Website Maintenance | Website Maintenance Services | Technowand

October 15, 2020

Website maintenance can feel like a chore but it is vital in ensuring that you don’t lose traffic and potential customers. The five areas we are going to go through don’t have to be difficult and they can have a big impact on your site if done regularly.

Test – Test – Test

Regularly reviews of your site are vital. You need to check your links to ensure that they aren’t broken. Make sure all your content is loading correctly. That the load times themselves aren’t too long.

Broken links are disastrous. When a user clicks on a link that doesn’t work you have probably just lost a customer or gained a frustrated one. Broken links make it harder for users to find your site as your SEO drops.

As your site grows in size checking for broken links might sound like an onerous task – but it doesn’t have to be. There are many tools around that can check from broken links for you – they range from free link checkers that run bots through your site to more detailed tools that give more detailed information.

We love making sure everything is working for you – please Contact Us.

Please Wait….. Content Loading

Second only to broken links is long wait times or content that doesn’t load correctly. Having a well designed website can solve a lot of these issues through optimising images and other content so they are cached and load optimally for users.

Speed test tools can allow you to check load times so you can ensure that content is loading optimally. We build great websites that deliver customers to your door.

Check Your Forms

You are unlikely to know if your ‘contact us’ form is broken unless you check that it is working. The same is true with all of the forms on your site. Make sure that you regularly check them to ensure that they are working.

If your site is running any eCommerce you should regularly make some dummy purchases to ensure your checkout is operating as expected. You don’t want to lose sales because at the last step the checkout isn’t redirecting to PayPal correctly.

Getting everything working from your desktop to your website is something we can do for you.

SEO & Analytics

SEO is not static. It changes over time as the content on the web evolves. Your site will rank higher and lower over time based on search-ability. Inter-linking and outbound links can raise and lower your site’s SEO based on the rankings of those other pages.

Readability is another key aspect of SEO ranking. Ensuring that your content is easy to read is key. Coupled with this is keyword use and focus within your content. There are many tools available – once again free and paid – that can monitor this for you.

Analytic tools are key to seeing where people visiting your site are coming from; how long they are staying; what content they are interested in; where they are clicking; and where you are losing them.

Using Analytics

When analytics tell you that a lot of your traffic is coming from a particular source – e.g. social media. You should focus more time boosting your presence in this area – widening your reach. This is also about using your time and money wisely. If you are spending the same amount of resources and getting twice the traffic from one source over another – focus on the source that is delivering.

The sort of content that people are visiting your site for might surprise you. It could be an old blog post you wrote years ago that is still popular. You need to ensure you are aware of what your best assets are and use them effectively.

An amazing analytic tool is the ‘hotspot’. This allows you to see where people are clicking on each page they visit – even where their cursor is on a particular page as they browse. Where people aren’t going is just as important as where they are. Paying attention to pages that aren’t getting any traffic is key – especially if it is where you want people to go.

Who is looking at your content is just as important. Maybe you didn’t release that you appealed to particular demographic. Having an understanding of the barriers that these demographics have is important. Learn more in – Digital Divide.

Security Updates

Ensuring that your site is using up-to-date security settings and updated plug-ins is vital. This can be as simple as ensuring that your SSL is up-to-date. Security settings on your site protect both you and your customers.

Keeping all plug-ins on your website up-to-date is one of the easiest ways to ensure security as the developers of these tools are constantly fixing bugs and making sure their products are the best they can be.

Microsoft Secure Score is a key tool for securing your digital estate.

Backup

You would think this would be a no-brainer given how often we back-up our work on our computers. How many times have you lost work because you didn’t. This could be your entire website. Back It Up.

There are many tools that can do this for you – you have no excuse its simple. Perhaps this is something you should look at outsourcing – 5 Things Small Business Should Outsource in 2020.

Does this all sound like too much work? Let us look after your website for you

If you would like help with anything raised here please Contact Us.