That M Word! Scheduled Website Maintenance Is Majorly Important

Maintenance might sound a lot like a four-letter word for many of us. A routine, but inconvenient trip to the car shop. An unexpected and costly home repair. Are we hitting a nerve yet?!

So forgive us if we stay on this subject a bit longer, but there’s another type of M-word that’s just as important: scheduled maintenance for your website. No matter what a masterpiece your website is, if it was developed using a Content Management System (WordPress, Magento, Joomla, etc.), it’s never a one-and-done thing to set and forget. Rather, think of it as a living, breathing thing that regularly needs attention to operate properly, function optimally, and perform well for your business goals.

Good website maintenance includes a wide variety of tasks, based on the purpose of your site — but it can include everything from regular backups, to updating security settings and plugins, checking contact forms, fixing broken links, updating content, running speed tests, optimizing databases, compressing images, and more. Get a FREE Website Security Review.

But, what’s the point of doing all of the above?! Here are five reasons why scheduled website maintenance is so critical.

It Keeps Your Site Under Lock and Key

If your website was a house, scheduled maintenance would include the security system. Needless to say, it’s important! You would never hand over your keys to a thief so don’t do the same with your site and the hackers just waiting in the wings to get in.

If you’re using a Content Management System (CMS) such as WordPress, you’ll want to ensure that your site is keeping up with security updates, has strong and secure passwords, and that you’ve removed and/or updated old applications and plugins. Failure to do these things gives hackers a chance to steal data from your site or exploit gaps and vulnerabilities to steal power from your server.

It Brings All The Consumers To Your Yard

Routine website maintenance is the perfect opportunity to keep tabs on all your website text and photos. Consistently creating and updating content — ahem, this includes maintaining a regular posting schedule for that blog! — not only makes your site more relevant and reinforces your company’s mission and values, it helps increase your Search Engine Rankings. That’s because search engines like Google reward sites that are updated regularly by elevating your ranking, making it more likely your content will appear when your target audiences search for applicable keywords.

It Gives UX The X Factor

Optimizing the user experience of your site never goes out of style — and it’s something that’s also an important part of scheduled maintenance. Because, let’s face it: consumers judge a company by its online presence and a poorly functioning website won’t do you any favors, it reflects poorly on your brand and your business. Engage your audiences in all the right ways with a well-maintained, functional site so that they’ll want to buy whatever you’re selling — not get turned off by broken links, distorted images, outdated info or events, and unavailable offers or products. You may also want to explore adding or updating action-oriented items like a newsletter signup form, info request form, and social media embeds to further engage your audience and improve conversion rates.

This is where a comprehensive site audit, including a website loading time test, can come in handy to track issues. After all, it’s much better to find your own errors and blind spots before a problem surfaces — or is pointed out to you by a customer. You want to be proactive here, not reactive.

It’s An Investment That Pays Off

Scheduled website maintenance is a time investment — and a monetary one, too, if you bring in the experts to keep tabs on all of the above and more. But, it’s one that’s well worth making. If something were to happen to your website, due to the lack of maintenance, that downtime could take a toll on your brand, its reputation, and your bottom line —especially if you run a business that depends on a website for lead generation or product sales.

It’s quite possible that you don’t have the time (or all the expertise) needed to maintain your website,  optimize it, and keep it secure, that’s where we come in.

At CRANK Digital Marketing Authority, we specialize in not only creating and implementing compelling internet marketing solutions, we offer strategic website design and maintenance services to skyrocket your business. Give us a shout to get a FREE Website Security Review today.