Why Website Maintenance is Important

A well-maintained website ensures that it continues to operate smoothly, is easy for visitors to find the information they are looking for, and is easy for you to and, edit, and update content.

It is important to routinely check that contact forms work, address and phone number listings are updated and other relevant content is current and correct.

First Impressions

Your website is a public reflection of your company image. A poorly maintained website with lots of errors, broken links, dead pages and outdated information makes a poor first impression and can negatively impact the your effectiveness of your website.. Routinely examine the look and feel of your website and update it to match your corporate image. Check and fix broken links, poor grammar and spelling mistakes as quickly as possible.

CMS Maintenance

Just like a car needs maintenance your CMS needs regular maintenance. This includes updating the CMS and any plugins in use to ensure that your site is properly secure and up to date.

Other types of maintenance involves keeping up with technology changes when necessary. This can mean ensuring that any changes to Googles recommendations do not negatively impact your sites SEO ranking or ensuring that your website content is easily sharable on facebook, twitter or other social media. A new minor feature to be added on the product information page or on your blog could also fit under regular maintenance.

Maintenance Steps

1. Double check spelling, links, punctuation  when publishing content
2. Fresh content - regularly update your existing content and publish new content. Ensure all content is relevant and up to date. I recommend annually having content review and pruning any content that is dated or no longer relevent.
3. Speed Test -  us Google Page Speed Insights to check your page score. If you're site has a score lower than 90%, follow the optimization instructions to improve your score. This is important because page speed is a SEO ranking factor.
4. Quarterly update your CMS and Plugins. Do not let your CMS get which will increase your risk of hacking and data loss.
   
5. Every 3-5 years consider a design refresh. Use this opportunity to re-organize your site structure and perform a content audit. An outdated design suggests outdated content. Visitors engage more with fresh content and a modern appearance.