Wait, wait, wait. I know what you are thinking.
I have a website. It works great. Why do I need to invest more money into it, a service I don’t even fully understand, nor does something that I can immediately see for myself?
It’s ok. A lot of people don’t understand why regular website maintenance is such an essential part of a good SEO or even other Digital Marketing Strategies.
This article will help you clarify why we believe that web maintenance is vital, and, of course, what exactly one gets when they choose to hand the keys to their website to a trusted website maintenance service provider.
While your website is down or malfunctioning, people will start leaving your website and go to your competitors
#1: Plugin updates
There are only two absolute truths on the Internet: it’s an ever-changing environment and it’s an ever-breaking environment.
WordPress is notoriously reliant on plugins for a plethora of features, from setting up multi-language websites to even building the entire website using a visual builder such as Divi.
These plugins are prone to updates, changes and edits from their respective developers, and whenever a new version of a plugin is pushed out, it needs to be updated by the website’s owner manually.
Of course, you can survive using old versions of the plugins, but these pose a risk to the function and the safety of your website.
Hackers (more explained below) can actually use old plugins to break into your website. Also, old things tend to work poorly on the Internet. In turn, a malfunctioning website will ruin the user experience and ensure your potential customers will leave to never come back.
Of course, that can be prevented with website support: the right service will update everything regularly for you and ensure there are no conflicting pieces between plugins.
Takeaway: website maintenance keeps your website in a healthy spot
#2: Prevent security breaches
Hacking is a sport. But also one of the worst things that can happen to digital marketers, in this day and age.
There are almost no limits to what a hacker can do once they get their dirty little hands on your website. Deface it, link it to adult content – legal or not -, destroy it bit by bit, steal customer data…
Part of website maintenance is hack prevention, and that is done through the implementation of regular website updates and, of course, frequent password changes. Add in the fact that you may even receive a new, more secure server to store your website on, depending on the service, and the pattern here is quite simple:
Takeaway: website maintenance prevents hackers.
#3: Keep copies of your website
What if a tiny little change a junior dev makes obliterates your website? Maybe it was an honest attempt to create new functionality… Like a calculator of some sort.
I myself have broken more websites than fix them, while I was learning how to code. I regularly break things, but I am not particularly concerned about it, because I know that what I have is regularly backed up.
So, instead of having to recreate an entire website every time, I simply load up the last copy a web maintenance service saves for me, and here I go breaking it again.
Takeaway: website maintenance keeps your website safe from accidents
#4: Keep it growing with SEO
One of the worst things a poorly updated website can do for you is slow down.
Yes, that is right: just like a horse, websites get a lot slower as they age. The mix of updates and software/browser changes make sure that websites from 10 years ago simply drown under the weight of brand new, powerful websites.
In the world of SEO, this is bad.
Trying to compete while having an old website is like bringing a Multipla car to an F1 race.
First of all, why would you even get a Multipla? Second, you may even be a skilled driver, but you can’t compete with faster cars.
And finally, there’s no chance they’d even let you on the race track while you are sporting a Multipla.
Slow websites may even have the best content in the world, but they are inevitably ending at the bottom of search results. Often, poorly updated plugins are the culprit of this event.
Therefore, you should now see why regular website maintenance is so important for effective SEO.
Takeaway: Website maintenance keeps your website fast (or even speeds it up!
#5: Improve your website’s relevancy
Although this only happens once a year, web maintenance is in charge of changing and updating time-sensitive content such as news pieces and dates.
Irrelevant content is another awful sign of bad SEO strategies. Now that we are in 2022, you wouldn’t read a “Digital Marketing trends for 2015”, right?
You would, however, read something like “Digital Marketing trends for 2022”, which is a piece we have written knowing it is inevitably going to be outdated.
Because I have included dates, this whole section I have written above, actually, will eventually need an update. In 2023, our content team will have to come back to it and change all the dates to the current year, and replace the hyperlink with the most recent piece we have written.
This was just to tell you how time-sensitive content often is. And remember that outdated content scores poorly for SEO, and it won’t gain any traffic.
Regular website maintenance is therefore essential to remove pieces that no longer gain any traffic – remember that every piece you publish will impact your SEO scores, both positively and negatively.
Thus, Google categorises dead content negatively in terms of your website’s relevance to users’ search results. What a big sentence, let me shrink it down for you:
Dead or irrelevant content = bad SEO and user experience.
Takeaway: Website maintenance removes outdated content
#6: Website maintenance makes people happy
Can we legally say that web maintenance is the key to great mental health?
No, we can’t. But we will do it anyway.
Ok, yes. That is definitely a bit of a stretch.
Unfortunately, our website maintenance service does not cover therapy sessions, but we have seen, time and time again, how website insurance really takes a toll off your shoulders.
When websites break, it is a stressful experience, especially if you are not sure what to do.
However, website insurance allows you to concentrate on all other areas of your business, improving productivity and morale, since you know that you don’t have to deal with all the annoying bugs, glitches and breaks anymore.
In a way, the boost in productivity and morale is enough to justify its cost, and as a result of this, website maintenance is effectively a service that pays for itself.
Takeaway: Website maintenance will change your life entirely.
#7: Save money
At the end of the day, gaining or saving money is what every single service in the Digital Marketing Industry is about. Web maintenance is no different.
As we mentioned early in this article, website maintenance is like car insurance for your website.
Once again, imagine your digital space as a car: things regularly break and get damaged, and the older your car is, the more often you’ll need insurance to cover the costs.
Now, would you rather spend an awful lot of money every single time a tiny thing breaks, or would you rather pay a flat fee that is less than what you’d pay without insurance, and this service even fixes everything in your damaged car for you?
You don’t see cars going around without insurance, and in the same way, you shouldn’t have an uninsured website.
Takeaway: Website Maintenance saves you money
#8: Fast track for repairs
People don’t account for the time it takes to repair a product. It’s easy to say “I’ll fix it”, but between saying it and actually doing it, there is a lot of time that passes.
The time you may often not have, especially if your business relies on your website for lead generation and sales (such as in the case of eCommerce).
While your website is down or malfunctioning, people will start leaving your website and go to your competitors, giving them an unfair advantage that you could have prevented by ensuring your website with a service provider, which will immediately help you should a bug or a game-breaking error surface to make your day slightly worse.
Takeaway: Website maintenance allows you to improve your efficiency.
Conclusion
The bigger your website is, the more you need a trusted website support service.
Just like a machine, a website with multiple pages and a ton of traffic is prone to breaking apart on a whim, and it can be costly to deal with all of these issues.
As we keep stressing, website maintenance is website insurance. The more you rely on your website for your business, the more you need insurance.
topflight Agency has an award-winning website maintenance service that will help you deal with each and every issue, hack and struggle.
Our cost-effective plans will allow you to tap into the expertise of your own dedicated team, which will assure you that your online image is in safe hands.
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