What Do You Need to Do to Maintain a Website?
From using security features to prevent hackers from compromising your website to getting an outside opinion from someone you trust, here are 11 answers to the question, “What are tips for maintaining a website?”
- Use a CMS
- Pick Your Hosting Service Carefully
- Respond to and Address User Feedback
- Schedule Improvement Check-Ins Every Month
- Invest in Quality Content
- Backup Your Site Daily
- Set Goals for Your Website
- Keep All Software and Plugins Up to Date
- Conduct Performance Evaluations
- Post Regularly
- Ask a Trusted Person to Audit
Use a CMS
Maintaining your website is a time-consuming task, and keeping it up-to-date is essential for it to get the traffic you need to generate a profit. One of the best ways to minimize the time spent on this task is to use a CMS. CMSs like WordPress are very user-friendly and can be customized to your business needs.
They also help you keep your website organized and ensure that your content is always up-to-date. In addition, they provide security features and help prevent hackers from compromising your website. Overall, using a CMS to maintain your website can save you time and money while improving the user experience for your customers.
Matthew Ramirez
CEO, Paraphrase Tool
Pick Your Hosting Service Carefully
Many people will take great care in designing their website and the content they place on it, but they should also give that same attention to their hosting server to maintain their website properly. A poor hosting server can be susceptible to crashing and hacks, not only putting your business at risk but also the data of your customers.
Researching a potential hosting server’s reliability, security, and customer support will allow you to make the soundest decisions that will keep your website up and running properly. By listing your priorities and researching the best hosting servers, you can make certain that you will have the best one in place to maintain your website and instill confidence in your customers.
Matt Miller
CEO, Embroker
Respond to and Address User Feedback
Responding to feedback is an essential tip to maintain a website. The reason is, by addressing user feedback, we can identify areas where our website can be improved to enhance the user experience. This allows us to make changes that can lead to better engagement, increased traffic, and higher conversion rates.
Besides that, when we respond to user feedback, it shows that we value the users’ opinions and are committed to providing them with the best experience possible. This can help build trust and credibility with your audience, which is critical for building long-term relationships.
Last, it allows us to address any issues that users may have before they become bigger problems to maintain the quality of the website and prevent negative reviews or comments from spreading.
Georgi Todorov
Founder, ThriveMyWay
Schedule Improvement Check-Ins Every Month
Schedule a timeframe—every month or two—where you go over the website and analyze its look, appeal, customer journey, client retention build, and functionality. Navigate through it and find one crucial area that could use improvement. Having used this strategy, I can say that, with time, one improvement point usually comes naturally.
Keep up with trends and readings regarding these different aspects, and you’ll develop a good eye for catching what to enhance. Doing these improvement check-ins more regularly builds a better familiarity with the website and its functions. It’s useful for filtering out errors (that may be overlooked when doing typical yearly maintenance) and planning improvements. This way, your website will always be up-to-date and running smoothly.
Nicole Ostrowska
Career Expert, Zety
Invest in Quality Content
While technology is constantly developing and new options are available for website maintenance, one important tip remains consistent: always remember the importance of good content.
Investing in unique, high-quality content is key to maintaining a website. Not only does this provide your users with original and engaging information, but it also increases the chances that search engine algorithms will notice your site.
Publications and websites may be more likely to link back to strong-quality content. A well-maintained website should include updates regularly to keep readers informed of new information and stats. This creates a better impression of your site while driving visits, which can also help improve its rankings.
Jamie Irwin
Marketing Executive, Service Club Delivery
Backup Your Site Daily
Backing up your website daily is critical to ensuring that you can quickly restore it if it runs into a server problem or any other issue. It is essential to use a website management service or have a plug-in that gives you this option to ensure that your website and its content are backed up safely every day to ensure continuity.
Liam Liu
Co-founder and CMO, ParcelPanel
Set Goals for Your Website
Your website was created for a reason; it might be to market your goods or services, or it might be to establish a line of communication with your customers. Setting a logical goal for your website is crucial regardless of the reason so that you can identify the areas that require greater attention.
You must enhance your website’s SEO and web design if you want to attract visitors. Improve your content and marketing efforts further if you want to get more leads.
Hamza Usmani
Head of Content, Believe Money
Keep All Software and Plugins Up to Date
Outdated software can pose a security risk, leaving your website vulnerable to hackers and malware. Hackers can exploit vulnerabilities in outdated software to gain access to your website and steal sensitive information or install malicious code.
It is essential to keep all software and plugins updated to the latest version to prevent these security risks. Regularly updating software and plugins patches any security vulnerabilities, and fix any bugs or issues.
This helps to keep your website secure, which is crucial for maintaining the integrity and reputation of your website. Therefore, keeping all software and plugins up to date is the best tip for maintaining a website.
Ben Basic
Editor-in-Chief, RouterIPNet.com
Conduct Performance Evaluations
The one thing to remember about websites is that there’s a lot of work before launch and a considerable amount of work even after it. Maintaining a website contributes directly to long-term results, making performance evaluation a vital part of your maintenance schedule.
Regular reviews and assessments help you collect data on and understand several parameters ranging from capacity and loading speeds to SEO updates and structural tweaks. Since each of these elements contributes to performing your site, putting them on your checklist ensures long-term momentum and success.
Ariav Cohen
VP of Marketing and Sales, Proprep
Post Regularly
The more content you put out on the internet, the more clicks it is likely to get. Fresh information with relevant buzzwords keeps users engaged and helps improve search engine rankings. It’s also important to check for broken links regularly, update plugins and software, and ensure that the website is mobile-friendly and works quickly.
Marco Genaro Palma
Co-founder, TechNews180
Ask a Trusted Person to Audit
Ask someone you trust who is outside of the industry to look at the page/site and give their honest opinion about factors that matter to you. Get an outside opinion from someone you trust in the UX/UI, interest, functionality, coloring, and imagery of your site to gauge how others will view it.
David Higgins
SEO Analyst and Content Writer, Gardner White
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