You’ve bought a domain and hosting and got a well-designed website up and running, so why do I need website maintenance?
Once the website is live, it’s just the beginning.
There are several reasons why website maintenance is important.
Why Is Website Maintenance Important?
Site Security
Website security is one of the main reasons why website maintenance is so important.
Malware attacks have skyrocketed in recent years, especially since covid.
Some of the biggest companies in the world and the HSE in Ireland have been hit with severe ransomware attacks that have crippled some businesses with huge demands or released sensitive data to the black market.
Even if companies pay the ransom, attackers can sell how they broke into your network.
It’s essential to ensure you have some protocols, malware scanning and monitoring, firewalls, removing old and outdated applications and backups and possibly multi-function authentication.
Hackers are continuously looking for gaps in the security of the website to take advantage of, so having one of the best website maintenance services is vital for your site’s security.
Boosts Traffic
Search engines like Google and Bing love websites that are regularly updated.
This includes your content, blogs, pages, opening hours and related website activity.
Several case studies have shown regular website maintenance to significantly improve search engine ranking positions (SERPs), increasing your website traffic.
This blog post by Neil Patel, a significant name in the SEO space,, is worth a read.
Increases Site Speed
Google likes fast websites, and even Google disclosed it as a ranking factor in their algorithm updates.
We’re not saying having a fast site is everything, and it doesn’t need a 100% in a site speed test, but having a site with fast-loading content and images helps with user experience.
Your site speed will improve by updating WordPress and site plugins, deleting old, outdated apps, and compressing all images.
Improves User Experience
Your website needs to offer the best possible user experience for your visitors.
A poor site layout and user experience will hinder your website conversion rate and branding and cost you money, especially if you are using paid ads (which are very expensive)
Regular website maintenance can help by monitoring broken links, images not loading, poor grammar and spelling, etc.
Showing your website is active will help improve your credibility.
Regular content updates, blog posts, portfolio images, recent projects, news about your business, and more keeps your customers engaged.
Regular Backups
Having a regular website maintenance schedule will make you sleep better at night.
You don’t need to worry about any crashes to your servers or website provider (i.e. WordPress) once you have some backup protocols in place.
We use a third party for backups, a cloud solution, and an external physical backup.
This might seem crazy or overly cautious, but it keeps our client’s sites safe. In addition, it allows you to have a reliable backup in case your system crashes, or something else happens to your website’s source program.
It is easier to recover with a working backup than it is to have to start building up your website again from scratch.
WordPress, themes and plugins have regular updates to repair bugs, glitches etc. However, sometimes when these are updated, they can break your website.
Regular site backs ups play a crucial role in why website maintenance is so essential – simple as that!
Conclusion
At this stage, you should know how vital website maintenance is and what it can do for your business’s website.
However, unless you are skilled in website development, Cpanel and security protocols, hiring a team who understands how it works to maintain your site to the required standard is essential.
A hands-off approach allows you to focus on what you are good at, sales, operations, marketing, and growing your business.