Any company that has a website as an important part of their business needs to know how to maintain it. Not only does regular maintenance mean you will have the most up to date content, it also means your site will be safe and efficient. We will give you our tips to create a thoroughly useful and effective website maintenance plan.
Consistent Website Maintenance
At a very, very minimum you should check and update your WordPress website once a year. We would say do it every 3 months to ensure everything is safe and sound. Everything should be updated and all aspects checked. Your maintenance may find broken links, content errors, typos etc. Viewing the site as a normal user is often the best option at this stage. If you find the experience poor then so will your clients.
Responsiveness
Check your site is still compatible with current browsers. Check your website on all popular browsers on current devices. This should be done every 6 months or so to ensure all is well.
Check Your Points Of Contact
If someone wants to write to you and your forms aren’t working, then there’s a potential client gone. Check every form, button and check out if you have an e-commerce site. Ensure that all errors are present if people input the wrong information etc. This process should be part of your quarterly review.
Backups
Look at your backups to be sure they are as recent as possible. Website content changes quite a lot and so backups should be made quarterly to be safe. Losing all the work you put into your website could be devastating to a business. Regular backups will keep you safe, should the worst happen.
Analytics As Website Maintenance
Using analytics and checking your KPI’s means you can see issues with your website early on before they spread into something bigger. Check your SEO rankings, look at reports, these will all give you an idea of where any issues in your site may be cropping up from. Not only will this mean your site will be safe, but it will perform better and rank higher.
Monthly Security Checks
Using security software is a must to keep your website safe from brute force attacks and other people trying to damage or access your site. Ensure your CMS and connected applications are up to date with all bugs fixed as quickly as possible. We would recommend having applications update automatically, but regular checks will ensure that no update slips through the cracks.
Copyright Notices
Update these at the start of each year. This shows that all content on your website is yours and is protected by copyright laws.
Legal Disclaimers
Make sure your privacy policy and other legal documents on your website are up to date and present on all websites.
Website Maintenance Conclusion
Regular website maintenance is a must for everyone who manages a site. Without, not only will your content become dated but your very site itself could be put at risk.
If you are looking a Meath web design company, then get in touch with us today!