Don’t Sleep on Your Website Maintenance and Management

Your website is a core asset of your business. If you did it right, you’ve strategized, designed, developed, and launched a digital platform that is a true representation of all you are as an organization: your brand, your mission, your capabilities. But, like any technology, you can’t just set it and forget it. In order to sustain consistent impact, you have to invest in regular checkups and updates. Learn the what, the why, and all the competitive benefits of website maintenance and management from the pros.

What Is Website Management and Maintenance?

Websites have come a long way since the dawn of the internet. Technology advancements, design evolutions, and user demands have all contributed to the progression of digital platforms. 

It isn’t hard to tell when a site has gotten a little dusty. A quick eye test will tell someone if the site’s been neglected. 

And if the paint isn’t peeling, a  quick tour can reveal hidden weaknesses. If a user struggles to navigate a site, load pages or images, add items to their cart, or download information, they know they have options. Short-term dissatisfaction can have long-term negative results for a business. You never want to give a bad impression.

That’s why regular website management and maintenance is such an absolute necessity. You want to make sure you’re doing regular housekeeping and renovating so that you don’t lose customers to a poor user experience.

Here are some recent (scary) UX stats:

• 70% of online businesses fail due to poor usability.
• 88% of online shoppers won’t give a site a second chance after a bad user experience (UX).
• 70% will abandon their carts because of bad UX.
• Up to 89% of people have switched to a competitor’s website because of poor UX.
• 94% of first impressions are related to your website’s design.
• 38% of users will stop engaging with a poorly designed website.
• 39% will stop engagement if a site takes too long to load.
• Slow-loading websites cost businesses $6.8 billion per year.
• 32% of customers will fall out of love with a brand after just one bad experience.

And now a little positive reinforcement:

• One dollar spent on providing good UX, returns $100.
• Good UX design can increase conversion rates by up to 200%.

Website management is meant to address all of these issues head-on, hopefully before you experience any negative impact on your business. There are three major facets of a comprehensive website management program: site audits, compliance, and security.

Site audits will analyze every page of your site and find any cracks in the user experience. It will assess digital optimization and see if you’re losing potential customers, ROI, and visibility due to site mechanics, faulty content, or lack of content.

Compliance updates will ensure that your site is updated to comply with things like privacy laws and ADA standards.

Security updates will make sure your website is protected at the code and server levels.

Website maintenance also ensures that your site stays on top of any browser updates, so it doesn’t lose functionality or optimal visuals and engagement.

A Website Maintenance Checklist

Some website issues are pretty noticeable – like when your shopping cart won’t update, a payment won’t go through, or a service page won’t load. Others lurk in the shadows and need some closer analysis to bring them to light.

Here are the usual website maintenance and management protocols that a professional service will employ – and the issues they are designed to fix:

• User experience testing – Technology is always evolving – sometimes in the blink of an eye. You need your site evaluated on a semi-annual basis (at a minimum!) to make sure it’s performing well and isn’t outdated.

• Actions testing – E-commerce? Test purchases. CTAs? Test your call-to-action pathways. Fillable forms? Make sure those work as intended too. Basically, whatever actions you hope site visitors will do should be tested on a regular basis to ensure there are no hiccups.

• 404 errors – Broken links are annoying for users and can lead to those business losses we mentioned above. Website audits can root out any bad links, so they can be fixed and users can continue on their site journey uninterrupted.

• Security updates – Platform, plugin, and script updates are super important. Developers usually issue updates when they discover vulnerabilities. To protect your site – and your users – from risk, it’s imperative that these updates happen ASAP. 

• Domain renewal – Make sure your domain ownership hasn’t expired and, worse, has gone up for auction. Better yet – set it up for automatic renewal.

• Site backups – Backing up your website on a regular basis is a preventative safety measure, so that if disaster strikes, you don’t have to start from ground zero. 

• Site speed – UX audits will also discover any pages that are taking too long to load. Your website maintenance provider can then find out why these pages are dragging their feet and fix the issues.

• Audit legal policies – Make sure your legal notices on site are accurate and up-to-date.

• Metrics analysis – It’s super helpful to have pros look at how your website is performing with users. Which pages are tracking the most visits? Where are your site visitors hanging out the most? Which pages have the highest bounce rate? Are you meeting your conversion goals? 

• SEO & content analysis – These audits will catch any technical content failings that are usually an easy fix, but can hurt your UX and search engine results:
  • Are your title tags or meta descriptions too long? Are they too short? 
  • Do you have duplicate content on multiple pages? 
  • Are some of your site’s pages short on content and therefore hurting your SEO and domain authority? 

Again, regular website maintenance can find these errors and fix them, so that your site can meet its full potential.

Worry-Free Website Maintenance and Management 

The whole point of website management and maintenance support is that you can focus on the normal day-to-day of running your business and have confidence that your website is doing its job. 

Your site is too big of an investment to leave it to chance. Keep it fit. Keep it functioning. Make sure it’s doing what it’s meant to do.

Ironistic has been performing website maintenance for companies all over the United States. In fact, combining our website management with our hosting services means getting state-side, responsive security, digital strategy, and technical support to ensure your site is fulfilling all its goals.

Connect with us, and see what we’re all about.