Website Maintenance: What Is It And Why Do You Need It?
Just like cars, websites need maintenance to function properly.
Having a well-structured website is great and all, but having it up and running isn’t enough. To make sure that your site is operating at peak efficiency, regular updating and maintenance are essential.
With that said, here’s everything you need to know about website maintenance:
What Is Website Maintenance?
Maintaining a website involves keeping it up-to-date and making sure it’s running as smoothly as possible and operating at peak efficiency.
Things such as checking that all of your website’s links are working, updating your website’s content frequently, and fixing any broken links are all typical parts of website maintenance.
Though, it also involves more general housekeeping chores like routinely backing up your website and keeping track of its functionality.
Here are some reasons why maintaining your website is important:
1. You’ll stay on top of your website’s security
The main reason why website maintenance is so crucial is because of security. You should make sure that your website is up-to-date with software patches and security updates if your company uses a content management system (CMS) like Drupal or WordPress. Failing to do so increases your risk of hackers trying to steal important information from your website.
2. Search engines love fresh content (Boost your traffic!)
Search engines such as Google prioritize giving users the highest quality content. Because of this, they frequently give higher rankings to websites that are updated. A higher ranking improves the visibility of your website, which increases the chance that your content will show up when your target audiences search for relevant keywords.
Both new and returning visitors will be attracted to your website if it’s regularly updated with useful content, working links, no duplicated pages, and content that’s fresh.
3. It optimizes the visitor experience
Your audience will have a better understanding of who you are and what you do if you frequently update your website with shareable content like upcoming events, image galleries, and blogs.
Even including actionable items in these types of content, like a sign-up form for your newsletter and social media icons that lead to the profile of your company makes you interact with your audience better.
Additionally, your brand, your work, and your mission are all enhanced by a well-maintained website. Removing out-of-date information, broken links, and conducting site audits regularly can provide your visitors with the best possible user experience.
In short – maintaining your website can enhance web performance and give your visitors a safe and secure environment to go to.
Some Different Types Of Website Maintenance
After your website is launched, it’s crucial to carry out regular web maintenance. It’s actually a lot simpler than you think! Here are some types of website maintenance to stay on top of:
- Updating your content
To keep the information on your website fresh and accurate, you should also be updating it regularly. This entails deleting out-of-date material and adding new blog posts and product descriptions whenever necessary. We know it’s a little tedious, but you wouldn’t want to turn off potential customers because of outdated content, now, would you? - Installing security updates ASAP
To address flaws in their software, web development companies often release security patches. These patches are crucial for protecting your website from hackers, so you should install them as soon as they become available. - Looking out for updates of plugins and themes
Plugin and theme updates make your website look fresh and up-to-date.
Additions to your website’s functionality can be made thanks to plugins and themes. However, to ensure compatibility with the most recent web browsers and security patches, they should also be kept up to date, much like any other kind of software. - Monitoring and enhancing performance
Keeping an eye on your website’s performance can help you spot potential issues. Then, you can take action on these to make sure your site’s running smoothly.
What’s more, the speed and responsiveness of your website can also be increased with performance optimization. This involves reducing the time it takes for web pages to load, optimizing image sizes, minifying code, and so on.
Be sure to also keep an eye on your web host’s server performance – you can use our Bitcatcha speed test tool to see how well your web host is faring. - Having a disaster recovery plan and backup
It’s crucial to keep a recent backup of your website in case something goes wrong. Planning for disaster recovery makes it possible to quickly restore service to your website in the event of a serious issue.
A backup makes sure you can restore your site if it gets hacked or becomes corrupted, which will help prevent any data loss. - Doing security checks
Web maintenance must include security scanning to ensure that your website is safe from any threats. Since regular website scanning can find and address security flaws before they cause any damage, you’ll be able to protect yourself and your users from any potential harm.
Plus, website scanning also helps improve user experience too. When you’re able to identify and fix potential security vulnerabilities, users can rest easy knowing that their personal information is secure. - Keeping tabs on your uptime
Monitoring your website’s uptime can help ensure that it’s available whenever users try to access it. The goal is to maintain your website’s uptime as close to 100% as possible. Some web hosts like Kinsta will offer ongoing monitoring services so that you’ll quickly see when something goes wrong. Otherwise, you can use a tool like Uptime Robot.
We use Uptime Robot to monitor the performance of our test sites.
Knowing quickly when your website is down will help you take the necessary action to bring it back online. - Managing user accounts
Managing user accounts can help remove spam and bot accounts.
This one is pretty obvious: if your website has users, then managing their accounts is necessary. This includes setting up and removing user accounts, changing passwords, and managing permissions. Cleaning up the user list and removing spam and bot accounts are also parts of user management. - Testing for accessibility
It’s important to test your website’s accessibility to make sure anyone can use it. This can include those with disabilities, people who use mobile devices, and individuals whose internet connections are slow. - Analyzing and improving SEO
To make sure that your website is visible in search engines, it’s vital to monitor its SEO. This includes monitoring the traffic, backlinks, and applying the best SEO practices to boost the ranking of your website. SEO can also assist you in measuring your success and tracking your progress over time.
How Often Should I Do Website Maintenance?
Depending on the size, complexity, and frequency of updates to your website, you may need to perform website maintenance often. Website maintenance should generally be carried out at least once a month, but preferably more frequently – such as on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. This will make it easier to guarantee that your website’s always up-to-date and running smoothly.
Some tasks, like security scanning, back-ups and uptime monitoring, can be automated to be done on a regular basis. Other tasks, on the other hand, like website updates and performance monitoring, must be performed manually. There are just some tasks you don’t have to worry much about while there are some tasks you have to keep a close eye on.
With that said, while maintaining a website yourself is possible, it may be worth considering hiring a professional to handle it for you. This is mainly because maintaining a website can be time-consuming, technical, and prone to errors that could ultimately cost you money.
Many people opt for managed web hosting plans where tasks such as installing security and software updates are taken care of directly by the web hosting brand. This can be especially useful for platforms like WordPress, and especially if you’re looking to save time. Check our guide on the best Managed WordPress hosts if you’re keen.
Note
Want to do WordPress maintenance too? Explore more on the step-by-step guide of WordPress maintenance to avoid any issue.
Stay On Top Of Website Maintenance To Reap Maximum Benefits
Website maintenance, while not obvious for some, is one of the most important tasks website owners need to take care of. Different types of website maintenance done on a regular basis go a long way and help keep your site looking fresh and updated, and most importantly, functioning properly.
Make sure to practice website maintenance to ensure your visitors have a great experience when visiting your website. Follow Bitcatcha for more tech-related tips to help keep your website up and running!
