A website is the face of a company. In today’s digital world very often if you do not have a website for your company you are not even considered to be a legitimate business. It also goes without saying that your website should be attractive and easy to use. This will go along way in helping to promote your business. However like everything in life if it is not regularly updated and maintained it can work against your business and drive traffic to your competitors. We will learn briefly about the importance of website maintenance in this article.
It simply does not make sense that a businessman can spend large amounts of money and effort to marketing their company online but not spending enough time or small additional monies on maintaining and regularly updating a website . Whether the company hires a website development company or has an in house expert it is vital that the following website maintenance tasks are regularly updated and attended to:
• Improve the speed of the website
Research has shown that 25 % of users will navigate away from a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load! Often this key fact is forgotten and attention rather given to large images or additional unnecessary functions that slow down the website .Users want to access the information they need as fast as possible. If the bounce rate out of your site is increased it may even result in lowered Google rankings.
• Fix HTML/CSS problems
Website support will be able to regularly inspect find and fix issues with HTML. Even a minor error can cause pages to display incorrectly. Check that links on your website all work as if not this can be frustrating for customers.
• Keep the software for the website updated
If you have a content management system like WordPress then it always need to be up-to-date to function properly. Mostly updates are automatic but you need to be aware that sometimes this must be done manually .If a websites software is not updated it becomes vulnerable to hackers.
• Backing Up Files and Databases
Often websites do have automatic back up through the content management systems but like updates these need to be checked and often manually updated. The result of not backing up and losing essential files is too horrible to contemplate.
• Keep Content Relevant and Up to date
There is always room for improvement. Make sure that posts written a while ago are in fact still applicable and update information where needed. It will not reflect well on your company if customers see content written over two years ago!
• SEO ( Search Engine Optimisation )
Any website should be regularly checked to make sure that the search ability is up to date. New keywords can be added to blogs and relevant keywords even included on the front page .The more you update the site the more search engines will visit it.
When potential customers visit your website they want to learn about your products and services. Make sure that by regularly maintaining and updating your website, that this will be a pleasant experience, encouraging them to return again.