When your website is an important part of your business, website errors and downtime can be costly.
Even the tech giants Facebook, Google and Amazon aren’t immune from the perils of website errors. In 2020, Google’s services were offline for 1 hour which reportedly cost them a whopping $1.73 million.
Not only is downtime a risk, but millions of websites are hacked every day because they aren’t being protected or maintained. Oftentimes business owners aren’t aware they even have an issue until they stumble across a problem or in worst case scenarios – Google bans their website from appearing in their search results.
The reality is that all websites rely on software and all software is vulnerable. Just like your car, websites need to be maintained to make sure they’re running smoothly and preventing expensive issues. Your website should always be ready for customers and presenting your business in the best way possible.
Websites Are Not a “Set and Forget”
If you don’t have your website maintained every month, then you could be losing customers and damaging your brand.
When someone visits a website and finds problems, it’s a frustrating experience and they will often leave the site and look elsewhere.
Many website owners don’t check over their website regularly to make sure it’s functioning properly and instead wait until someone tells them there’s a problem. These missed issues or downtime can cause your business to lose potential customers.
The Benefits of Website Maintenance
Many people don’t realise the benefits of maintaining their website:
Builds trust – a fast-loading, error-free website offers a great experience to your visitors, which helps to build trust in your brand.
Improves your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) – a properly maintained website that loads fast is the foundation on which to build a successful SEO strategy. Google includes page speed and website performance as key ranking factors.
Protected against hackers – all software on the internet is vulnerable and websites are no different. WordPress and plugins regularly have new versions with security updates that protect against attackers.
Show accurate information – by making sure your website content is up to date, you reduce the burden of customer support to answer common questions. Not only that, but by adding new content to your site, you can further increase your search engine performance and attract more potential customers to your site.
Gives you a competitive advantage – when you have a system in place to improve your website and fix errors quickly, it gives you the edge over competitors that don’t.
WordPress Maintenance Workflow
Using a system that works consistently is the key to proper maintenance.
At Seriously Good Design, our process starts by creating a complete website backup, and checking the website before and after we perform updates to check for issues.
We take care to follow this manual approach to reduce the likelihood of website errors and this is what sets us apart from other digital agencies that perform updates automatically.
We keep a record of plugins we update so if there is ever an issue we see what plugin version was changed and revert back quickly.
Each one of our maintenance plans includes daily website backups, security scanning and uptime monitoring to make sure we can catch and fix issues quickly and proactively.
Also included in our monthly maintenance report are the performance and security scans. If in the event we ever catch a plugin issue, it becomes a support ticket and we address it before you ever know there’s a problem.
The Risk of “Do It Yourself” Maintenance
WordPress is designed to be easy to update, so why not just do it yourself?
The problem is that some updates can and do cause issues. Not only that, but if you do update from within WordPress, then you don’t have a record of what was updated and when.
Then, if an issue is discovered weeks later, it can be difficult to track down and fix the problem or restore the site from a backup.
This process takes time and can cost you more than you might think if it’s not done properly.
It Costs More to Fix Than to Maintain
Lack of experience and neglect can damage the way your website looks and functions.
When that happens, there are two choices:
One, you try to fix it yourself and potentially cause further damage (or be unaware of additional issues).
Two, you pay an expert to rush in to fix it (often at great expense).
Just like with your car, it costs far more to fix problems than it does to keep it properly maintained. Regular servicing keeps your car running smoothly and regularly maintenance keeps your website running smoothly.
Hire A Professional
You can wait until there’s an issue and rush to find someone that can help, or you can hire an expert to help prevent issues in the first place.
Why risk doing it yourself if you’re not an expert? Would you handle your own plumbing? Or perhaps go to court without a lawyer?
Leave your website maintenance to us and give yourself the peace of mind knowing your website is in the hands of experts and that you’re saving potential lost sales and visitors.
If you’d like help with your website maintenance, check out our website maintenance packages and contact us so we can help support you to grow your business online.
