Important Things You Need to Know About Website Maintenance

Launching a beautifully designed website is just the beginning of your digital journey. What you really need to know about website maintenance is that it’s an ongoing commitment essential for your online success. Far from being a “set it and forget it” asset, your website requires consistent attention to ensure it remains functional, up-to-date, and aligned with your business objectives.

At David Taylor Digital, we believe that a web development firm’s role extends well beyond the initial website launch. To keep your custom site performing optimally, it’s crucial to manage its upkeep. Failure to do so can lead to issues like stale content, broken links, slow loading times, and outdated features, all of which can turn away potential customers.

While handling some maintenance tasks yourself might seem feasible, the complexities involved often make it more efficient to entrust this work to professionals. There are daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly tasks that demand specific technical skills and time—resources you could better allocate to running your business, not your website.

Why Your Website Design Team Should Take Care of Your Website Maintenance?

It saves you money

Keeping your web design team onboard to provide web maintenance services saves money compared to hiring an in-house employee. Professional web design and development companies usually include maintenance in their packages, which costs less than the salary and benefits of a full-time employee. This saved money can go toward growing your business and goals.

In case of emergency

If your website suddenly crashes, that could mean a loss of customers and money for as long as it’s down. If you stick with DIY web maintenance, you may find that certain problems take longer than others. That’s why having a website team on call can help.

They know your website design inside and out, so it won’t take them too long to fix any bugs. Having a functioning website, with limited downtime, means more visitors, loyal customers, visibility, and growth.

Professional expertise

Doing website maintenance yourself means you probably don’t know the latest trends or important updates in web design. That means a lot when showcasing your business online. Luckily, it’s your website design team’s job to know all of these features. Therefore, you can expect the team to keep your website up-to-date with the best functions and usability out there.

Security

Successful web design relies on advanced security. Imagine if your website got hacked and users found that their sensitive information was stolen. Your business would lose credibility and loyal customers.

With a professional team, you can be confident that they provide not only a secure hosting platform, but also keep your site updated with the latest security measures. Security breaches can be prevented with the right team of experts on your side.

Better user experience

It’s no surprise that website maintenance is for your customers. Users will continue coming back to a site that runs great while looking modern and professional. A web design team will work tirelessly to ensure you have the latest in features, updates, and content. This keeps users engaged and happy. A perfectly functional site encourages users to explore, convert, and return.

You can devote more time elsewhere

Employing a website design team for your business to handle we maintenance services means you can focus time and energy on other aspects of your business. While you focus on driving company success, the design team can focus on growing online success, with both sides contributing to overall growth and prosperity.

Website maintenance is just as important as developing a website.

A modern, well-designed site tells visitors that your business is up-to-date and active. To keep it this way, it’s significant to have your website design team handle the upkeep instead of doing it yourself. After all, they already have a relationship with you and your business, so you can trust them to make sure everything online runs smoothly, freeing up your time to do other tasks.

Having a website involves much more than its initial presentation online. WordPress sites need continual updating and scheduled maintenance to make sure they stay in tip-top shape. The ever-evolving nature of technology requires this. Staying up to date on the latest WordPress version gives peace of mind when it comes to eliminating vulnerabilities, outdated technology, and poor user experience.

Website maintenance should stand at the front of your website priorities. After all, so many things can go wrong. You need to understand the importance of updating and checking your website not only for your business but also for your customers.

Let’s discuss some major issues you could run into by not having professionals handle your website maintenance.

Security Breach

Not updating your WordPress site invites trouble from hackers, viruses, and other bad guys. The popularity and open sources of WordPress means anyone can find its code online, making it great for beginners and experts alike to learn. Unfortunately, hackers can also see this code and they love finding holes to exploit. They can steal information, add or delete content, implant malicious viruses, and so much more.

Possible attacks include backdoors, malicious redirects, pharma hacks, and drive-by downloads. These could lead to your site getting blacklisted by your hosting company, which means many headaches and groveling on your end to make things right again. Your site might even come up against a brute force attack, which stems from weak passwords.

Fortunately, the developers at WordPress track all of these issues and help out as fast as they can. That’s why you’ll find so many updates available. It’s all an attempt to protect you.

You could lose everything without a backup

WordPress offers a degree of stability and trust. However, bad things happen occasionally. In the event of a worst-case scenario, like losing all of your site files, backing up your site on a remote server will save you time and money.

Every time you go to update the website, you’ll be prompted to back up your files. You’ll probably be fine most of the time, but if something goes down, having a backup won’t throw you off your game. Sometimes hackers can get in and erase everything, leaving you to start from scratch. Having all of your database and files safely replicated elsewhere is a no-brainer.

Loss of trust from users

Site maintenance allows you to fix any or all bugs that might come up. These affect the user experience greatly. Have you ever been on a site that just doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to? You probably felt frustrated and left, losing respect for the site.

