Website Maintenance: Your Ultimate Guide
When it comes to website maintenance, it can be overwhelming and time-consuming. We often think when we begin the process of having a website that it’s just a matter of setting it up and forgetting about it. However, I think we have all come to find that there is a lot more to having a website than what initially meets the eye.
From updating content, and making sure everything indexes and ranks at the optimal levels with Google, to just making sure there are no broken links or issues going on that could ruin your end user’s experience. There’s a lot to it.
In this guide, I’m going to break down the most common task associated with website maintenance for your standard small business website.
Run a Report
One of the first tasks I perform for a client is running a report. I use programs to crawl your website and check to make sure there are no errors on the site that could hamper or completely prevent it from showing up on Google. This report prints out anything and everything that could be wrong with you site that can be found using a crawler. From broken links, to duplicate title tags, to the small issues that we sometimes forget to implement.
This report makes things so much easier than manually checking each and every site and recording everything in an excel spreadsheet.
From there I can go to work and implement and integrate the changes that need to be made to make sure the site is functional.
Updates
The next task on most small business websites is simply updating everything. A lot of small business websites use WordPress, so it constantly needs to be updated. From the theme to the actual platform itself, updates are generally a todo.
Backups
Backing up is crucial to any business site. This is generally pretty straightforward with most hosting providers these days. You simply log in to cPanel and go through the backup wizard, download it and store it on an external hard drive or on the cloud for safekeeping.
I’d recommend backing up on a regular basis or before doing anything significant to the site.
In general, it’s good to have backups. Life happens. I know personally on my own server here at my house, I had a lightning storm, and even though it was plugged into a surge protector, something happened to crash it. Luckily I had backups stored in the cloud.
In a matter of minutes, after I got my new server, I was back up to running.
Adding Content
In today’s world, if you have a site, it’s important to stay relevant. This means constantly adding content to your blog. This way when people visit your site they know you are still around and still in business. Also, it’s great to have fresh content to show up in the search engines. It’s not foolproof, but in general, great content, released on a regular basis will go a long way to increasing your popularity and overall traffic.
Fixing Bugs
Problems happen. I’ve seen it time and time again in my industry. The menu stops working for your online ordering system, maybe it’s saying you are out of chicken wings when you aren’t. These things happen and they need to be fixed ASAP. Other issues might be dealing with coupons for a sale you have going on not working correctly. There are so many things that could go wrong and the more complex your website, the more moving parts, the more the probability that something will go haywire.
This usually isn’t the end of the world for your site, but you could be losing potential business. Unless one of your customers tells you about it or even thinks to ask, you could be left in the dark. Then of course there is testing, either by yourself or having someone you trust and delegating these tasks to them.
Website Maintenance
Overall the tasks that are associated with website maintenance are vast and wide. Depending on what kind of website you have, whether you are an online eCom store, a news site, or just simply a chiropractor. The tasks that need to be done will vary depending on the nature of your website and what you need to be done on a regular basis.
If you are in need of assistance, feel free to reach out and give us a call. We’d love to find out if we’re in alignment with your business, with your goals, and how we can be of service to you and your organization.
