Regular website maintenance is key to make it a success

Every vehicle needs to be looked after

Imagine a petrol car without regular oil changes, screen wash top-ups, tyre pressure checks, and other standard maintenance tasks. After a while the performance will go down and fuel consumption will go up.

Oh, and should I mention that the car will eventually become unsafe to drive? Same goes for your website – and especially so if you’re running a business. Trust me, you don’t want to spend all that money on building a decent website and then just leave it getting slower, less safe to use with each passing week and generally unutilised to it’s full potential.

You can’t just build a website and assume it will be fine on it’s own

If you don’t invest time/money in regular website maintenance, you might as well throw the cash into a bonfire. Suppose a visitor comes to your website and it’s slow to load up or some of the links don’t work. Such visitor will leave faster than David Cameron after the Brexit referendum.

The less time potential customers spend on your website, the less likely they’re going to spend their money with you. So please, do me a favor and check if your website is functioning properly from time to time.

So why should you actually bother with looking after your site?

Regular website maintenance brings a lot of benefits to businesses and potential customers.

When you make it load faster, perform better and ensure good uptime, the visitors will be able to use it without any problems. This way you’ll make it easier for them to find the information they’re looking for and eventually to buy something from you. The main software and its plugins should work without a glitch.

Post fresh content on a regular basis, make everything look tidy, feel smooth to use. It will draw potential customers from Google, Bing and other search engines. Oh and don’t forget to analyze the patterns – that’ll help your website grow. If you’ll use this data to improve the user experience, your business will grow too!

Our maintenance process outlined

Let’s see how we do it at Totemic IT.

First, we make a backup. Then run the updates and confirm that there are no errors. Every time a plugin is updated, our systems will make a note of its version. This allows recovery in case of any problems.

Next goes the performance scan. This is to ensure there are no hiccups, that could cause a bad experience for visitors. After that, we run a security scan to check for malware. If any issues are identified we raise a support ticket and sort it out even before it becomes a problem for your business.

Is DIY website maintenance a good idea?

Even if you run your business bootstrapped, you might want to think twice about doing the maintenance on your own.

It takes a solid process, skills and certain tools, to do it right each and every time. If something goes wrong after the update and you don’t know what exactly caused the site to go down, it might take you some time to pinpoint the root of the problem, which means you won’t be able to spend that time working in your business.

Even with a backup, you might be struggling to get it sorted in a timely manner to avoid lost sales or bookings and potential data breaches from undetected security holes.

However, if you’ve made up your mind to try look after the website on your own, we’ve got a handy guide to get you on top of things: https://totemicit.com/lp-website-safety/.

Maintenance costs less than repairs

It’s easy to neglect a website if you’re new to this or don’t have time to take proper care of it. If you leave it abandoned for too long things will start breaking. That will mean one of two things: you’ll either have to sort it out yourself or pay a professional to sort it out for you.

If you know a thing or two about cars, you’ll know that repairs cost more than regular maintenance. The same principle applies to website care plans. They will ensure peace of mind with regard to the cornerstone of your online presence.

We’re here if you need us

Everyone has a different skill set and field of expertise. If you need someone to represent you in a court case, then your best bet would be to hire a solicitor. If you’re not a web developer, then why struggle with your website maintenance? Hire someone who’s been doing it for years. This way you can save yourself some big headaches.

Let your competitors struggle with potential customers not being able to use their website properly.

If you would like to discuss taking one of our website care plans, go to https://totemicit.com/services/wordpress-care-plans/.

You can find there more information about what has to be done to keep business websites in tip-top condition.