If you have a business, maintaining your website throughout the year is key to ensuring that your site is complimenting your business strategy. You may be wondering if you should outsource website maintenance or whether you can keep on top of this in-house. It is of course an added expense if you choose to outsource, which is something that especially smaller businesses or businesses who are just starting out should consider. Below, we’ll run you through our list of reasons why regular website maintenance is so important.
First impressions
Your website is the digital face of any brand or business. Alongside social media platforms, it’s one of the first places visitors will come to get information about your company. Regular website maintenance is important here, as when you keep your site updated with fresh, new content, you in turn can attract potential new customers by driving new traffic to your site. If your website is looking like it is in desperate need of some TLC or it isn’t working properly, customers aren’t going to stay on your site. A poorly maintained website looks unprofessional and will reflect badly on your business.
Grow sales
For your existing clients and customers, keeping your site up to date with original and new content is crucial to retaining them. If the information you’re providing on your website looks like it’s outdated, customers may be inclined to look to your competitor’s site for what they need. If you don’t want to be missing out on potential sales, website maintenance is crucial here as it helps keep your website running smoothly 24/7.
Improve security
As technology advances, hackers are becoming increasingly clever at identifying vulnerabilities in code on websites and have no hesitations taking advantage of this. By staying on top of website maintenance, you can keep all of your software and plug-ins updated. In Australia, cyberattacks are costing the economy $1 billion AUD a year. In the US, cyberattacks cost companies $15.4 million USD per year and repairing the resulting damage is often costly, not to mention the fallout with regards to your relationships with customers. If their personal information has been compromised, they may no longer trust you with their data.
Boost SEO strategy
If you’re keen to boost your search engine rankings, what do you need to do? You guessed it! Website maintenance is important for this reason because when you update your website with different, regular content, your website’s rankings will improve and therefore encourage new visitors to your site. That’s partly because search engine algorithms love being fed fresh, new content – they can’t sustain themselves on the content they’ve already consumed! So if you’re updating your website regularly like a pro, you’re just giving search engines like Google even more of a reason to rank you higher. Make sure you’re using appropriate keywords and that your website updates are relevant, as well as being optimised for search engines.
Encourages site backups
If you’ve ever had a lost or stolen phone, you will know how important it is to have all of your information backed up. There’s nothing worse than trying to replace a device, only to realise that you don’t have access to a most recent backup of all of your data. Think about how much more frustrating this would be for a website. If your site needs to be rebuilt or reinstated, you’ll hopefully be working from a backup. White Label Website Maintenance is paramount here as it means that you can avoid costly fees and the time-consuming task of rebuilding the website from scratch. You might have to pay a fee if your backup is being kept on a hosting platform, but that’s preferential compared to going back to square one.
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