Having your website well-structured and up and running is very important. But having a website, is not enough. Consistent updating and maintainenance is a cruicial part of protecting your website and making sure that it is running and performing its very best.

Just like an automobiles, your website requires regular maintenance to ensure that it runs properly. Many people do not know that properly maintaining your website increases security, boosts returning traffic and increases the number of new visitors, and allows your website to rank better with search engines. Here are the five main reasons you need to regularly maintain your website.

1. Security

No matter how big or small your website may be, hackers are always looking for ways to compromise your website content. The likely of an older website getting hacked is much greater. Typically the code and website components are less secure with the most up to date website security protocols. As security patches on software or website platforms become available, website hackers take advantage of websites that are not proactively updating th software on their websites.

Content Management Systems (CMS) such as Magento, Drupal, and Wordpress are primary targets for hackers since they make up a large portion of platforms that many modern websites are written. If you are using an CMS, it is imperative that you keep your website up to date. Hackers love to find "holes" in outdated website components to inject viruses, malware, backlinks, and maliciouis website content that can severly damage your website integrity. If Google detects malware on your website, it can remove you from its search results until your website is clean of any infectious content.

2. Best First Impression

Ever go to a business-networking meeting and get a business card from someone? One of the first things people do after they get back to the office is look up the company website. What is the first impression they get? Is the Latest News 2 years old? Is the copyright date in the footer from 3 years ago? Did the Monthly Special expire last year? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you may be leaving your prospects with a poor first impression of your company and leaving business on the table. On the other hand, if your site is up-to-date, you will be communicating that your company is able to stay on top of things and communicate well, someone whom your prospect can trust.

3. Website Traffic

Search engines such as Google raise rankings for websites that are updated regularly and have fresh content. The higher your search engine rankings, the more traffic your website will receive. Keeping your CMS up to date, fixing any broken links, ensuring that all images are viewable, removing duplicate content and providing new and relevant website content are ways to make sure that search engines find your website favorable and relevant to visitors on the web.

If having websites with new and relevant content, no broken links or images, and keeping your CMS up to date provides better search engine rankings, then the revers is true as well. Websites with old or outdated content, links with invalid destinations, missing images and outdated CMS will rank poorly. Search engines will stop ranking your website and can even delist your website if it is found to be risky to visitors.

4. Enhanced User Experience

Providing website visitors with sharable content about upcoming event/new products or services/awards or new project images provides your audience with a better understanding about your business. A well-maintained website helps promote your brand, work, and mission. A well-maintained website helps promote your brand, work, and mission. Regularly maintaining your site will improve performance and provide a safe and secure environment for your visitors.

5. Poor Use of Resources

When you fail to make updates when they become available, but then need to go back and make them later, it turns into a much larger development and costs more money. The developer will need to spend much more time making the updates because the impact to the site is greater due to the increased number of updates and module changes over time. More time is also needed for quality assurance because of the increased functionality on the site affected. Implementing the update when it becomes available provides you with the latest and greatest functionality right away, overall improving your site.

Looking for a website maintenance partner?

Experience has shown us that updating and adding new content to your website will consistently improve its performance and increase your return on your investment.

Remember:

• Make the right impression
• Keep your visitors coming back
• Boost your search engine traffic
• Protect your visitors from the bad guys
• Keep up with technology changes

We maintain over 100 sites for mission-driven organizations just like yourself. We would be happy to answer any questions you might have. We leverage the latest in web technologies and best practices for search engine optimization, web design and deploy brand rich experiences that will bring your company, products, and services to life.

If you would like to learn more about our website design development, please contact us at 713-256-6120 or fill out the contact form intormation below.