A website that performs poorly, from inactive buttons to broken images, gives a poor impression to users. They might not want to register or subscribe, thinking a faulty website means a faulty business. Maintain your reputation by updating to the newest version of WordPress.

Any bugs that occurred in the past will have been dealt with and fixed. Having an older version may make your site act dysfunctional for no reason.

A slow website

Are you tired of waiting and waiting and waiting for your website to load? Feeling like your Grandma could run a marathon faster? Don’t worry, you are not alone. Many people struggle with the load speed of their website.

More importantly, Google has stated that website load speed is a factor in how your site will rank in the organic search results. So you would rather not start with a mark against you since that could affect your business’ visibility online. You can check out your load speed by using the Google Page Speed Developer Tool.

If you have questions about your results, feel free to reach out to us, and we can walk you through it.

Four Reasons Why Your Website Could Be Running Slow

Image Size

The number one reason your site might be slow is because of the files size of your images. Images are a great way to visually represent your brand and vibe. However, large sliders can be a culprit for slowing down your site’s speed. You need to make sure or check that your file sizes aren’t too large. The images on your site should preferably be between 80kb and 120kb.

WordPress has great plugins that can auto-compress your images, so you don’t even have to worry about it.

Videos

The latest trend in business is to have video animations which describe your business and product/services. The younger generations need to be visually stimulated and get the information quickly, which is why short animations describing your business are great! Click here to read about how video animations can help your business.

As awesome as videos are on your website, they certainly can slow your website down significantly if they are hosted ON your website. The solution: YouTube!

Your video should be hosted on a 3rd party like Vimeo or YouTube, which you can link to the video on your website. YouTube is also the second-largest search engine, and that can help boost your SEO efforts. But the main takeaway here, please host your video on YouTube.

Minify HTML/CSS

Depending upon whom the developer was who built your website, they should minify and compress the CSS files as much as they can. It is important to have an experienced developer put your website together.

Yes, more experience means more money, but eventually, you will be better off and will have fewer headaches.

Content Served with HTTP Compression

This category circles back to the same issue with minifying HTML/CSS. You must have a good developer create the site for you. Would you go into a dark alley to have heart surgery? I hope you said no to that. The same goes for your website.

Don’t go with Joe Shmo’s brother’s sister’s cousin who is in college just learning how to develop a website, so you can save a few thousand. You are going to end up paying an experienced developer to make the corrections down the road anyway, so why not save yourself and do it right the first time?

Not only does a slow website harm the overall user experience, but it also affects search-engine optimization (SEO). Search engines love faster sites—both mobile and desktop—and even give them priority over the rest. In fact, 53% of users abandon a mobile site if it takes 3 or more seconds to load.

People just don’t have the patience to wait, no matter how great the website. For you, that could mean losing many potential customers. Save yourself a world of hurt by keeping your site updated and running at its best speed with great website maintenance.

Theme and plugin problems

WordPress themes make websites look the way they do and go through consistent updating for enhancement. Similarly, WordPress plugins make websites do cool things like offer forms and visual effects. They come from various developers or authors who update them regularly.

However, if you don’t update with them, you’ll be missing out on better features. Plus, if a plugin breaks, it will mess up your whole site and could break entire pages. If they’re not compatible anymore, they’ll stop working while running a security risk.

Updating WordPress but not your themes or plugins could also cause compatibility issues. You will find yourself with mobile-response problems, major vulnerabilities, broken captchas, and much more.

Fortunately, WordPress offers a few different ways for site owners to stay on top of updates.

Here are several ways to update your WordPress site:

• Manual – If you are tech-savvy, you can make the necessary updates yourself. Either through the Updates screen or via File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The latter involves fewer risks of the site breaking compared to the former. But don’t worry, WordPress will let you know when it’s time to update.
• Automatic – Some hosts provide automatic WordPress updating. Every version release, big or small, promises bug fixes and better security. You can choose to have plugins and themes automatically updated, too.
• By a professional – If none of these options work for you, then consider hiring a WordPress professional. A reputable pro can handle anything and everything, including backups, testing, and regular maintenance. This way, you won’t have to worry about making a damaging mistake on your site.

Secure Your Online Success

You’ve made it this far, which means you’re serious about safeguarding your website from the pitfalls that can derail your online presence. The need to know about website maintenance is not just a box to tick off; it’s a strategic investment in your business’s future. Your website is the digital storefront of your brand, and just like a physical location, it requires regular upkeep to ensure it reflects the quality and reliability your customers expect.

Here at David Taylor Digital, we’re committed to helping you achieve that level of excellence. Our comprehensive web maintenance services are designed to keep your site secure, fast, and up-to-date, so you can focus on what you do best—running your business.

Ready to take the next step in securing your online success? Reach out to our expert team today and discover how our tailored maintenance services can elevate your website and drive your business forward.