Launching a website is not just the beginning of website success. It is the starting point, and from that point forward, you have to put constant effort into it. Once you have launched your website, the next ongoing activity you need to do is to keep your website healthy with continuous maintenance. What we want to say here is, just because you have launched your website, it doesn’t guarantee that you will be “found” or “seen” online.
Website maintenance is required to have a clean, healthy, secured and cross-browser compatible website. Website Maintenance is essential. Just like your house, car or your garden needs support, in the same way, you need to maintain your site to keep it running smoothly and securely.
Maintaining a website means implementing the following:
- Software core and plugin updates.
- Ensure backup and restore point
- Keep the software core and plugin updated
- Optimizing your website’s database to keep it clean and reduce unnecessary bandwidth usage of your server
- Monitor your website’s uptime/downtime
- Ensure the security and monitor unusual activities on your site. It includes taking action as well if something strange is happening behind the website.
For every plugin updates, asset optimization is needed to check and ensure scripts are not slowing down your website. Some plugin updates can slow down your site, thus optimizing these assets is required. However, optimizing plugin scripts can also break some of your website features, so a developer or web administrator should perform this activity.
Some website maintenance services also offer implementation of basic SEO practices. Implementing basic SEO practices on your website will benefit your website’s online visibility in the long run.
However, basic SEO is useless if you are not maintaining a regularly updated content on your website. Having a hundred filled pages with old outdated content won’t be favored by search engines. Therefore, keep your website’s content updated by blogging or updating your static pages (if necessary).
Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions and any Disclaimer information on your website will need on-going updates whenever new policy items have changed. Ensure these “utility” pages on your site are always up-to-date, and new release/version are posted immediately on its pages.
Anything from a technical problem to inefficient codes or any security concerns can annoy your readers and propel them away from your site. Among thousands of applications like plugins present, thousands of them may not support well to your site. So, learn to replace the old plugins with new ones or find alternatives to them before you upgrade your CMS, as older and unsupported plugins make your site vulnerable to hackers.
TOP TIP: To keep your website healthy, look at the speed, the higher it is, the better it gives the result.
A slow loading website can make or break your business. If your site is loading slowly, web users or visitors can get frustrated waiting and ended up leaving your website. As browser and computing technologies continue to upgrade, your website must keep up with the changes as well, however optimizing the speed of your site doesn’t end with constant software and plugin updates. Website optimization is an on-going activity of your website that is usually performed by a developer or website administrator. It involves several site checks and troubleshooting, including image and database optimization, scripts and CSS minification and regular plugin audits.
Finally, your website’s performance can be measured based on your site traffic and reports. Thus, having traffic measurement or analytics is crucial for your website health. Your website analytics will determine the activities of your website visitors. Having a traffic and maintenance report gives you peace of mind about how your website is performing. You can understand your user behavior such as what device was used frequently to enter your site, demographics of your users and how they arrive at your website. Your website analytic reports, you can strategize your online marketing efforts and plan accordingly without wasting so many resources.
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As a Web Producer, I possess a diverse skill set that includes web design, graphics, marketing, software integration, and SEO. What I find fulfilling about my role is collaborating with fellow innovative marketers and assisting business owners and organizations in optimizing their digital footprint.
