The journey to building your business’s website can be a long one. Whether your site was easily completed, or the process included more obstacles, it potentially took weeks or even months to complete. It likely cost you a pretty penny too, but you know every cent of that was a necessary and important investment. Now your site is live, so you never have to think about it again, right? Sorry, but that’s only wishful thinking.
The days of “set it and forget it” websites are a thing of the past. In an effort to make the internet a reliable, authoritative, reputable place for businesses and consumers alike, we now have to contend with continuous security and optimization updates. To keep your website live, accurate, safe, and at peak performance, you need at least an hour of monthly maintenance for inspections and problem resolution.
Some of the most common issues a site can encounter are broken links, stagnant SEO, plugins that need updating, slow load speeds, responsive device changes, and 404 errors. Monthly maintenance is also commonly used for updating employee bios, photo galleries, business hours, product listings & event info just to name a few – small changes that are best executed by the site designer to avoid framework, formatting & integration malfunctions.
In the past it may have been easier to forgo monthly website maintenance, but in the digital landscape of 2018 it is imperative to keeping your site operational. Here’s a comprehensive list of 15 reasons why you need an ongoing website maintenance plan.
1. Domain
Every website must of course have a domain name. Do you know how to protect your domain so it isn’t bought out from under you? We will register and renew your domain as needed. Hallen also manage the DNS settings, Google URL submittal, WHOIS registration, and more with our expertise. Do you have multiple domains that need to redirect to one site? They all need maintenance too.
2. Hosting
Domains need to be hosted to stay “live” on the internet. High-end servers need to be fast and secure for optimal domain hosting and to prevent hacking.
3. Email Hosting
Email addresses under a Gmail, Yahoo, or AOL address can sometimes seem unprofessional. Business-related email addresses should be hosted at your domain (Contact@YourBusiness.com). Not only do we include hosting for this email address, we’ll also help you set up your inbox on multiple devices, so you can use it wherever your business takes you.
4. Search Engine Optimization
Google Webmaster Tools is provided by Google for webmasters. We can monitor your site for issues and places for improvement with insights and tips from this tool. We use the guidance from this tool to improve your ranking on Google and other search engines.
5. Local Listings
When your business is listed incorrectly online, customers may not be able to reach your site or store. Monthly maintenance includes optimizing listings on search engines, social media, and review sites so your customers can always find the accurate information. This includes business name, phone number, email address, website, and physical address.
6. Analytics
You’ve spent the resources to create your new professional website, but how can you tell if it’s reaching your customers? We can monitor real-time data about your site’s visitors by installing Google Analytics tools. Who visited your site? Which pages did they view and for how long? Did they return to your site multiple times? How can you use this information to improve your marketing strategy? We provide all this information in reports about your monthly site maintenance.
7. Blog
Most of our clients have a difficult time trying to format blog articles on their website. Did that image cause your text to shift? Did your website encounter an update that changed the formatting of your blog page? To ensure that your articles are published correctly, we include this in your monthly maintenance.
8. SSL Certificate
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. This certificate adds encrypted layers of security to your site. This is especially important for e-commerce websites as a way of protecting customers’ sensitive information. They must be properly installed and renewed. These certificates also increase your site’s SEO because security is a high priority in the tech world.
9. Performance Optimizations
The more content and media on your site, the better. But the more pages and videos and text you have on your site, the more optimization it will need to increase loading speed. Increase your user experience, SEO, online rankings, and number of returning visitors by optimizing the performance of your site.
10. Site Updates
Testimonials, accreditations, contact info, services, and other information on your site will need to be updated or added to your site frequently. As referenced at the beginning if this tutorial, monthly maintenance can also be commonly used for updating things like employee bios, photo galleries, business hours, product listings & event info just to name a few.
11. Security Updates
Different factions of WordPress websites often receive security updates. As they increase the security of the parts of your site (core, theme, plugins, etc.) we will patch and backup the site so it stays live, correct, and secure. We monitor your site monthly for additional updates from integrated software as well.
12. Backups
What happens if your site gets hacked and disappears? We back up your website frequently so, in the event of a disaster, we can have your site operating again within hours, rather than days or weeks. Your data remains safe and secure as we backup everything in multiple locations onsite and in the cloud.
13. Virus Removal
In the rare event that hackers bypass all security measures and put a virus on your site, we will remove it, then scan and clean the entire site, and restore all data. Once a virus is placed on your site, search engines and browsers may blacklist you. We will also contact them on your behalf to reinstate your site.
14. Uptime Monitoring
We guarantee 99.9% website uptime on our servers. We monitor your site to reduce downtime and correct underlying issues so your site is always available for your customers.
15. Support
We can demystify the internal workings of your website and help you decide the best use of each page. Your success is our success. Our job ticket request portal is available 24/7.
Monthly website maintenance is more than a luxury. It is a service that’s necessary to keep your site live, secure, optimized, and updated. We include this maintenance for every website we build. Without website maintenance, there really is no website. Hallen Media is ready to fulfill your online digital marketing needs, so feel free to contact us with inquiries at 336-245-1263 or admin@hallenmedia.net.