While we don’t like to think about it, website hacks are more common now than ever. Over 30,000 hacks happen every day, and it’s crucial to make sure your site isn’t one of them.
One of the main reasons why hacks occur is because site owners don’t take proper care of their website.
So how do you conduct proper website maintenance? How do you keep your site safe and extremely functional for your customers to enjoy?
That’s what we’re here to look at today. Read on to find out 7 crucial tips for website maintenance in 2021.
Why Website Maintenance?
Think of your website as any other tool in your small business’s arsenal. Whether it’s a car, a piece of machinery, or your cash register, it’s going to need some maintenance one way or the other.
However, website maintenance is more than just a chore to cross off your checklist. Small business website maintenance has some key benefits that you should know about.
Security
The most important benefit is security. If you’re using a CMS like WordPress, maintenance is crucial to keeping your site free from intruders.
Something as innocuous as not updating your plugins and themes can make easy leeway for hackers to invade your site. Security updates and patches are released all the time, and intruders know how to exploit those who don’t regularly update their domains.
As such, security is a crucial reason why you need solid web maintenance services.
Traffic
Website maintenance also focuses on optimizing your content so that it’s easier for visitors to go through your site. This means fixing broken links, updating your information, providing relevant articles, and so on.
Doing so will improve your site’s rankings on search engines and eventually boost your overall traffic. Engines like Google prefer sites that don’t have redundant or broken pages. Therefore website maintenance can really boost your traffic if you maintain it right.
Visitor Experience
Fixing buggy aspects of your site and keeping it free from intruders will no doubt improve your visitors’ experience on your site. However, updating your site means you’re also more engaged in the content you’re creating.
Being more engaged with how your site runs means you can provide valuable and relevant content on a regular. Audiences will likely respond to this and keep coming back for more.
Website maintenance can act as a crucial tool for engaging your customers. This leads to better ROIs and an improved bottom line.
7 Website Maintenance Tips
So how do you improve your website maintenance plan? How do you reap the rewards of proper website maintenance?
Much of it comes down to improving the user experience and focusing on what makes for a smooth visit through your site. It’s also heavily focused on updating your information and performing quality audits.
Let’s look at some examples here:
1. SEO Audits
An SEO audit is like an evaluation for your site that gives it a grade for how well it shows up on search engine results. Auditors create a website maintenance checklist pertaining to your SEO and checks each one off while listing any issues that come up along the way.
As you can imagine, an SEO audit can improve your ranking on Google and other SERPs. A routine SEO audit will include:
- Competition analysis
- Overall website rankings
- Website speed test
- Error identification
- Indexing status
- Broken link scans
A website maintenance company will tell you what you’re doing well and where you need to improve for your SEO. It also illuminates industry trends that can help you create better content down the line.
2. Check Loading Speed
It’s a well-known fact that site visitors won’t wait very long for a website to load. That is, if it takes more than a few seconds, chances are you’ve lost a potential visitor.
This is why load speed is so crucial for site owners. You don’t want a potential customer to walk into your store then immediately leave because your doors wouldn’t work properly
There are plenty of programs that help you gauge your site’s loading speed. You can also rely on your SEO auditors to give you a better sense of how fast your site loads.
3. Create Relevant Content
This goes without saying, but creating relevant content that your audience wants to engage with will improve your overall SEO rankings as well as your rapport with your customers.
If you’re unsure which types of content to invest in, start with things like blogs relevant to your business or newsletters for your most loyal customers. Creating event landing pages and stocking your site with relevant and eye-catching images can also improve your content output.
Fresh content attracts new visitors while also providing real value to your customers. You can offer discounts and promos to consumers through relevant content.
4. Respond to Feedback
The customer always knows best, and an effective way to get a grip on what your site needs is by consulting them directly.
You’re never going to cover all your site’s most pertinent issues by yourself. Audits can be valuable, but not always comprehensive.
Consulting your customers about issues they’ve had with your site can illuminate some key issues. Responding in a timely and respectable manner also improves your standing with your audience.
5. Check For Browser Compatibility
Sometimes your site doesn’t automatically work well on certain browsers. What functions well on Chrome might not translate to Firefox users.
You need to be aware of this and act accordingly. Make sure you’re checking all browsers and fixing any bugs that might be occurring.
6. Check Broken Links
There’s nothing worse than clicking on a link to a blog post or product description only to be met with a 404 error screen.
This is why you need to be on the lookout for broken links. Addressing them sooner will prevent customers from feeling turned off from a shoddy link. This in turn keeps them on your site and increases the chance for a conversion.
7. Analytics
Website maintenance is all about keeping a close eye on your numbers. Who’s going into your site and making a purchase? How long are they staying? What content are they interacting with the most?
Answering these questions by looking at your analytics can improve your marketing strategy in a myriad of ways. Updating your analytical tools and maintaining your content this way is a crucial strategy.
Leverage Website Maintenance Today
It’s hard to understate how important website maintenance is for your business. Use this article to form your own website maintenance strategy and start making more conversions today!
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