Essential Website
Maintenance
. . . the backbone of website security and stability for 2021
Why Proper Website Maintenance Equals Direct Website Health
Search engines analyze and reward the fresh from the musty
Maintenance and search engine rankings correlate. Old, stale web pages diminish search engine rankings. In addition, unattended maintenance is a hack waiting to happen. Search engines analyze and reward the fresh from the musty. SEs know when your website images are 2 or 3 years old, your sidebars, your content, etc.
Your website needs regular attention just like your automobile or your house. Proper attention assures your site remains viable, safe, and captivating to SEs as well as your audience.
Site Maintenance is Relatively Inexpensive
In the big picture maintenance would include domain renewals, addon-plugin updates, security updates, site backups, site speed, hosting renewals. There are plans that include Analytics supervision and reports. Consistency is the key. Maintenance requires experience, patience, and organization. Regular site maintenance is one arm of your online business not to be overlooked.
These items run your website and are adjusted constantly to improve site functionality, reduce hack invasions, and correct errors. NOTE: Plugins need consistent inspection to ensure their authors stay security conscious. (Not all do.)
Proper Maintenance Equals Direct Website Health. Not to be ignored.
Website Themes and Maintenance
Themes are pretty common to use via WordPress, Joomla, Wix, etc. platforms. The themes presented are actually pretty stunning and the pro versions quite flexible. In the last few years, themes and Builders are often the way to go for small or medium-sized businesses. What prevails with good themes and builders are creativity, limited or optional coding, formatting, and animation. Website customizing ensures your site does not appear cookie-cutter.
It takes time to learn the actual builders just as it would for any other software. Themes and templates are also lifesavers for Retail sites with eCommerce capability.
Themes, templates, and customized sites always need updates. Particularly vital is updating the site plugins, for example with WordPress. Staying on top of this avoids hackers, malware invasions, and site malfunctions.
Whether your site is 50 pages or 6 pages, maintenance matters.
Site Maintainers are Very Capable Laborers
Website maintenance and SEO work are not typically included in a website design project (unless previously agreed upon). However, this does not mean your designer is not capable of maintenance and site optimization. Effective communication is key. Read agreements thoroughly. And, ask these questions.
BayBridgeHub will review and document the site requirements you desire. We will enlighten you to any ways to streamline or improve your site functionality and security. Though many freelancers perform web design, SEO, maintenance, and marketing, these are distinct endeavors and are usually charged separately. For example, BayBridge designs and launches a website as Phase I. Phase II usually follows with site SEO. Often the reason is to offset site launch costs and spread out fees to be budget-friendly for our clients.
BBH can consult and review your website maintenance needs even if your site was built by another party. This sometimes occurs when original website laborers or site authors move, change occupations, or retire (which is not uncommon).
As a capable website maintainer, BayBridgeHub provides you regular updates of labor performed to ensure clarity in our work. Maintenance can also include regular analytics reporting. Analytics are necessary to examine your business’s online performance. These reports can dictate optional site changes or tests. These reports also exhibit site visits, conversions, geography, devices used, and more.
As search engine algorithms are ever-changing, websites need to follow up in order to stay well-ranked, and collect more traffic.
Maintenance & Website Security
No matter your industry, occupation, or hosting provider, hackers work every minute worldwide. Ensure proper security on your site from a reputable source with regular site reports. Attackers do not need a reason or an industry for a brute force attack.
All passwords should be complicated for computers, websites, email, and all digital elements (including doorbell cams). The better the passwords, the less likely hacking, fraud, and identity theft will occur. Stay ahead of the nasty game of digital swindling. It can take years to recover from it. And months can go by before you notice you’ve been invaded.
Google checks for websites equipped with an SSL certificate. If your site lacks certification, the Google monster will lower your rank, particularly since 2019. You’ve likely seen the padlock icon just left of the url in the browser bar on some websites. The website url might read as “https:” rather than “http:”. The “s” stands for secure. This is particularly significant if the site offers online purchase which requires personal information like your credit card number. In addition, the padlock icon feels secure for any website viewer.
Below are URL examples of Non SSL compliance (left column), and proper SSL compliance (right column).
Ignoring Newsletters? Your loss, really.
Your website editor / maintainer provides important services. Many of us provide relative news on general website status as well as updates or changes from the internet powers-that-be. For busy companies, this is your lifeline for newsworthy events whether local or global.
Search engine protocols, lofty changes, site security updates, and more fill the newsletter bag of tricks. Some of that info is relative to your online business, or even the business next-door to you.
Why does BayBridge send e-Newsletters?
- Website laborers don’t have time to call 30 or 50 clients. Do you?
- Ever said, “Gee, I wasn’t notified.” Yes, you were.
- To advise you of key web-related changes, general security issues, or website health matters
- They are great learning tools
- Provide information as to website health
- They keep this laborer accountable to you
- It’s just plain “good business”
