Unlike a fine Swiss watch, however, your website is a fast-moving, constantly changing environment that will require much more than winding to keep it relevant, functioning, and up-to-date.
When it comes to website maintenance, it’s about weighing cost versus value.
While in-house website maintenance may seem like a quick way to save money, the cost of having to train staff or dedicate man-hours to website updates will quickly add up. Retaining the skills of a company that does it on a day-to-day basis will provide more efficient updates and more security.
Wondering what regular maintenance means for your website?
The benefits of maintaining your website are multifaceted. A properly maintained website will not only perform better, be more visually pleasing, and have no outdated or incorrect information, but will also protect against a variety of common digital threats.
Consistently updated software
Most content management systems today are easy to edit on the surface, but they are still complex software applications. Just like any operating platform, they need to be kept updated for your site’s ongoing security and performance.
On a custom-built site, this might mean routinely updating several different software components, plugins, and confirming that all the elements are still functioning correctly and are not giving errors.
Outdated software can leave your site vulnerable to hacking. If your site is brought down by hackers, the site’s content is damaged or hijacked so it misrepresents your business, or content is deleted, your organization will suffer the cost of downtime as the issue is resolved and damages are assessed and remedied.
Cross-browser compatibility
Different browsers render content differently. As they process the information from your site, the browser you’re using may interpret the information it’s reading differently than another browser would. As a result, your website may look a little off depending on what browser is being used. Slight shifts in appearance are not necessarily an issue, so long as your website still looks purposeful and still functions properly.
Fresh Content
Your website can be the most visually pleasing thing on earth, but it won’t matter much if your content is stale and outdated. Imagine a customer visiting your site to find your contact information or available products, only to find the phone line disconnected because you forgot to update the number on your website, or the products sold out because you didn’t keep your stock current?
When customers visit your site, they assume the content there is the most up-to-date available. Don’t annoy them or risk losing a potential customer by failing to keep your content fresh and engaging.
Security
Vulnerabilities in your website’s code can leave your site open to attacks. By having a website maintenance package in place, you can prevent this. Our website maintenance package makes sure that your server software and website software are kept up to date with the latest patches and security releases.
If a security breach does happen, having a website maintenance package will mean you’ll have experts on hand to remove any viruses, clean up your site, and restore your data. Plus, we’ll also deal with any search engines that may have blacklisted your website.
You can never be 100% protected from viruses and hackers, but you can be in a better position to combat it with a proper maintenance package.
Backup
Whether it’s family photos or your website’s data, backups are crucial to peace of mind. Having your website regularly backed up means that—if something catastrophic were to happen—you will be able to quickly and easily restore your website to its former glory, even if you’ve only noticed the issue a few weeks later.
Your maintenance plan will cover code and database backup (especially anytime you want to make an update), and content (like text, images, documents, etc.).
How much will it cost?
While it may not be free, a solid website maintenance package will more than makeup for its cost in the long run. We get that there are places you might want to save a few bucks, but we can promise that maintaining your website isn’t going to one of those places. Not to mention, the fallout from a badly maintained website will mean you’ll end up having to call in the pros anyway.
When budgeting for your website maintenance package, here’s what you’re usually looking at:
- Hosting is a recurring cost that, depending on how complicated your website is and how much bandwidth it uses, will run you between $10 to $100 and up a month for a small to a midsize business website.
- Your domain name is also a recurring cost (this is your URL, and you don’t want to lose this). It starts at around $15 per year.
- Google is now giving preferential ranking to businesses that have SSL licenses. These will often be built into your website and will cost about $50 a year.
- Basic backup is always included in any hosting plan. However, it only permits you 1-day rollback. While this allows you to recover if your site went down in the past 24 hours, it does not protect for any losses from before that. We include up to a 3-month, daily backup—which means you can rollback from any day, up to 90 days backwards in time.
At Convergine, we’ve designed a care plan that will help put your mind at ease. We use a combination of manual maintenance and third-party tools that keep us apprised of any abnormal issues happening on your site. From a sudden flood of traffic to repetitive login efforts, we’ll know what’s happening and be able to fix it before it becomes a critical issue.
We act as your website’s watchdog, continually reviewing your site for bugs, errors, or vulnerabilities that could cause issues down the line. Our maintenance plan is the regular checkup your website needs to avoid an “emergency room” situation.
Check out our recent posts to get insights on the website development process and best practices.
