If you are growing your online business then you need to consider a website maintenance plan as part of your ongoing business strategy.
Why Website Maintenance is Key to a Successful Website
Just like any software, websites require maintenance to keep the site working properly. Unfortunately, you can’t just launch a website and never touch it again!
Avoiding website maintenance is like not having your car serviced. You wouldn’t drive your car very long if you didn’t look after its maintenance, would you? Well, the same process is true for your website. Your website should always be live, ready for customers, and present your business with its best look.
Websites Are Not a “Set and Forget”
If you don’t have website maintenance carried out every month, you are running the risk of pouring money down the drain. When visitors go to a website and find things wrong with it, it makes them feel uneasy, and they are likely to leave rather than give your business the benefit of the doubt. Many website owners never check their website to see how it’s functioning. Missing website issues or not knowing your website is down can lose you potential customers.
The Benefits of Website Maintenance
Many business owners don’t realize the benefits of site maintenance:
The website performance, load time, downtime, and uptime, are all dependent on the WordPress software and plugin functioning as they should (and updated to the latest version).
The website’s growth, its fresh content, analytics monitoring, and design changes, are all dependent on you having someone ensure all updates to the website are done in a smooth and error-free fashion.
Search engines penalise slow websites with errors – why should your competitors benefit from something that’s easily taken care of with professional website maintenance?
Maintenance Workflow – This is How We Do It
At WP Fiddly Bits, we take great care to make sure we back up your website first and check the website after our updates for any issues. Our software keeps a record of plugins we update on your website, so if there is ever an issue we see what plugin version was changed and revert it back. Also included in our monthly maintenance report are the performance and security scans. If in the event we ever catch a plugin issue, it becomes a support ticket and we address it before you ever know there’s a problem.
The Dangers of Do It Yourself Maintenance
Maintaining your website yourself could cost you more than you may think. If you just update from your WordPress admin dashboard, you wouldn’t have a record of what was ever done. If an update to a plugin created an issue a couple of weeks later, it would be difficult to know what changed and whether you should revert back without restoring a very old backup (and possibly losing content changes, sales orders, contact entries, you name it, you may lose it!).
It Costs More to Fix Than to Maintain
Inexperience and neglect can damage the look and functionality of your website. When that happens, you have a choice to make. One, you try and fix it yourself, in which case you may do further damage. Or two, you can then pay the (sometimes hefty) price for someone experienced to fix it. This is someone who is likely not to know you, or your business. It may take a while to find someone you can trust with your website.
Just like your car, it costs more to fix it than it does to maintain it properly. Regular services help keep your car running smoothly, regular site maintenance helps keep your website running properly.
Call in a Professional
Why not deal with what you know best and let us deal with what we know best?
Would you try and do your Annual Accounts yourself? Then why try to maintain your own website if you haven’t got the knowledge needed? By securing an experienced web professional to update and maintain your site properly you are actually saving potential lost sales and visitors. And you’ll sleep better at night knowing there’s a friendly person you can call on.
If you’re interested in securing a maintenance contract for your website, contact us to learn how we can keep your site in proper working order.
Alison is the Director and Founder of WP Fiddly Bits, the WordPress Website Maintenance experts, and contributes to the WP Fiddly Bits WordPress blog. She also uses her background in marketing to help clients get found everywhere online.
