Thinking about owning a website? Did you know that it isn’t that easy and you need to be very careful about it, maintain your website on a regular basis? We had an idea that you didn’t know about it and now we are here to shed some light on the matter.
Running a website isn’t just about uploading images and inserting content, it is about making sure that all the functionalities and features of your website work effectively. Overtime, when new updates arrive, which they do rapidly, your website needs to get an update to run all those features efficiently.
If you don’t maintain your website regularly, chances are your website will crash as soon as it begins to rise. You should consider your website as a vehicle, one that needs cleaning, tuning and upgrades for smooth running. If you do not take care of it regularly, your website will have bumps on its roads which will get extremely costly to you.
How to maintain your website?
The entire process of website maintenance is basically referred to checking your website for broken links, vulnerable code scripts, and outdated information along with other relevant activities on a regular basis.
Even though there are many website maintenance services that you can advantage of but if you are thinking about doing this on your own, here are a few tips that will help you.
Always create a backup
This is something that should be done on a consistent basis, especially if you own an ecommerce website.
Websites can crash any time and different kinds of incidents take place all the time. You never know when you might lose your website for good. Having a backup will not just keep your data intact but it will also provide you with peace of mind.
- Update content regularly
The content on a website could consist of images, videos, written blogs and so on. Trust us when we say, each and every single being on this planet thrives for information. If you have outdated content, information that people are already aware about, nobody is going to visit your website often.
If you own an ecommerce website, then make sure that your store and the information remains updated. Keep providing your customers with teasers for upcoming collections and stuff. It will also drive traffic to your website.
- Update products regularly
If you have an e-store setup, updating products on your website will be a crucial and hectic step. This is one of the biggest reasons why many business owners go for website maintenance services. But since you are doing it on your own, make sure announce and add new products frequently, always add a navigation plan when you add new products and always update the changes in the rates of your products.
If you don’t keep this in mind, you will be causing a lot of inconvenience for your customers.
- Add news bulletins
Has someone features your business on your blog or if a newspapers has features your work? Adding a news bulletin to keep announcing your recognitions made by other people can have a pop to your website.
Also, you can add a list of the reviews that your buyers make for you, this is known as social proof and it adds a lot of benefit for the company. Make sure you keep the bulletins update and always share new information about your brand.
- Create a buzz by bargains
Another way to keep your website well-maintained and to drive traffic, you can always offer new bargains and announce promotional codes.
You always need to update the outdated content. Put on a sale or hold contests, providing giveaways of your brand to the winner. This will tell your customers that new products are launching soon and they will keep a tab on your website’s activities, providing you with all the traffic you need.
- Check your domain registration information
This aspect is neglected by most website owners and guesses what, their website expires and they don’t even know about it.
You can use a service provider named as WHOIS for this service. But you also need to make sure the information this service provider gives out to you is accurate or not. In order to ensure the information is correct, all you need to do is make sure the following information is accurate or not, i.e. your business name, address and other relevant data that is associated to your website.
- Monitor website outages
Are you worried that your website may crash or anything and you won’t know about it? Then you should make use of a platform known as SiteUp.
Most of the websites crash at some point; it isn’t something out of the ordinary or anything for you to be worried about. With the help of SIteUp, you will know about any kind outages before your visitor has time to file a complaint. You can keep yourself ahead of these outages and make sure your website works nicely at all costs.
- Check your website for broken links and updates
Once you developed your website, we are sure that you would not have left any kind of links and updates required at that time unattended. But as the time passes, some of those links get broken down or require a refreshing button to keep them going as planned initially.
All you need to is check those links frequently and make sure none of them are broken or anything. It will keep your website’s credibility intact and you will drive more traffic through back linking.
- Update software regularly
If you have installed a third-party software for your website such as Joomla, WordPress or Wix, then you must know that these software update on a regular basis.
If you don’t keep tabs on the incoming updates, your website will lose its functionality and will begin to crash every now and then. Make sure the software you have installed is updated at all times to keep your business going and growing.
So, these were a few of our tips regarding how to maintain your website effectively. If you think there is another point that we must know about or add in this list, let us know through the comments below and we will definitely have a look at it.
