Monitoring your site's health is key to a long relationship with your visitors
Most marketing teams and businesses think about their websites when it comes to the initial design or redesign, adding features or refreshing the look, feel and functionality, but once those jobs are executed, the expectation is that it will sit there happily drawing in the masses. And then suddenly something goes wrong or traffic plateaus or drops. That’s when the red flags go up.
Getting ahead of any pitfalls is key. Scheduling maintenance sprints or getting on a regular maintenance plan is an investment in the continued health of your website so that you don’t lose your visitor to unplanned downtime, security issues or undetected errors or bugs. You did the heavy lifting of getting the visitor to the website, but keeping them interested and clicking or tapping around is key to converting them to leads.
What kinds of tasks are typically performed in maintenance plans? Here’s a short list:
Update or upgrade your content management system (CMS)
Drupal and WordPress both release regular security updates or upgrades. It’s important to stay on top of these to keep your website up-to-date and secure against threats. Missed updates and upgrades can compound over time leading to a degradation of the your website’s stability and security which can be costly to restore in the long run.</p>
Conduct performance evaluations
Slow loading websites lose visitors and affects search engine rankings. Keeping your website lean and fast is key to overall performance.
Test functionality
A misplaced button, broken link or non-functioning form could be making it difficult for visitors to engage with your website.
Content updates
Is your website’s copyright a few years behind? A scheduled review of your site to make sure all information is up-to-date and accurate is important. Prices change, team members come and go, maybe you have a new case study to share. Getting core updates completed keeps your website fresh to visitors.
Check analytics
Not sure what your bounce rate is or how to navigate the stats on your site? A scheduled maintenance sprint allows for the opportunity to understand your analytics and make some adjustments based off of the intel in the reporting.
Having a regular website support and maintenance plan, in place gives you a chance to check in routinely with your developer to make sure that the lines of communication are open and everyone is working to keep your most important business marketing tool in top shape. Regular evaluations of your website’s health - like a checkup - helps offset any unexpected website emergenciesdown the road. And should there be any threats on the horizon, you can rest assured that your website is secure and hardened against attacks. It also can help keep you on track with tending to content updates and creating new content that can help boost organic search rankings and keep your website looking current.
At Inclind, we feel our ongoing relationships with clients are key drivers in overall success of a website. We offer support and maintenance plans options that fit every budget. Regular evaluations, routine upgrades and planned response times are all part of the package. A little bit of website insurance so-to-speak to protect against unwanted “emergency” issues. Need a little support for your website? Let’s chat about our support and maintenance plans.