Your website is the foundation of your online presence. It is where people discover who you are, learn more about your business, products, and services, and may even be where they go to purchase those products or services.
But creating a website is not as simple as building it and forgetting it. Regular website maintenance is essential to its functionality and, in turn, to your profitability.
Here is everything you need to know about website maintenance and how it can benefit you.
Importance of Website Maintenance & Management
Arguably, your website is one of the most important elements of your business. As mentioned, it is where people go for information about your business, but it is also where they form opinions about you and your brand.
If you don’t run proper website maintenance, you run the risk of doing serious harm to your reputation.
For starters, it takes a mere 50 milliseconds for visitors to form an opinion about your website. If it is slow to load or has broken images and links, you can be sure that many visitors will simply close the page and go somewhere else.
And given that 81% of consumers will do online research before buying, you want to perform website maintenance to ensure your pages rank and are properly indexed and optimized for search engines.
To give you a fuller picture, here’s a deeper look at the importance of website management and maintenance:
- Security: Security is one of the most important reasons for website maintenance. This is especially true if your website stores any type of customer information. Updating software and installing security patches on a regular basis will mitigate problems down the road. You do not want hackers nosing around your site and finding vulnerabilities.
- Image and branding: You need a website that shows you to be a reliable and professional organization. If your website is buggy or looks sloppy, visitors will go elsewhere. Website management and maintenance can address these problems before they are widely noticed, helping you to maintain your image, your branding, and your reputation. By taking a proactive approach to website health, most detrimental technical or styling issues can be avoided, if not resolved before they become a larger issue.
- SEO: If your prospective clients and customers cannot find your website, you are in some trouble. To garner traffic to your website, you need to keep it updated on a regular basis. SEO is necessary on the front and back end of your website. Regularly update content and keyword strategies, but also ensure that the back end is optimized and in line with all best practices for Google.
- Get ahead of your competitors: By performing regular website maintenance, you can frequently update your website technology to follow the latest trends and releases, creating a site that functions better on the backend and is easier for your visitors to navigate. Our devices and computers are upgrading every day. Technical updates will help your website be compatible and run smoothly on the latest browsers and devices.
What is Website Maintenance Services
Website maintenance services are a monthly or annual service package offered by companies like WDK that includes regular updates to websites, themes, plugins, and extensions.
These updates keep your website functioning as it should. The best website maintenance services will provide different packages that are suitable for your specific needs. From small business website maintenance to e-commerce site maintenance, there is a service package out there for you.
Website Maintenance Packages
At WDK, we offer different packages to clients based on website size and business needs.
We follow all website maintenance best practices and will follow a regular website maintenance schedule and provide updates on security releases.
To learn more about our website maintenance packages, don’t hesitate to contact us.
WordPress Website Maintenance Services
WordPress website maintenance plans are your best bet for keeping your WordPress site clean and secure.
If you do not update your WordPress core, themes, and plugins, you could be leaving your site vulnerable to hackers. On top of that, your site will have a poor user experience, costing you customers and reputation. Proper maintenance will prevent downtime and lost revenues.
Failure to maintain your WordPress site could also result in losing all of your site data and having to start all over again from scratch.
Joomla Website Maintenance Services
As with WordPress, failure to maintain a Joomla website can have disastrous consequences.
By regularly maintaining the site’s core, as well as any templates and components being used, you can ensure that your site is secure and functioning properly.
With each Joomla update, functionality is increased allowing developers to take advantage of new tools and features. Failure to upgrade will limit site functionality. Each update also includes important security fixes and patches that will be essential for your protection.
As you update Joomla’s core, it is essential to also upgrade templates and components as older versions may not be fully compatible or functional with the new core.
E-Commerce Website Maintenance Services
Your E-commerce website is the lifeblood of your business. With an optimized and functioning site, customers can land on your site and purchase your products.
Failure to perform regular maintenance can lead to a glitchy site, broken links and images, and a terrible user experience. All of these problems can result in a lost sale and damage to your reputation.
SEO, as part of a regular maintenance plan, can improve your rankings and help more people find your store. It is not unusual for rankings to change and if you are not keeping an eye on it, you may drop off page one and be missing vital sales opportunities.
