The Importance of Regular Website Maintenance

It is a well known fact that businesses with websites tend to perform better. The world is online, and if you aren't you can easily be left behind, but that doesn't mean its a once and done task. Would you expect your car to continue getting you from place to place if you didn't do regular maintenance on it? Of course not, so why would you expect your website to keep chugging along if you haven't done the proper maintenance?

The online world is a vast and ever changing place. Technology is moving at lightspeed towards the future, and if you don't keep up you may find yourself left in the dust. Whether you missed the latest shiny new features or a security fix that leaves your site vulnerable to an attack, forgoing maintenance can lead to disaster for your business. You could be missing sales or even unknowingly leaking your customers private information, both of which could be catastrophic.

Its easy to forget to work on your site because hey, you have things to do to keep your business running. Unfortunately, no matter how busy you are you need to make sure you site stays up to date. Even little things like forgetting to change prices on your products could leave customers to think your business is untrustworthy, and if they find out their information was leaked and it's because of your site you can be sure they will scream from the mountain tops about it.

So how can avoid these pitfalls? Its really not as hard as you think! Ideally you would at least make sure your security and infrastructure is updated weekly, monthly at most. Many providers will do this automatically so check with your provider if you're using a site like WIX or WordPress. But that only scratches the surface.

Another thing to consider is how is the "fashion" of websites moving? If you're site looks outdated it could cause possible customers to look elsewhere, so making sure your staying sleek and fresh can ensure you are keeping people looking to your business. You also have to consider how search engines are ranking and indexing your site. The landscape of search engine optimization, or SEO, is constantly moving and if you want to be on top of search results you need to make sure your keywords and backlinks are up to date.

While it may seem like a lot, whether you do it yourself or have someone do it for you, keeping your site up-to-date can pay you back dividends of ensuring people continue to find and utilize your business. After all, they say if your not on the first page of Google, you might as well not be on Google at all.