5 Things You’re Forgetting to Maintain Your Website

Many business owners think updating and maintaining their website is all about adding new content. That’s very important, but what about the site itself? Even if your blog and events pages are up to date, a few key areas behind the scenes can affect how the website operates and the experience potential customers have when they arrive.

A website isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it item. Here are five things to check on your website regularly:

1. Links - You have added many links over the years, in blog posts, in pages, in the sidebar to showcase your happy clients. But links break all the time. The site you referenced has shut down or moved, and someone forgot to make sure old URLs forward to the new ones. Broken links create a negative experience for site visitors and have a detrimental effect on your Search Engine Optimization. Be sure to click through all your links every quarter and make sure they work. Wordpress users can find useful plugins for this.

2. The Footer - Many businesses put a copyright in the footer with the year. Have you updated that lately? There is a way to set this up so it always changes to the current year. But if you prefer to do it manually, make a note on your calendar for every January.

3. Site Updates - Whether you use Wordpress or some other content management system, that program needs to be updated. Do not ignore the messages at the top asking you to update; if you wait too long, things on your site will not work. Not updating also leaves you vulnerable to security issues.

4. Backups - Are you backing up your website? How? Most website systems have a way for you to backup automatically and store the file in the cloud, which is the safest option. It’s important to make sure those backups are working and continue regularly. That way when your site crashes someday you have all the information ready to re-install in no time.

5. Overall appearance - Websites built more than three years ago look dated. Plus, they might not be set up correctly for Search Engine Optimization, which is always changing. While it might be painful to realize, it’s important to your business to make sure your website’s overall look isn’t outdated. Consider a new site every few years.

Bonus: Test your download speed every once in a while, especially after making changes to your website. If your website takes too long to load, some visitors will leave.

Need help maintaining your website? Give Argosy Business Solutions a call and we’ll take care of your regular website maintenance.