5 Areas of Website Maintenance You Can’t Afford to Ignore

Websites aren’t a “set and forget” project. As Raleigh and Cary business owners know, your presence on the internet in today’s world is vital: “around 97% of customers use the internet to search for local business.”

Today, consumers’ tastes and preferences are constantly changing, as is the code supporting your website and the rules for search engines. That’s why it’s critical to maintain your website. Here are five areas of your website to monitor:

1. Aesthetics. Someone is more inclined to engage with a site that presents aesthetically well, and a straightforward site is easier to navigate. Stay current as tastes change, because it’s not just about looking hip, but about keeping up with how we use websites. Implement: A process for keeping an eye on web trends.

2. Hosting. Make sure your hosting plan continues to handle the traffic volume and your content without overages or slowdowns. A slow website will drive away any visitors. Implement: performance optimizations and uptime monitoring. With all of the videos, pictures, etc. you will be adding to your site to make it easy on the eyes, your site may slow down from the increase in content.

3. Security/plugins. Your website software requires constant updates. Some of these occur automatically, and with others, you must push the “OK” button. Software and code are always changing, and many of these updates protect against new security bugs or holes, which is why it’s critical to accept them. Implement: Check your website at least once a week for any updates. If you don’t want to manage it, hire someone who can. Also, if you haven’t switched to an SSL Certificate, do so.

4. Backups. Picture your entire website disappearing. Poof. Just gone. If you don’t have a backup, that’s it. You have to start over. And yes, this has happened! Backups are a copy of your website files, from content and images to the code that makes it work. You can easily install backup plugins so your site will backup automatically at regular intervals.

5. Content. Creating content month after month isn’t easy, but this step is critical for your potential customers and SEO. Implement: Analytics. Use site analytics to understand what content your visitors find appealing.

New content and current updates translate to vitality in the online world of today. To have a leg up on the competition, you must take into consideration the new tastes of the customers and the popular trends they partake in, and employ tools to keep their information safe. You must understand what interests the customer and be able to translate this concept into engaging content on your website. If you’re not sure about this, ask us about maintaining your website.