Website maintenance refers to the process of regular upkeep that a website needs to ensure it is functional and operating efficiently. Regular website maintenance is important for business owners because it helps to improve SEO efforts, increase responsiveness, improve security measures, and increase the perceived value of the company.
What Is a Website Maintenance Service?
While some site owners manage their website on their own with simple tools provided to them by their website servicer, others rely on a website maintenance service. Website maintenance services are a perfect option for business owners that don’t have the knowledge to maintain their website or simply don’t have the time to manage it.
Businesses that rely on a maintenance service will agree to a fee and receive services either on a routine basis or at a one-time cost, depending on needs.
Importance of Website Maintenance
Most business owners are not experts in website design, let alone have the time to upkeep their website. But website maintenance is important for many reasons.
For starters, it’s important for business owners to always ensure their site’s security measures are up to par. This is especially necessary if you’re storing customer information. Compromising sensitive information is not only harmful to your customers, but it can also have a negative impact on your business.
Customers will quickly deem your website as untrustworthy if they feel it isn’t secure. Websites that aren’t secure won’t just get dinged by Google but it will lead to higher bounce rates. For this reason, businesses must ensure all the proper security measures are in place, which is best done through site maintenance.
Regular maintenance means your website will undergo routine software updates and security patches. This not only improves your site’s overall security but it discourages hackers to target your website.
Another reason website maintenance is important is to keep up with new trends in design and technology. Businesses need to ensure they have a website that is sleek, up-to-date, and responsive in order to create a better user experience. By doing this, businesses are more likely to increase the perceived value of their business and ensure they keep a competitive edge.
Visitors aren’t interested in spending time on sites that look like they’ve been abandoned. This doesn’t just look untrustworthy but visitors will more than likely think that you haven’t invested much time and effort into your company.
With regular website maintenance, you can take advantage of newer website technology and install software updates that allow you to leverage new features. Staying on top of updates also means that your website will be more responsive. This is not only central to effective SEO but important for improved user experience.
What Does Website Maintenance Service Include?
There are various website maintenance services businesses can take advantage of. Each service will vary depending on the service provider. However, we’re going to provide some basic maintenance services that most providers will offer.
Basic Troubleshooting
A website has various parts that help it function. With that said, websites are prone to troubleshooting issues that most business owners don’t have the time to address.
A website maintenance service will troubleshoot common issues that can decrease the functionality of your website. Issues like a dated visual design, poor page load speed, poor navigation, and responsiveness are just some things that a provider will help businesses with.
Security Updates
Keeping your security measures updated is not a one-and-done task. Security updates require regular maintenance to ensure your website is protected at all times. Hackers are always looking for websites to target, which means that businesses need to take the right precautionary measures to ensure their website isn’t vulnerable to these sorts of issues.
A maintenance service provider will ensure your applications and operating systems are protected against security vulnerabilities such as viruses and malware, giving business owners the peace of mind as they continue to operate their business.
Plugins and Integration Updates
Plugins and integrations are a great way to help your website run more efficiently and provide a better experience for visitors. However, these plugins must stay updated, or they run the risk of causing more harm than good.
For instance, plugins that aren’t up-to-date can pose a threat as they can make your website more vulnerable to hackers. At the same time, plugins and integrations often have bugs that can negatively impact the functionality of your website.
A website maintenance company can provide plugins and integration updates for your website so that you don’t have to do it yourself. This can be especially useful for business owners who run various plugins and integrations on their website at one time.
These updates are important because it improves security, promotes a bug-free site, and gives site owners access to additional features that can help with attracting and retaining visitors.
Improving Website Speed
In today’s digital world, website speed is crucial for business owners looking to attract and retain more visitors to their site. Consumers today have many options, and they know that these options are quickly within reach. For this reason, business owners need to pay special attention to how quickly their website loads.
Studies show that websites that take longer than 3 seconds to load will result in visitors navigating away. This means that business owners with a slow loading site are likely missing out on potential customers.
Investing in website maintenance services will ensure your website is operating at the best speed by relying on insights and using speed-checking tools to pay attention to how fast your site loads.