If your E-commerce site holds any important data on your customers such as profiles or purchase history, regular maintenance is essential to keeping that data (and your customers!) safe from data theft.
What Does Website Maintenance Include?
The details of your website maintenance package will vary but generally speaking, these are the tasks included in website maintenance:
- Testing The Whole Website: Your entire site should be tested at least once a year, and after performing any updates. This test will ensure that all features work, clean up broken links, every page looks as it should, and check general usability.
- Testing For Browser Compatibility: This check will ensure that your website functions on all mainstream browsers.
- Testing For Mobile Compatibility:Each site should be checked for mobile compatibility. Mobile traffic accounted for nearly 55% of website traffic in the first quarter of 2021. A website that does not perform well on mobile devices can cost you customers and revenues!
- Testing Forms and Check-Out: A few times a year, your forms and check-out processes should be tested to ensure that they still function properly.
- Monthly Software Updates: Checks for software updates should be performed on a monthly basis. Look for core updates, plugin updates, and security updates. If available, they should be installed. If there are new patches to install, do so at this time.
- Website Backup: If your website goes down, it can cost you. If you have an automatic backup in place, check each month to ensure that it is working. If you do not have an automatic backup, perform a manual one once a month.
- Content Updates: Many business owners are occupied with their day-to-day operations – and why shouldn’t they be? It’s what they do best. If you have neither the time nor the confidence to effectively add or edit the pages of your website, have your website maintenance team update your content. When a web developer updates the page content, products, or galleries on your site, they will do so with best practices and optimization in mind.
How Much Does Website Maintenance Cost?
The exact cost of website maintenance will depend on several different factors like the type of site you have and its size.
Customized support plans are available on a case-by-case basis, however, we have found these packages to be suitable for the majority of clients’ needs. These maintenance plans are essential for the safe and continual operation of a web system.
Basic Package
This service package includes the support to keep your website online, safe and secure from malicious injections of code, technical errors, vulnerabilities and general website failure. This package includes the restoration of basic appearance and functionality, returning the site to the state it had been in prior to the update or breakage.
Business Package
This support package includes more than just the basics to keep your website online, safe and secure from malicious activity. With the business maintenance package, your company will have developers-on-demand. Give us a call or send us an email to benefit from monthly professional content edits or additions.
The Enterprise Package
This plan includes sufficient support for most small businesses that have regular website update needs. With this plan, company’s can request regular changes to their website while ensuring smooth operation of their online functions. Similar to the business package, the enterprise plan offers even more developer time, allowing for weekly updates to products, events, announcements, and more.
But here is a quick look at what you can expect:
- Personal website: Personal sites tend to have minimal needs in terms of functionality meaning they will have a lower maintenance cost. On average, maintenance costs for a personal website can range anywhere from $50 to $75 per month.
- Business website: A small to medium-sized business will have greater needs than a personal website. Expect website maintenance costs to be around $75 – $100 per month.
- Corporate website: A corporate website is likely to be larger than that of a small business, which means performing maintenance will be a little more involved. Website maintenance costs can range from $200 to $1500 per month depending on the site specifics.
- E-Commerce website: E-Commerce websites are often highly customized, containing forms and payment platforms. Maintenance costs can run from $200 to $2500 per month.
If you require website maintenance and want to know more about our packages and our pricing, contact us. We are happy to answer any and all of your questions.
Discover More About WDK’s Website Maintenance
To maintain a functioning, traffic-generating, secure website, website maintenance should be performed on a regular basis.
Your website is your online home and it is where potential customers and clients come to learn more about you as a business or to purchase your products or services.
Try to think about your website the same way you would a physical storefront. You wouldn’t let your storefront become run down and unappealing, why allow that to happen to your website?
Proper website maintenance, performed on a regular basis, can ensure your site impresses visitors and keeps them coming back for more.
Don’t leave this important task any longer! At WDK, we have a range of website maintenance and support packages to suit a wide range of needs. Reach out today to get started!
Additional Resources:
- Why is good UX important?
- Does SSL Improve SEO?
- What is the Difference between Frontend and Backend Web Development?
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