Contemporary Website Maintenance in 2020
HOW IS YOUR WEBSITE HEALTH?
Old and tired web pages diminish search engine rankings, because search engines innately analyze fresh from stale. SEs know when your website images are 2 or 3 years old, your sidebars, your articles, etc. Your website needs attention just like your automobile or your home.
WHAT IS INVOLVED IN WEBSITE MAINTENANCE?
Actually, quite a bit. Though not necessarily terribly expensive. In the big picture maintenance would be domain renewals, hosting costs (often annually charged). However, details, experience, and organization really matter for thorough site maintenance. Your website is one arm of your business. It should look polished and function well.
USING THEMES
Themes are pretty common to use via WordPress, Joomla, Wix CMS platforms. The themes presented are actually pretty stunning and pro versions very 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-coded formatting, and animation.
It takes time to learn the actual builders just as it would for any other software. Themes and templates are also popular with Retailers when the theme is eCommerce capable.
Themes, templates, and customized sites always need updates and changes, thus maintenance. All websites need maintenance, particularly crucial is updating the site plugins such as with WordPress. Lack of staying on top of updates can lead to missing site sections (that were intact formerly), page distortions, lost images or videos, and more. Moreover, ignored plugins are a hacker’s dream.
Failing to perform routine site maintenance is a huge mistake. Staying current with all site and security updates can prevent hacking, malware invasion, ensure proper site functionality, and helps site optimization. Lack of site maintenance is laziness. Whether your site is 50 pages or 6 pages, maintenance matters.
SITE MAINTAINERS ARE CAPABLE LABORERS
Website maintenance is usually not inclusive in website design work. Therefore, your maintenance provider likely will not redesign your site. Effective communication is key. 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 of us freelancers do both web design and website maintenance, these are two distinct endeavors and are thus charged separately. We can consult and review your website needs even if we did not build your site.
As a capable website maintainer, BayBridgeHub provides you regular updates of labor performed to ensure you clarity in our work. Maintenance can also include regular analytics reporting. Analytics are necessary to examine your business’s online performance. These reports dictate necessary or even 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 retrieve more traffic.
MAINTENANCE and 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, digital elements like doorbells. 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. Also the website url might read as “https://” rather than “http://”. The “s” stands for secure. This is particularly significant if the site offers shopping which entails inputting personal information like your credit card number of course. The padlock icon fees secure for the customer.
Below are URL examples of No SSL compliance (at left), and proper SSL compliance (right).
Examples to verify if a website is SSL certified
HOW DOES YOUR SITE COMPARE TO THE ABOVE PRACTICES?
Maintaining your website is a never-ending duty, much like mowing our lawns. But consistency will keep costs in check, maintain SE acceptance, and deter major problems.
BayBridgeHub can maintain the health, currency, and appearance of your website. That translates to leaving you stress-free.
So, how does Your website compare with the above maintenance practices?
Contact BayBridgeHub for a free website consultation.
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We offer website services from Sacramento to the San Francisco Bay Area. If your business needs website assistance give us a call at (530) 401.6096 or Contact us here.