A website is often the first impression a potential customer has of your organisation and website maintenance is critical to that first impression. According to Tarek Mohajer, in this article in Forbes, people form an entire opinion about you, your business and your brand in less than a minute. The first impression will also be influenced on how fast or slow your page loads as well as the layout of your homepage. Visual appeal and a layout that makes sense for consumers is critical when you have their attention for less than a minute. However, if your page takes too long to load that will be your potential client’s first impression. In fact 39% of people will stop engaging with a website if images or pages take too long to load. Website visitors expect a maximum of two seconds loading time for an average website.
Why is my page slow?
There are many reasons why your website may be slow. Most people think this is to do with the server or your current internet connection. For example your hosting service performance is slow or it is your internet connection as you attempt to view the page. Whilst both of these play a factor they are not the only cause and in fact there are numerous other issues which could be resolved through regular website maintenance.
When it comes to the back-end of your website there are a number of factors that can impact page load including the quality of the code, the type of website theme you are using, the number of plugins you have, image size, they types of plugins you have (and don’t have) and outdated versions of WordPress, your theme and your plugins.
How does a website work?
As the business owner, when you first purchase your domain and want a website built you will have purchased a plan to host your domain with a web hosting service. Once this is done you will have access to your control panel where you can establish WordPress. WordPress is a content management system, or CMS, which allows you to build and then manage your website.
Once you have set up WordPress a website theme needs to be chosen. There are currently more than 31,000 themes available from over 200 companies with a mixture of free and paid themes. Choosing a theme needs to take more than the design into account. Not all themes have inbuilt mobile optimisation. What that means is some themes will not automatically show your page well if viewed on a mobile or tablet device whilst others have that built in.
After choosing the theme that best suits your small business you, or your website builder, will add plugins. Plugins are pieces of software that provide functions for your website. This may be to add functionality or new features or enable the right design for your business. One of the most important plugins for your website is security.
When the website design is complete the website will go live and be available to your customers and new clients. If it has been set up correctly and linked to Google Search Console and Google Analytics you website will be able to be found by search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo
Is maintenance of website required?
As with your computer software websites require regular updating. Updates are made to address security or performance issues that may occur with each application. WordPress provides regular updates as does the theme you use on your website. You must take care to make sure the plugins you use on your website are updated as well. These updates are not applied automatically. Just as your computer software prompts an update so does the back-end of your website. If you are not regularly checking your updates will not be applied and your site may experience a security breach or performance issues.
Security is the main website maintenance tasks that are required. Software security patches and updates keep pace with the work of hackers. This is especially important for anyone who captures customer data on their website as you have a responsibility to your customers to prevent data theft.
What are the key risks of no website maintenance services?
The International Risk Management Institute has stated certain threats to your website can prove costly to your business so it makes sense “to take action to limit your exposure”. Some of the key risks that can occur if your maintenance for website is not regularly done are:
- Data theft – hackers can breach your security and obtain your customer’s details including email addresses and passwords.
- Spam – where your customer’s details are stolen they may then receive spam emails often from your domain name by hackers.
- Automated attacks – automated website attacks are more common than targeted attached due to the ease and ability for mass exposure which increases the odds of a successful attack.
- Malware infections – these can be injecting into your web pages or through the back-end of your system. These can not only infect your website but also cause issues for your clients via malicious downloads.
- Performance – your website’s page loading time is a major factor in visitors staying or leaving your site quickly and most likely never returning. If updates to WordPress, your theme and each plugin are not done in a timely manner your website may experience performance issues. Other factors can cause this and therefore your site speed needs to be monitored on a regular basis.
- Outdated information – if you are not checking your website regularly you may not notice information is out of date. Your web design may also be not contemporary enough for your target customers. As a business owner you have many tasks to do each day so checking your website may not be at the top of your list.
There are numerous other issues and risks related to website maintenance including broken links, malware scans, SSL certificates and generally making sure your customer service delivered by your website matches that which you and your team deliver to your customers.
Does my website need a WordPress backup?
No doubt you backup your key business files on your computer either to the Cloud or an external hard-drive. You will do this to make sure you are able to restore the data should your computer crash. Websites need to be backed up as well for the same reason. Whether an issue flags in malware scans, your site is hacked or you are making changes to your site and something breaks you will need a recent backup to restore the site so it continues to provide services to your customers.
Your website should be backed up at least monthly and for websites which hold customer data it is recommended the sites are backed up weekly or even daily. As a business owner you are no down seeing your work volumes increase as you read this article but it does not have to be that way. Your role is make sure website maintenance occurs but it does not mean you have to do the work yourself. Website maintenance costs are not significant and should be viewed as a risk mitigation for your business.
Why do I need a website care package?
No doubt when you started your business you entered an industry where you had expert knowledge and skill. Your plan was to use these skills to provide products and services to take care and support your customers. Customer service takes time from when you first meet a new client to quoting on their job, completing the work and billing the customer. Between bookkeeping, marketing, customer service, staff management and paying your own bills it is no wonder many small business owners do not have time, nor remember, to do website updates. Work volumes will take priority as these produce your income.
Website maintenance tasks can be time consuming and no doubt the last thing a business owner wants to do after they finish invoicing customers at 10:00 pm. This is where website maintenance services come in so they take care of your website updates while you take care of your business. Keeping your website running efficiently and effectively to convert new visitors to customers is important to the success of your business. There is a good array of website maintenance pricing available so you can find a maintenance package to suit the needs of your business and budget.
Choosing the right website maintenance package to support your business will depend on both your business type and budget. If you have a fairly simple website you may only need a basic package per month that ensure all updates are applied and your website is backed up. For websites that are more detailed you may want more services per month such as performance monitoring and Uptime monitoring which can provide you with an alert if your site goes down.
Are website maintenance costs expensive?
The cost of website maintenance is actually great value for money. Website maintenance pricing varies depending on the level of services and support you require for your websites. Most prices are based on a per month basis with discounts offered if you pay a yearly subscription. Each website maintenance package details the services provided so you can choose which features are most important for your business as well as meeting your budget. Importantly, whichever web maintenance package you choose you can make sure your site has at least a basic level of website maintenance support.
When determining the right level of web maintenance to support your business site you should consider if you need additional help beyond the maintenance in the basic and standard packages. For example if SSL certificates are out of date or you have broken links or need some changes to your website design you may want to consider support services that include developer hours. If you write articles or have updates you like to add to your website regularly it may be more cost effective to buy developer support in a discounted package. If, however, you simply want to have someone manage website maintenance but be available to fix things like broken links if they occur then it will be cheaper to engage developer support services on an as needed basis.
Conclusion
Website maintenance and development is important for every organisation with a website. Business owner’s time is one of their most valuable resources. The last thing you can afford is to be wasting money trying to work out how to do something they are not familiar with nor to then make an error they need to try and fix. If you have invested time in writing a new article no doubt you don’t want to spend another hour loading it into the back-end of your website and adding images and alt text for SEO. The long and the short of it is website maintenance is not task a busy business owner needs to perform. It is critical to the business but is a task that can be outsourced to someone who knows what to do and loves doing it; leaving you to do what you love and what delivers you a return on effort.
