So your brand new shiny website is up and running, you can now concentrate on all the other important stuff, right?
Afraid not. A website can help you stand out online, but just a like a car, you have to lift the hood and give it a once over. Otherwise, just like a set of wheels, it could leave you high and dry – a risk no business can afford. Your website needs to be up 24/7 selling you or your products, otherwise, your customers are simply going to go elsewhere.
But at what cost?
First, let’s take a look at what aspects of your site need regular TLC.
Essential website maintenance for your website
Need some reasons why you need to keep your website up to date? Here they are:
Technical: The web is continually evolving, so your site needs to keep up to date with the technical web standards which determine how sites function. Having outdated coding on your site could impact the speed it loads at, which could change your Google search ranking. It could also affect the usability of your site and how it performs on different devices or browsers. A site that looks terrible or only loads some elements is only going to turn a user off – and they are unlikely to come back.
Security: Fact is there are bad people out there who would love to hack or spam your site. Sitting on your hands and not updating your site security against new threats is like leaving the front door of your home open. Updating your site security is especially crucial if you have a transactional site or if you store users personal details. Compromising these could seriously set back or even ruin your business.
Fresh content: Google loves fresh content, but your readers and customers love it even more. Not updating your site with content regularly should be a crime and is only going to make your business look stale or out of touch. The easiest way of updating your site content is to have a blog and keep it ticking, preferably weekly or fortnightly. You should also look to update your homepage and landing pages regularly to give an impression of activity and freshness. Google and your human audience will notice.
Update services or products: Your business is growing, you now offer more services or products than you did last year, but your website doesn’t reflect this. Depending on your sector and what service you offer, having updated information on your site is really important. Any user is going to assume that you have all the latest information up on your site. If something they are looking for isn’t listed they are simply going to use another service.
How much does website maintenance cost?
You might be thinking – I have can roll my sleeves up and take care of this myself. DIY is fine, as long as you have the technical know-how and time to devote to this. Not many SMB owners do. You could also get someone in-house – but do you really want to add another salary to your overheads?
Or you could work with us.
We will take the time to truly understand your business and ensure your site is secure, updated regularly and available for your audience 24/7. With three care plans to choose from, you can decide how much you want to spend and the level of support your business needs. These range from as little as $250/month for the bronze plan, which includes monthly software updates, daily backups of your site, security scans and any content changes actioned in 2 hours.
If you prefer to talk or drop in, get in touch – we’ll call you back for a chat.
