If you have had a website built for your business, then the likelihood of discussing an ongoing website maintenance package for your website is high. If you haven’t discussed ongoing maintenance following the build of your website, then this is something you probably should be asking your website designer about.
Here at Social+, we build, design and maintain WordPress websites. But no matter which platform your website’s built on, there will be maintenance needed as time goes on.
But why is important to have plans in place for maintenance following your initial website build? Think of your website like your car, if you don’t maintain it, it could break down!
Website Maintenance keeps your site running as fast as it should be.
Research into website speed has shown that 70% of consumers are put off by a company whose website load time is slow. So that is 70% of potential clients or customers who would go and use a competitor’s service. All because your website load time is too slow. Outdated plugins on your website can make the load time slower than it should be. With website maintenance, there should be an expectation that one of the basic tasks that carried out is plugin updates. Following plugin updates should always be functionality checks. This should be performed monthly although here at Social+, this is a task that we would carry out weekly.
With outdated plugins comes security vulnerabilities
Plugin updates often contact security patches and updates which make your website stronger and protected against cyber attacks. Most websites store cookies. If you also collect customer data, security vulnerabilities put your company at risk of GDPR breaches.
Improves the visitor experience
There is no greater frustration than thinking you have found the product/service/information that you have been looking for. Only to be met with dead links and slow page loading times. If this is your website, then you are not only hurting your visitor experience but also potentially your business reputation too. Website visitors are way more likely to stay on your web pages, make enquiries about your business or potentially make a purchase if they’re met with a website which is clear, concise and contains up-to-date information about the service they are looking for.
Boost your site traffic
Every time your website is searched and indexed by search engines they report new content, new links and new information. If search engines find new content on your website on every crawl, they are more likely to crawl regularly. Everytime they crawl and find new content they re-index your website. The more content and keywords that your website is indexed for, the more likely you are to appear in search results. Thus boosting your site traffic.
Running an eCommerce site?
Ideally, when you have had your website built, the designer will have walked you through processes. Process like adding new products as you refresh your stock. This does not always happen though and what happens when seasons change and with it so does your stock? Good website maintenance should have a clause in place which allows new products to be added. And old products to be archived.
Monitoring and tracking your website analytics?
Google Analytics is an incredible tool. It is great for looking to see how many visitors your website gets in a month. As well as tracking their progress throughout the website and where it is they came from. But to an untrained eye, it can be hard to interpret the data. Website Maintenance from Social+ always includes a monthly report from experts who are certified in the interpretation of Google Analytics. Our reports pick out the important bits of information that our clients want to know. Without overloading you with jargon and parts irrelevant to your website or business goals. Reports from Social+ include a rundown on what has worked well on your site and what could be improved. As well as recommendations for future-proofing your site.
That all sounds easy enough right?
Some of us are tech-savvy. So for these people, it’s not all that daunting to log into the website at the back end and make all of the changes that you need to do. But it can be time-consuming. If it’s not part of your day-to-day it’s easy to forget about until something goes wrong. By that time you may need the help of a professional. Which is going to take even more of your time explaining the issues and then money to pay for solutions. Having a website maintenance package in place ensures that website functionality issues are taken care of before they become a problem and should be included in the price you pay.
For those who are not at all tech-savvy, it is just peace of mind. Knowing that someone else is watching over your website for you. So that you can get back to working without a technological headache.
If you would like to know more about the website maintenance and enhanced SEO packages offered by Social+, just get in touch by emailing hello@social-plus.media, calling 0191 466 1550 or by messaging us on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn
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