Why Website Maintenance is Crucial
Keeping your website looking and functioning properly, performing optimally and generating leads and sales for your business should be a priority for you.
Maintenance is Necessary for a Successful Website
Just like with any machine, your website requires up-keep in order to continue to work properly. By having regular oil changes on your car, you avoid parts breaking down and the engine failing. Not doing this would lead to a much larger (and more expensive) service repair to get it up and running again.
The same holds true for your website - regular maintenance helps keep it live and online, running fast and smooth, and continually offering your products and presenting your services in the best way possible.
Websites can’t take care of themselves
If there are problems with your website and customers take notice, they usually won’t stick around. They can grow frustrated that a site is loading slowly, that a contact form may not be working (if they even notice - maybe you're not receiving them), that links are broken and leading nowhere and so on. This obviously translates into a loss of potential revenue and you probably don’t want that. And you surely don’t want your initial investment in creating your website to go to waste.
The Benefits of Website Care and Maintenance
At first glance, many business owners don’t realize the benefits of site maintenance and don’t want to add another monthly expense, but it’s critical to understand its importance.
Page load speed, optimized performance, uptime and downtime monitoring, checking for broken links, keeping all Wordpress software (core files and plugins) up-to-date and functioning as they should, keeping your site as safe as possible from hackers (they’re definitely out there!) and having recent versions of the site backed up in case of catastrophe are all very important and shouldn’t be ignored or overlooked.
Performing these tasks smoothly and error-free, and of course on a regular basis, requires attention by someone who knows what they’re doing and frees up your time to grow your business while giving you the peace of mind that the website is in good hands. Plus, having someone there to help you out with additional tasks when you need it is always good to have.
Our Website Care Plan Workflow
At Studio Umbrella, we have a careful process to do all of this. We first back up the website in its current state and then update the Wordpress core files and plugins. While updating, we check to see that the website is continuing to function properly. If we spot a problem, we know what caused it and can revert back. If indeed this is a plugin problem, it becomes a support ticket and we take care of it without you even knowing there was a problem. When all is done and running properly, we create another backup.
Also included in our plans are regular performance and security scans to ensure that the site is operational and secure against hackers. If in the case that your website is attacked and a hacker does get through, we have backups to quickly restore the site to its previous state.
Plus, every month, you'll receive a report of what was performed and see that your website is running strong.
You Could Do It Yourself, But...
Keeping your website maintained on your own is a possibility, but it could cost you more than you think. For instance. if you update your plugins directly from Wordpress, you won’t have a log of what was done and what might have caused a problem that you ran into in the future. You’d then have a hard time finding and fixing this issue - not to mention knowing how to fix it.
It’ll Cost You More to Fix
Just like with your car, it’ll cost you more to fix the damage caused by not changing the engine oil then to actually take the car in for an oil change on a regular basis. Neglect can damage the design and functionality of your website so when something bad happens, you have two choices: One, you attempt to fix it yourself which could lead to even more damage because of you’re probably not a web developer. Or two, you hire someone to fix it which most probably wouldn’t be cheap. And let’s not forget the amount of time your website could potentially be down or not functioning properly while it’s being fixed, and how much time you’re spending to deal with this.
Better To Let an Expert Handle This.
If you’re not a web professional, why try to maintain your own website? Would you maintain your own car if you didn’t know what you were doing (especially if your car is generating revenue for you)? By having a web professional properly handle these crucial tasks for you, you’re preventing a potential loss in sales and visitors and ensuring that your website stays up and running, while looking and functioning perfectly.
So if you’re interested in signing up for one of our Website Care Plans for your website, contact us today and learn how we can provide you with peace of mind - at least on the online front.
See our plans
