Is Your Website Being Maintained for Regular Updates?
A well-maintained website can generate a ton of business for your organization, but one that isn’t regularly maintained can drive that business away to your competitors.
Imagine taking the time and effort to build a website for your organization, only to have it full of broken links, outdated prices and obsolete product descriptions a year later.
Your website should work for you, not against you.
Think of regularly updating your website like a garden: When it’s left unattended, it becomes overgrown with weeds, and plants wilt and die. The same is true for your website. It needs to be regularly maintained so it can continue to thrive by providing a service, selling a product, sharing information or something else.
Creating a website is not a set-it-and-forget-it process, much like phishing training and vulnerability management.
Here are five reasons why maintaining your website for regular updates is essential.
SEO
Search engine optimization is the process of improving website traffic quality and quantity. The higher your site ranks in searches, the more people will visit your site.
Search engines like Google and Bing value new, relevant and user-friendly content. Regularly updating your website shows these search engines that your site is active and should be discoverable.
Not only does this mean posting new content — which we’ll talk about later — it also means updating keywords of your current content and keeping your site user friendly.
User Experience
Your website often is your only opportunity to make a good first impression. A poorly maintained or outdated site can cause your visitors to quickly leave and search for better options.
A well-maintained website, on the other hand, establishes trust with your customers and reflects positively on your brand.
You want to make sure you have no broken links, great-looking photos and an easy-to-navigate site. Can your visitors quickly find general information, like your organization’s mission, values, services and contact information? And do you offer a menu of options to help them find what they are looking for quickly?
“A well-maintained website can leave a lasting impression. This is why it’s important to work with a web developer who can build websites that attract, engage and convert.”
Speed and Accessibility
People have short attention spans. So, if your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, visitors probably will leave, and you’ll lose out on their business.
Regular updates ensure your website is fast and functional, and website speed also helps with SEO rankings.
Additionally, you want to make your website accessible to those with disabilities. Add alt tags to images for those who use screen readers, provide contrast between text color and background color for those with color blindness, and make sure your site can enlarge text font for those who have difficulty reading small text.
Security
People want to feel safe when they visit your website. This means knowing their personal information is secure and your site is free of malware.
Similar to how we stress the importance of regularly updating Windows, other software and hardware to protect against cybersecurity threats, regularly updating your website will protect against similar threats.
You should keep your website’s software up to date, enable HTTPS encryption so you have a secure connection with your visitors, and utilize security plug-ins to protect your customers’ data.
In case you do experience a security incident, it’s critical to have a backup of your website. This will allow you to quickly restore it and minimize downtime from an attack.
Staying Relevant
As mentioned earlier, search engines like new content. So, make sure you’re regularly updating it with new blog posts and videos, as well as revising product or service descriptions.
You don’t have to post a new blog or video daily, but one to two new posts per month should be a priority for your organization.
Outdated content makes your website look unprofessional and will surely cause visitors to leave. Give them a reason to come back with new content that is educational, entertaining or both.
Audit Your Organization’s Website
A well-maintained website can leave a lasting impression. This is why it’s important to work with a web developer who can build websites that attract, engage and convert.
If you want to optimize your existing website, an audit will help you determine what’s working and what needs to be improved. And if you want to create an entirely new site, we’re here to help, as well!
Contact us if you’d like to schedule a meeting to learn more about website development.
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