What is Website Maintenance?
Website maintenance is all the work that goes into making sure your website runs smoothly. It’s all about making sure your website is always safe, up to date, and running as it should, so users can get the same experience on all your platforms and devices. It can include things like general upkeep, security, designing and updating code, consulting, and training.
Why Do We Need Website Maintenance?
Your website is like your car. It takes you where you want to go, when you want to go there. On the motorway, on the country roads or in the hustle and bustle of city centres. But what happens if you don’t give it any oil, water or petrol? You don’t even give it MOT’d or even the tyres a tune-up? It won’t take you very far, won’t keep you safe and won’t perform at its best. The same is true of today’s websites. They’re built with tools and features that are constantly changing and evolving. Businesses want and need constant content updates to keep their information fresh and relevant and to optimise relevant traffic and enquiries. To do this, your website needs to work properly and at all times.
What happens if we don’t have a solution for website maintenance?
It’s sickening how many times we’ve heard horror stories from businesses who have launched their websites but don’t bother to maintain them. Either their web agency doesn’t offer website maintenance or they’ve simply tried to save money and gone without. Over the years, we’ve taken countless calls from businesses who tell us something’s wrong with their site and ask us if we can help.
On one hand, it might be a simple problem, maybe they just need an update or renewal on their CMS plug-in. On the other hand, it might not be a simple problem at all. The site missed a critical security update and was hit by a cyber attack, which caused the site to break down and leave the business severely compromised with no back up and error recovery. This may sound like a horror story, but we can assure you that it was real and very scary for the companies who had to deal with it.
Whether you’re thinking about launching a new site, in the middle of building one, or you’ve already got one up and running, ask yourself this question: ‘What are your plans for keeping your site up to date and safe?’ If you haven’t already, consider setting up a dedicated site maintenance team. The stakes are simply too high not to.