Your website is the face of your business online, and just like any physical asset, it requires regular care and maintenance to stay in top shape. Neglecting your website can lead to performance issues, security risks, and even a drop in search engine rankings. In this post, we’ll explore why website maintenance is so important and provide a simple, actionable checklist to keep your site running smoothly.
Why Website Maintenance Is Important
Maintaining your website is about more than just keeping it looking fresh. Here are some key reasons why regular maintenance is essential:
1. Security
One of the biggest reasons to maintain your website regularly is to keep it secure. Hackers are constantly evolving, and outdated software or plugins are a common vulnerability. Regular maintenance ensures your site’s core software, themes, and plugins are updated to protect against security threats.
Our recommendation for WordPress website security is WordFence, with a free plan available to help look after your website.
2. Performance
A slow or glitchy website can turn away visitors in seconds. Maintaining your website helps keep it performing well by optimising load times, reducing errors, and ensuring everything functions as intended. A faster, error-free website provides a better user experience and can improve your search engine rankings.
Our recommendation to check your websites performance is Google PageSpeed Insights, which gives you actionable insights on where your website currently stands, and how to improve it.
3. SEO
Search engines prefer sites that are fast, secure, and frequently updated. Regular maintenance can help improve your site’s SEO by keeping it technically optimised, ensuring search engines can easily crawl and index your pages, and preventing broken links or 404 errors.
Screaming Frog is a great tool to run audits on smaller websites for free. For larger websites, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
4. User Experience
Your website should be easy to navigate, visually appealing, and functional on all devices. Regular maintenance ensures that the user experience remains seamless, which helps keep visitors on your site longer, reduces bounce rates, and increases the chances of conversions.
5. Brand Reputation
A poorly maintained website with outdated content, broken links, or security issues reflects poorly on your brand. Consistent upkeep keeps your site looking professional and shows customers that you’re serious about your business.
Website Maintenance Checklist
Now that you understand why maintenance is important, let’s look at a checklist of tasks to keep your website in top shape. You don’t need to be a tech expert to manage most of these tasks, and many can be scheduled monthly, quarterly, or annually.
1. Backup Your Website Regularly
Backups ensure that if something goes wrong, you can restore your website to a previous version. Most web hosts offer automatic backups, but it’s always good to double-check.
- Frequency: Weekly (or before any major update)
- How to Do It: Use a plugin like UpdraftPlus for WordPress, or check your web host’s backup options.
2. Update Plugins, Themes, and Software
Outdated plugins and themes are prime targets for hackers. Keep everything updated to ensure security and compatibility.
- Frequency: Monthly
- How to Do It: Log in to your content management system (e.g., WordPress) and check for updates on the dashboard.
3. Check for Broken Links
Broken links lead to a frustrating user experience and can hurt your SEO. Regularly checking for and fixing broken links keeps your site looking professional.
- Frequency: Monthly
- How to Do It: Use tools like Broken Link Checker or Screaming Frog SEO Spider.
4. Run Speed Tests
A slow-loading website can drive away visitors. Regularly test your site speed and fix any issues that may arise.
- Frequency: Quarterly
- How to Do It: Use Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to test your website speed.
5. Test Forms and Checkout Processes
If your website has contact forms, lead generation forms, or an e-commerce checkout, make sure these are working correctly. A broken form can mean missed leads or sales.
- Frequency: Monthly
- How to Do It: Manually test each form and the checkout process or use a testing tool if available.
6. Review Your Analytics
Monitoring your website analytics helps you understand your traffic patterns, user behavior, and conversion rates. Regularly reviewing this data allows you to spot any unusual trends or drops in performance.
- Frequency: Monthly
- How to Do It: Log in to Google Analytics, review traffic trends, and set up alerts for any significant changes.
7. Update Content and Check SEO
Outdated content can hurt your credibility and search rankings. Regularly updating content to keep it relevant and improving on-page SEO can attract more visitors.
- Frequency: Quarterly
- How to Do It: Update blog posts, refresh images, and add new keywords as appropriate. Tools like Yoast SEO can help with SEO improvements.
8. Run Security Scans
A security scan checks for any malware, vulnerabilities, or suspicious activity on your website.
- Frequency: Monthly
- How to Do It: Use tools like Sucuri or Wordfence for WordPress to scan your site for security threats.
9. Check for Mobile Responsiveness
With a large portion of traffic coming from mobile devices, ensure your website is mobile-friendly. A responsive design enhances user experience and can improve SEO.
- Frequency: Quarterly
- How to Do It: Test your website on different devices.
Final Thoughts
Regular website maintenance might seem overwhelming at first, but following this checklist can make it manageable. If you keep your site secure, up-to-date, and user-friendly, it’ll help you build trust, rank higher in search results, and retain customers.
Remember, a well-maintained website is an investment in your business’s online presence and brand reputation. Set a schedule for these tasks, and your site will stay in top shape to serve your customers.
If you need help with any of these maintenance tasks, Veon Media offers comprehensive website care services to keep your site running smoothly. Get in touch, and let’s ensure your website stays in great shape all year round!
