove outdated content, which can make your website look neglected and can even harm your SEO efforts. All of them.
Also, you know that visitors frequently check your website for updates and new features or information (we’re pretty sure you do the same), so to meet this expectation, ensure your offerings include exciting and trendy products, services, information, and features to cater to a diverse audience. This can help you attract new visitors and keep your existing visitors engaged.
➡️ Read More: What’s a content strategy & why you need one
5. User Experience (UX) Enhancements
According to a report by Forrester Research, a well-designed user interface could raise your website’s conversion rate by up to 200%. And that’s a significant increase! The key is a continual evaluation and improvement of the overall user experience. This process might include tweaking design elements, refining navigation, and integrating user feedback to boost usability.
Crafting a website user experience roadmap is a great way to outline and shape the journey for visitors, especially those encountering your site for the first time. This strategic approach ensures that your website is not just a digital space, but a welcoming and intuitive environment for every user.
Let’s see this in a real-life context once again – imagine you run a travel website, and your primary goal is to get visitors to book a trip. You may want to focus on improving the booking process and making it as user-friendly as possible. This could include adding a progress bar to show users where they are in the booking process or simplifying the checkout process to reduce the steps involved. By focusing on UX enhancements, you can improve your website’s usability, reduce bounce rates, and increase conversions. It’s a win-win situation for both you and your visitors.
➡️ Read More: UX Optimization: Understanding how people use your website
Website Maintenance Tips To Be Continued…
We’ll talk more about website maintenance tips in the next part. Phew! That was a lot to take in. Take a breather, and we’ll soon come back with a new blog. And if you need help with checking your website or improving how it shows up on Google, just let us know. We’ll make sure your digital foundations are in place before getting you properly started – if you have any questions, feel free to reach out, we’re always here to help!
