Maintenance is Essential to the Success of a Website
The Problem
Just like your cell phone software, your website requires maintenance updates to keep it working properly. This is true of many things. Your car routinely needs its tires rotated and the oil changed. We’re advised to get annual checkups at the doctor to make sure we’re in peak condition. Why would it be any different with your website? Contrary to common belief, the internet is not static. It’s constantly changing. As the internet changes your website needs maintenance checkups and updates to function optimally. Your website should maintain continuous uptime, perform well for your customers, and present your business brand as trustworthy and reliable.
You Cannot “Set and Forget” a Website
What if your site goes down? Someone types in “www.yourwebsite.com” and nothing happens. What if it’s performing slowly and frustrating customers, causing you to lose business? What if some functionality on the site stops working? Many website owners don’t routinely check their websites to see how it’s functioning. Overlooked downtime and/or website issues can send visitors away from your business, causing you to lose money. This is why every website owner should have some kind of ongoing maintenance carried out on their websites.
The Benefits of Website Maintenance
Many website owners have really not considered the benefits of website maintenance. Your website’s load time, uptime, downtime, and performance all depend on the WordPress software and it’s plugins functioning as expected. Sometimes unexpected things happen.
Your website’s growth, changes to its style, new content, traffic and monitoring all depend on someone making updates to the WordPress software and it’s plugins without causing errors or breaking anything.
Here’s How We Solve the Problem
We take great care in first backing up your site. Then checking for any needed maintenance and updates and apply any updates that are needed. We have software that keeps track of any updates that we apply and can roll back the update if we find any issues. We also run security scans and harden your website against attacks from hackers. This is done on an ongoing basis.
We provide off site backups as well. This is a general best practice in case there is a primary server issue and the on server backups somehow get damaged or corrupted. Having the off site backups ensure that the fate of your website is always in your hands.
Why Not Just Do It Yourself?
For the same reason most people don’t change their own oil or rotate their own tires. If you have a background and experience in doing something, then getting it done may not be an issue. But if you don’t, it can be a problem. A problem that could potentially cost you more than you think. When you make an update to WordPress from the admin panel, by default, there is no record of what changes were made. If a week or two weeks later, one of the plugins that you updated begins to cause a problem or causes your site to crash, it would be difficult to remember what you changed, let alone know how to revert the site back to a previous backup (providing you have one). Along with that, your most recent backup could be an old version of the site, which could potentially cause you to lose content, sales orders, contacts, etc.
Neglect or inexperience could damage the layout and functionality of your website. You could go in to make changes or fix it, and just make the damage worse. You could enlist the services of an outside developer to fix the problem, but this will come at a hefty price tag. Not to mention the time associated with identifying and hiring someone that does quality work and is qualified. It often takes much more to fix something that it would have to routinely maintain it. Just as regular doctor visits help to keep you in optimal shape, regular website maintenance keeps your website working properly.
Call In a Professional
Why not stay focused on your business and your clients, and let us deal with what we know best. Your website. By securing an experienced web professional to update and maintain your website you are saving potential losses in sales and visitors.
If you are interested in web hosting and maintenance click here to see our plans. Contact us if you have any questions or want to learn more about how we can keep your website working at it’s best.