Backing up files
Website files can include things like images, pages, blog posts, and plugins. All of these things make up your website, which means it’s important to protect them. A website maintenance service can automatically perform routine backups to ensure you never lose any of your website’s essential files.
Here’s a quick checklist of what businesses can expect a website maintenance service to provide on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis.
Weekly
- Ensure pages load without any errors
- Run a backup on your website
- Update software and plugins
- Check for broken links
- Check and fix 404 errors
Monthly
- Review website design for functionality
- Review security scans
- Analyze data from website statistics
- Check for article updates
Quarterly
- Check whether any website graphics need to be updated
- Review SEO, including meta titles and descriptions
- Test popups and forms to see if there is any room for improvement
- Test website on all devices to test responsiveness
- Check on backup health by restoring a previous version of your website
Yearly
- Ensure your website domain is renewed
- Determine whether it’s time for a new website update
- Review each web page for accuracy and relevancy
- Review top performing articles to see if there is any need for updates
What Might Not be Included?
While website maintenance companies generally offer a wide range of services, there are a couple of services that businesses may have to outsource elsewhere. Here are 2 services that a website maintenance provider might not offer.
Content creation: Content creation is generally offered by a Content Writer or Copywriter who is skilled in creating SEO blogs and articles. A website maintenance service, on the other hand, generally does not provide content creation services. Instead, these services check for things such as broken links in content and check whether the content is meeting SEO standards by testing aspects of the content such as keywords.
Website Design: A website maintenance service can test the responsiveness of your current website design. A maintenance service will identify certain aspects of your design that are affecting the quality of your site. They will often check for things such as ease of navigation, whether any part of your design is driving down your load speed, and whether your graphics needs upgrading. However, a website redesign may not be included as part of website maintenance. A website redesign might require the expertise of a web designer.
Top 3 Ways Service Providers Charge
There are 3 ways that most service providers charge for website maintenance: monthly, hourly (on-demand), or a yearly service plan Which option is best for your business will ultimately depend on your website’s current needs and the goals you have for your website.
Monthly Plan
A monthly website service plan is an ongoing service designed to keep your website up-to-date. With a monthly plan, a service provider will do things such as review security scans, analyze data from your website statistics, and perform regular backups. A monthly plan is a great option for businesses that need routine site monitoring, improved security measures, and want to better understand their website’s insights to attract more visitors.
Advantage: The main advantage of a monthly plan is that businesses can take a step back from their site and allow a service provider to focus on keeping the site up-to-date and running smoothly.
Hourly (On-Demand)
Another common way service providers charge is on an hourly basis. Hourly services are best for businesses that need an on-demand website maintenance service, usually for a one-time job. Many site owners will hire a maintenance service if they’ve unexpectedly run into a roadblock such as a slow loading site.
Advantage: One of the biggest advantages of hourly services is that businesses can use these services as needed without committing to a monthly fee. This is a great option for businesses that are just starting out or businesses that have a small budget for site maintenance.
Yearly Plan
Like a monthly plan, a yearly plan focuses on providing ongoing services to site owners, except on a yearly basis. The biggest difference between services provided in a yearly and monthly plan is that a monthly plan focuses on smaller aspects of your website that make a big impact on your site’s performance month-to-month.
A yearly maintenance plan, on the other hand, takes a look at your site’s performance for the year and prepares for new changes. For instance, a service provider will determine whether your business is overdue for a website design update.
Advantage: One of the main advantages of a yearly plan is that it gives businesses an opportunity to do an overhaul of their website. Many business owners don’t take the time to assess their website performance annually. Yearly maintenance allows businesses to see whether their site is performing as expected or whether they need to go in a new direction.
Your website is important when it comes to increasing brand awareness, building credibility, and attracting new customers. For this reason, regular website maintenance is essential for business growth.
Routine maintenance means that your website will be better prepared to face potential threats that can compromise sensitive information. This is especially important for businesses that store their customers’ information on their website. Even more, businesses that maintain their website regularly will see an increase in site speed, better responsiveness, decrease bounce rates, and ensure that all of their website’s data is stored securely.