You need to tune your car every once in a while, right? Then why shouldn’t the same be true for your website? Your website shouldn’t be a stationary work of art, like the Mona Lisa. It is a dynamic platform that needs to adapt to the ever-changing environment.
Take a look at why it is so important to keep your website updated:
Improved Security
The top reason for website maintenance is security. Websites contain thousands of lines of intricate code and rely on software on your web hosting server. Hackers make it their job to seek out vulnerabilities in the code and exploit them to their advantage. Some people might think their website is too small to be worth hacking, but even small online businesses can become a target of black hats and spamming campaigns, viruses, bandwidth theft, drive-by downloads, and Bitcoin mining. If you have an old website that hasn’t been updated in a while, the likelihood that you can get hacked increases exponentially.
You can prevent this by keeping your software updated with the most recent releases and patches. If you do happen to get hacked, you will need to remove the virus, restore your data, and clean your website. Although website maintenance won’t keep you 100 percent protected from hackers, it can make the job more difficult for them.
New Features and Functionalities
We are always on the lookout for new updates on our smartphones. Websites also need frequent maintenance and updates that will ensure they have access to all the latest features and functionalities.
A lot of times, many website owners fail to make updates after launching their websites. Skipping updates is strongly discouraged since there will come a time when many of your website functions will stop working accurately. When you finally do update your website, you will need to make many drastic changes to your site due to the increased number of module changes over time that you ignored. This will negatively affect the performance of your website.
Fresh Content
Imagine going to your favorite store and finding the same designs of apparel every single time. You will soon lose interest in it and make your way to another store that offers more variety. In the same way, if your website’s top feature is an event that happened two months ago, it screams that you are not interested in running your business professionally.
To prevent your visitors from getting the wrong idea, make sure you add new content to your website several times a week. This can include product and service upgrades, information about upcoming events, and news about the industry.
Faster Speed
Do you know that over 52 percent of mobile website visitors will abandon your site if it does not load within 3 seconds? Every new release is aimed towards improving the efficiency of your website. If your website takes too long to load, you will end up losing over half of your customers!
Website maintenance services optimize your website to improve its performance by upgrading plugins, updating features, and working on technical issues that interfere with the smooth working of the site. Online businesses that depend on online traffic cannot afford any downtime.
Better User Experience
Your website is a marketing tool that reflects your corporate image. A potential client will often visit your website first before they make the effort to go to your physical outlet or office. If the website disappoints, they will make their mind up to not use your service at all.
Website maintenance can help improve the appearance of the website, provide easier navigation, fix broken links and “page not found” errors, and correct small issues before they blow up.
This can help increase visitor engagement and retention and over time, lead to more traffic and brand loyalty.
High Google Rankings
If your website is based on the W3C standards and produces unique, fresh, and relevant content every time, it stands a better chance of being validated by Google. This means your website pages will be indexed frequently and quickly, and they will become the basis for Google to rank your website higher.
Although there are a lot more than just the above 6 reasons to maintain your website, these are some of the most important. If you think that these tasks are too overwhelming for you to handle alone, we at Print & Web Designer can help you do the job. Contact us at 919-891-0545 or send us a message at info@printandwebdesigner.com, and we will help you avoid potential pitfalls and make your site secure, efficient, and credible.