Creating a website, hosting it and marketing it on social media is the easy part of owning a website for your brand.
However, it is the upkeep of the website – making sure that the website is doing the job it is supposed to which is the difficult part.
Personal websites, those for small or medium scale businesses and larger organizations are the first impression a client gets. The website needs to be as professional, efficient and current as the brand itself is, or there is huge potential for giving off a wrong impression and driving away current and potential customers who hold the power over your business’ bottom line.
There are many factors involved in maintaining a website, some of which are more important than others and are listed below.
Working links
One needs to think of a website as an engine. There are many different parts that make up a website and it is important to make sure that each component is working perfectly so the engine performs at optimum level.
The home page, contact us forms, events, blogs, shopping cart and other links should be working well. There is no greater frustration than clicking on a link only to be told it is broken or does not exist anymore, and all images should load quickly.
Security:
Having a security certificate is crucial for a website. Depending on how your website was developed and where it is hosted, updated security is easy enough to manage.
Further, website managers must keep an eye on updates offered by the platform as they contain security updates. Hackers are on the look for old, websites to upload malware that can infect the device the website is accessed from.
Needless to say, this is a huge turn off for customers. As if that wasn’t enough some search engines don’t display sites that they suspect are infected with malware, greatly reducing your chances of reaching potential customers.
Customer Experience
Older themes, outdated data files and content which is not optimized for the latest version of browsers and mobile devices can thoroughly ruin a customer’s experience on your website.
It is important to regularly tweak content in accordance with updates to operating systems and platforms, so the customer experience is seamless.
Further, any events that are over, or pictures from many years ago and outdated information will definitely drive potential and even current customers away. These need to be removed or updated as needed.
SEO:
This is as important as anything else in marketing your business. SEO is when a website is optimized to show up high in online searches.
To optimize websites for search engine rankings, it is crucial that new content is regularly published and older content is updated or removed as needed.
Posting interesting content, relevant information on upcoming events and products, sales and offers keeps customers engaged and gets them to return again and again to a website which helps in improving SEO.
Data back-up
Another aspect of website maintenance is regularly backing up data available on a website so in case of an accidental or malicious data erasure, customer data and all other content available on the website can be accessed and re-published as soon as possible.
Website maintenance is as important as having a website. Most businesses don’t have the time or manpower to do it themselves which is why it is often outsourced to a third party that specializes in this. If you are looking for website maintenance services, get in touch with us!