Why you NEED a maintenance plan for your website
Think about your car. You wouldn’t drive it for years without ever taking it in for a tune-up, would you? OF COURSE NOT! Well, the same goes for your website. Just because you built and launched, it doesn’t mean you can forget about it.
If you’re like most small business owners, you are constantly juggling a million things at once. Between managing your team, keeping up with customer demand, and overseeing day-to-day operations, it can be tough to find the time to focus on your website. But just because you’re busy doesn’t mean you can neglect your online presence. A well-maintained website is more important than ever in today’s competitive market. That’s why it’s essential to have a maintenance plan for your website. Here are 10 reasons why:
1.To protect yourself from hackers and cyber-attacks
cyber security is an issue many businesses struggle with. Hackers are always looking for new vulnerabilities to exploit, so it’s important to stay ahead of the game because if your site falls prey, it could lead your company to ruin. With the ever-growing cyber-attacks, it is more important than ever to have a reliable online presence. Your site needs content security and privacy protection from prying eyes and ears so that you can continue running your business without worrying about what’s happening behind closed doors with visitors who enter through its front door!
To protect yourself from these cyber-attacks on-site visitors (web surfers), there needs to be a regular maintenance plan in place so updates don’t get neglected over time.
2. For Website Backup
So you’ve got a website, and it’s running smoothly. But what about when the power goes out? Or someone decides to take advantage of your vulnerabilities by hackers who want access for themselves. You need an emergency plan so these people can’t cause too much damage on site. The best way to keep your website up and running smoothly is with regular backups. You should have one set of backup files for every primary site you own, which means having many smaller ones so they can be restored quickly in case something happens on any given day or weeknight without warning. That is why we offer policies and services designed specifically for small businesses to ensure that you have coverage no matter what happens.
3. You might break something
We all know how frustrating it is when something breaks on our website. Usually, business owners play around after they’ve got access to their website, which is understandable since one needs to get familiar with how it works and how to upload content or product on their website. Most of the time, they accidentally make changes to the layout when you didn’t mean to or even delete something which isn’t supposed to be deleted, like a plugin or a theme.
Also, the web is constantly changing every day, making a regular update of all content on your site and maintaining its appearance with fresh graphics or information that reflects changes within company guidelines (like newly released products). In order not to be left outdated by these developments. It’s better to spend time building and growing your business than sifting through your website to figure out what went wrong. With our flexible maintenance plan options like monthly packages, there’s no reason not to subscribe to our maintenance plan, especially since all this comes at affordable rates too.
4. Beneficial for SEO
Your site maintenance plan will benefit search engine optimization (SEO). A well-designed website is a key component of successful web design. When it comes time to update or redesign your online presence, you want the process of building out new pages and updating existing ones not only to look easy but also to produce content that ranks higher with Google’s algorithm than before and also a correctly maintained site is a key part of building awareness and improving your online presence, which will lead to more visibility for both yourself as well as potential clients/customers looking up information on the web.
5. Performance Updates
Your website needs to be fast and responsive if you want visitors to stick around; according to Google, if your site takes longer than three seconds to load, 53% of mobile users will abandon it. Performance updates help keep your site running smoothly by optimizing its code and eliminating unnecessary bloat. These updates are especially important if you have an eCommerce site; even a slight slowdown can cause shoppers to abandon their carts and take their business elsewhere.
6. Software Updates
Your website is ever changing. Even if you don’t make website changes yourself, the tech behind the scenes will need to be monitored and kept up-to-date. Most websites have additional plugins or themes that have new releases all the time. You NEED to stay on top of these to keep your site running smoothly.
Content management systems like WordPress should also be kept on the latest versions too to prevent any potential issues.
Trying to manage all these updates yourself can be a tedious and time-consuming task, especially if you’re not a techie.
With all these updates you have to do, it’s not uncommon that something can go wrong. Plugins can stop working or they’ll stop playing nicely with other plugins. In the meantime, your website might not be working properly.
When you have a maintenance plan, these updates are done for you so you don’t have to worry. They’ll be kept up-to-date and if something goes wrong during an update, it will be fixed and your website will be back to normal in no time at all.
7. Ad hoc website amendments
Besides support and guidance, you might need someone to work on your website regularly. This could include creating new pages, adding images and text, and making structural changes.
You can try this yourself if you like, but if you have better things to do and you have the budget, you can pay for a maintenance plan that includes a certain amount of development hours per month. If this is something you think you’ll need, I advise starting with 1-2 hrs per month and going from there.
8. Save money on hosting and domain renewals
Hosting is like renting space on the internet, every website needs it and you have to pay annual fees to keep your website and domain name live.
Normally, this would cost you anything between $80–$500 per year depending on who you choose.
Some web agencies include these fees within their monthly maintenance plan so you don’t get a surprise invoice every year.
This is exactly what we do with our clients and they save between $100–$150 per year on hosting fees. A nice little bonus at no extra cost.
9. Additional support and questions you might have
If you’re a forward-thinking business owner, you’ll be learning about new ways to promote and market your business online such as social media, SEO and content marketing. You might have lots of questions and want some advice on how to use these tools to your advantage.
Some maintenance plans include email support and/or phone support as part of their package. This means if you have any nagging questions or need some extra guidance you’ll always have someone on hand to help.
The level of support you need will determine how much the maintenance plan will cost each month. For instance, we have some clients who pay hundreds of pounds per month for regular online coaching sessions as part of their support plan.
10. Peace of mind
It’s Not Maintenance… It’s Peace Of Mind. You’re in safe hands. Managing a website can be very time-consuming, especially if something goes wrong. It’s nice to know someone is there taking care of your website behind the scenes. Even if they’re simply keeping track of the basics. Having an extra pair of eyes look over your website will help you sleep easier at night.
Summary
A website maintenance plan is a critical part of keeping your website running smoothly and protecting you from costly repairs or security breaches. As with anything else in life, regular maintenance is key to keeping your website functioning at its best. I get it. You’ve spent thousands on a new website, and you don’t want to spend more each month. By investing in a website maintenance plan, you can ensure that your site stays up-to-date, runs smoothly, and looks great. Not only will this keep your visitors happy and returning for more, but it will also help protect your original investment.
Over to you
You have to decide whether you want to spend the time doing this or pay for a maintenance plan. Either way, you’ll have to take some action, or you run the risk of damaging or even losing your website. At our company, we offer comprehensive website maintenance plans that include regular updates, backups, and monitoring to help you keep your website functioning at its best. Contact us today to learn more about our maintenance plans and how we can help you protect your online presence.
