Website Maintenance: Everything You Need To Know

You've dedicated a ton of time and resources to crafting your website, and now it's crucial to protect that investment. Website maintenance is the unsung hero of your business's online success. Hey, I'm Kylie and today we're diving into the world of website maintenance. I know it might not sound like the most thrilling topic, but trust me, by the end of this video, you'll see why it's so important. To start, you'll need to create your website. So if you haven't done that yet, you can build one pretty quickly on a website builder like wix. Just click the link right here to get started. With wix, you'll be setting yourself up for success. Since all of your website maintenance can be done right from your dashboard, this makes it super easy to edit and optimize your site at any time in real time. Okay, enough about building your website. Let's talk about maintaining it. Just like with a garden, if you don't water it, it won't grow. Same with your site, if you don't maintain it, it won't thrive. Your site needs regular care and attention to keep things updated, running smoothly and optimized for conversions. To put it bluntly, from the second someone lands on your website, they're forming opinions about your business. Opinions that could make or break you, acquiring them as a customer. A glitchy or outdated website can cast doubt on your credibility and reliability. On the flip side, an up to date, polished and well maintained site exudes professionalism and trustworthiness. It shows you care about your business and your customer experience. So let's jump in. First, let's clarify the basics. Website maintenance is the practice of monitoring and fine tuning your website to keep it at its optimal performance. There are several key areas to keep tabs on when maintaining your website, including updating security software and plugins, adding fresh content, bringing in new traffic, and meeting and exceeding the satisfaction of your site visitors. Creating a maintenance calendar can help you organize your tasks into bite sized pieces so nothing gets overlooked. Some tasks will be weekly, some monthly, and others less frequently, like quarterly or biannually. To help you get started, we've put together this complete guide on website maintenance and why it's crucial if you want to get the most out of your site and your business. Step one Security Trust is hard won but easily lost on the Internet and a compromised website can be a major red flag for potential customers. Cyber threats are always evolving and keeping your website secure is an ongoing task. That's why ensuring that you have password security two step authentication and an SSL certification are really good places to start. Managing all this can be overwhelming, so WIX has it built in to every site. Plus, Wix's web hosting not only keeps your data protected with 24. 7 security monitoring as well as HTTPs, SSL and DDoS protection, but it also hosts your website on a global content delivery network, a cdn, so your site loads faster no matter where your visitors are browsing from Backups There are two types of people, those who create backups and those who have never lost all their data. Imagine putting all that hard work into your website only to see it disappear in a digital puff of smoke. You'd be surprised how many ways there are to lose everything. By periodically saving your website's data and design, or making sure that your platform has some sort of restore or site history option, you're ensuring that even if the worst case scenario unfolds, you can restore your site to its former glory. Performance Tracking Slow loading pages or hiccups in functionality can drive users away faster than you can say bounce rate, so keeping an eye on your website's performance is crucial to ensure your visitors have a smooth, stress free experience. This process involves monitoring page load times as well as website uptime and then introducing changes to the website to improve performance. With wix, you have access to tons of helpful tools with performance tracking through the Analytics Dashboard. Regularly monitoring your website's speed, responsiveness and overall user experience helps you identify and address any bottlenecks or issues that may be affecting your site's performance. By doing so, you not only keep visitors happy, but also potentially improve your search engine rankings, as performance is a factor that search engines consider. Content Moderation Content moderation is the practice of continually evaluating and enhancing the quality and relevance of your website's content, and it's a fundamental part of website maintenance. You'll want to consistently and strategically breathe new life into your site by adding fresh pages, revamping existing ones, and publishing blog posts or articles through a blog maker that's integrated with your site. With thousands of design features as well as built in SEO and marketing tools, WIX gives you all the tools you need to not only set up your blog, but also optimize it. Through proper maintenance, you can adjust the frequency of these content updates based on the nature and purpose of your website. Whether you're running a news outlet, an E commerce platform, or a personal blog, content moderation ensures that your digital presence remains not just relevant, but captivating to your audience. Step 5 Repairing broken links these are annoying, pesky and can lead visitors to dead ends, causing them to abandon your website in frustration. Moreover, they're detrimental to your search engine rankings. Luckily, website building platforms like WIX simplify the task of identifying and fixing these broken links. By routinely checking your website for 404 error pages, Wix helps you swiftly identify and correct any outdated or misdirected links. This not only ensures a seamless user experience, but it also demonstrates your commitment to maintaining an up to date and relevant site. Step 6 SEO strategy search engines continually crawl and index websites and they favor those that are regularly updated. So ask yourself Are all my meta titles and descriptions as SEO effective as possible? Are my blogs keyword rich and attracting traffic from my target group is my site's internal linking strategy optimizing user experience and SEO rankings This ensures that your website remains in the good graces of search engines, contributing to higher rankings and increased organic traffic. Website maintenance is a crucial aspect of ensuring your digital presence remains effective and efficient. But how often do you need to be tidying up your site? The answer largely depends on the nature of your site, its complexity and its intended purpose. Here's a breakdown of what to do to keep your site in tip Top Shape A weekly maintenance check is like a health checkup for your website. Using tools like Google Analytics, you can track your website's performance, including traffic and user behavior. By understanding where your site visitors come from and how they engage with you, you can make data driven decisions to enhance your website's effectiveness on a monthly basis. Focus on security, updates and performance. Ensure your online platforms are secure, plugins are up to date and your content is backed up to prevent data loss and fortify against cyber threats. Every three months or quarterly, it's time for a content review. Evaluate your content based on defined goals and metrics like SEO, user behavior, engagement and sales. Ask critical questions about the effectiveness of your meta titles and descriptions, the relevance of your content in terms of both visuals and text. Make necessary tweaks and adjustments to keep your website optimized and once a year, review renewal dates for your domain name, hosting service and any additional tools you use for website maintenance. Pay special attention to your site's header, footer and legal policies to ensure that they are also up to date. If your branding feels a bit out of date or not engaging enough, you can consider a site revamp to breathe some new life into it. And now the big should you hire a professional or maintain your website on your own? If you decide to hire someone, it can free up your time, allowing you to focus on other aspects of your business. They'll also bring a wealth of technical knowledge with them to solve complex issues and maximize results. But it can be expensive and it leaves you relying on external help, which can be limiting if you decide to go the DIY route. That can save you money, give you autonomy over your site, and you'll gain valuable tech skills along the way. The choice between hiring a pro and doing it yourself depends on your skills, time, desire and budget. Fill out your specific needs and capabilities and make an informed decision about the path that works best for you. Well, that's website maintenance in a nutshell. Hopefully you've gained a better understanding on everything you can do to take care of your site. And remember, whatever you put into it, you'll get back in dividends. And for even more info, you can check out our website maintenance blog post by clicking the link right here. If this video was helpful, be sure to give that like button some love and subscribe to our channel for more content like this. And remember, investing in website maintenance will give you results. So roll up your sleeves, put on your tool belt, and let's get to it. Happy Maintaining. Sam.