Your website is like a car. Without proper maintenance such as oil changes and filters replaced, the performance will diminish until it finally breaks down. The same goes for websites! So it behooves owners - particularly those running businesses - to keep theirs running well so they keep making strides.
You could turn to your trusted Website Maintenance Team like you would your mechanic for the heavy lifting. Or you could try to change the oil yourself a few times a year. Either way, it’s important that you know the fundamentals of website maintenance.
So here's a website maintenance checklist that covers the basics:
Go through the entire website, review and check its features. Once a year or after updates: Be sure to periodically take the time to thoroughly review your website and all its pages and features. There may be broken links, obsolete features or areas that can be improved and updated. Look closely into the overall user experience, as well as load times and the freshness or outdated-ness of content. Missing page titles and meta tags, sub-optimal styles and formatting, as well as typos and grammatical errors can decrease your SEO and Readability ratings and thus affect your ranking. Check your site's compliance with accessibility standards like the American with Disabilities Act, because meeting them will help you reach more audiences who will in turn appreciate it.
Test Forms and Checkout Processe Among the features you should assess regularly include your Contact Us Forms, Calls to Action, and points of sale processes on your website. These are vital and it would be consterning to find out that your contact form or sale form was no longer working after a website update, leading to lost business opportunities.
Assess SEO metrics, KPIs and Analytics To measure your website's performance properly you need to set and measure the Key Performance Indicators to see if it's really delivering the results. Likewise with search engine ratings and general website analytics. You will see if you are on the right path with what you are doing, or if something isn't right (which will require you to problem-solve and fix the issue in question).
Check Backups
Every year see to it that your entire website is backed up. Let your web developer or hosting company rigorously check the backup, the site itself and the data, to be certain that they are working and that the information is recoverable.
Assess Browser Compatibility
Over time, website layouts, technology and features might no longer work well with new browsers or their latest versions. So regularly test your website in the various mainstream browsers and their versions, from Chrome and Firefox to Safari, Internet Explorer and Edge.
Update Copyright Dates and Notices
Again, annually review and update copyright dates or other date-specific content in your website. You don't want to have an outdated press release on top of your homepage.
Install Security Updates and Bug Fixes
Have your web developer and hosting provider update the software and install upgrades, patches and fixes to ensure that your site is in running order and safe from attacks.
Renew Domain Names
Likewise, ensure that your domain names don't expire. Make sure they are renewed in a timely manner. An expired domain name can be disastrous as someone else can use it.
Review Contact Information As Needed
These should always be up to date and accurate. From the site and business' details to team member names, addresses and phone numbers. Staff responsibilities correspond to the type of emails they get, and if the responsibilities change then the site information should likewise reflect that.
Update Legal Disclaimers
Similarly, see if your privacy policy, site terms, conditions of use, terms of sale and other disclaimers are compliant with policies and laws or if they need to be updated.
Takeaway:
Your website is like any other machine or piece of equipment, requiring checkups, fine-tuning and maintenance. Businesses and organizations are growing and changing, and websites should keep apace and avoid being obsolete.
Next Wave offers website maintenance service and we take pride in our team. Contact Next Wave today and learn more about your different options through our diverse and affordable flat rate website maintenance plans.
Next Wave is a Charlotte website design company. We have been doing websites since 1998. Our teams combined experience with websites touches all areas, SEO, Social Media, Graphics, Layouts, Mobile, and much more.
We are the website design experts.