Did you know that not maintaining your website is the equivalent of not doing the regular maintenance on your vehicle?
Let’s see for a minute what can happen if you don’t maintain your vehicle:
- You think you’re saving money
- It works, it takes you from A to B, why should you bother?
- There’s no apparent issue at the beginning but the inside is wearing out
- It can eventually affect your safety and the safety of others on the road but you don’t know as no professional mechanic looked at it recently
- Not replacing small broken parts such as a turning indicator or a mirror can also show negligence on your part
- If it’s a company vehicle, it can affect the image of the company negatively
- Eventually, the day is breaks down, the repair cost will most likely be greater than the regular maintenance cost
Your website is like your vehicle, it requires regular maintenance to serve you well on the long term.
You’ve invested a certain amount of money into your website and as any other investment, it is preferable if it serves you well on the long term.
Once your website is “live”, it requires a minimum of maintenance to ensure it performs well and helps you tell the world how wonderful you are.
I’m certain you’ve come across websites that had a missing photo, replaced by a small question mark or a Paypal button that didn’t do anything when clicked.
How did that make you feel?
I bet you weren’t impressed by it and it affected your perception of the individual or company represented by this website.
What is the minimum maintenance that should be performed monthly?
Here are some basic maintenance tasks I would recommend to be performed monthly to ensure the correct functioning of your website:
- Backup the database and the website files
- Update the theme (if you’re using a platform such as WordPress, Joomla…)
- Update plugins
- Update platform version
- Check for potential obsolete plugins
- Check general navigation
- Scan security issues + fix them
I reckon that the basic steps above-mentioned should help your website run smoothly and increase protection from hackers attacks and other malwares.
Also, apart from the technical aspect, your website content should be updated on a regular basis to keep bringing value to your audience. This is one of the key components of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) but this topic is better covered in my other post “What is SEO?”.
How much does it cost to maintain my website?
Great question. It depends on how many pages, features, and the general size of your website.
In general, the above-mentioned steps can be performed relatively the same way whether the website includes 10 pages or 40 pages.
I’ve created 3 monthly website maintenance plans, “Silver”, “Gold” and “Platinum” with add-ons to provide flexibility and peace of mind to my clients.
Each plan includes the minimum maintenance. The “Gold” and “Platinum” top it up by offering great features like content updates and Google Analytics reports with recommendations to improve your website.
CONTACT ME TODAY to find out more about these plans and how I can help your website serve you well on the long term!
