Key takeaways:
- Every website owner should conduct regular maintenance to ensure that their website is fully functional for the best UX and optimized for search engines.
- There are various types of website maintenance to do either weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually.
- There are two options to do website maintenance: by yourself or hiring professional services.
You’ve finally launched your website. You’ve made it through the developmental phase and are now ready to welcome visitors and grow your online presence. However, getting your website up and running doesn’t mean the work is done. You will need regular website maintenance to ensure that it remains secure, functional, and up to date.
Ongoing website maintenance involves checking and refining your website’s performance and existing content. Unfortunately, many website owners fail to monitor their websites after the initial deployment. Doing so leads to technical issues that affect user experience, which causes them to leave and ultimately leads to potential profit loss.
Investing in website maintenance can protect your online presence, attract more traffic, and improve your online reputation and credibility.
In this article, we’ll talk about the several types of ongoing website maintenance that you should regularly perform on your website to ensure optimal performance and success.
What is website maintenance and why is it important?
Just like any valuable asset, your website requires regular maintenance to stay in top condition. This involves various performance optimization routines to ensure it’s secure, functioning correctly, has up-to-date content, and delivers a positive user experience.
Improving your website’s performance helps in different aspects of your business, such as:
- Building customer trust
- Improving marketing efforts and conversions
- Enhancing your website’s search engine results visibility
- Growing your profit
Now let’s dive into the types of website maintenance you can do.
What are the types of ongoing website maintenance?
Website maintenance tasks encompass a range of activities to ensure a website remains functional, secure, up-to-date, and performs optimally. Key types include:
Website updates and upgrades
It’s important to regularly update website software (e.g., content management systems, plugins, and other applications), to ensure they’re secure and functioning correctly.
Regular software and app updates and upgrades contribute to your website’s overall performance, user experience, and competitiveness. They involve making changes and improvements to various aspects of your website to ensure it remains up-to-date, visually appealing, and functional.
Content updates
Make sure to provide fresh and unique website content. Add new information, update existing blog posts, and remove outdated content. Regularly updating your web content can provide value to your audience and encourage them to revisit your site more often.
Additionally, frequent content updates improve its quality and credibility. This improves your reputation and builds trust with your customers.
Website layout and design upgrade
Regular website maintenance also significantly improves your website’s design, functionality, and structure. Remember, what appears modern and sleek at one moment may appear clunky and dated in just a few months. You can use a new design theme or template to give your website a fresh and modern look.
Security updates
Website security is one of the most important reasons site owners should perform regular maintenance. Without proper security measures in place, your website becomes vulnerable to attacks and security breaches, which put user data and your sensitive information at risk.
Website security plays an important role in preventing security threats and maintaining users’ trust and confidence in your website. When users come to your website, they expect a safe browsing experience.
If customers or site visitors encounter security issues, such as malware warnings or compromised data, it will ruin their trust in your business. This can lead to customer attrition, a damaged reputation, and, ultimately, financial losses.
It’s also worth noting that search engines prioritize secure websites in their rankings. Which is why it’s also important to implement security measures, such as SSL certificates and HTTPS encryption to protect your website and improve its visibility and search engine optimization (SEO) performance. This means that having a secure website can positively impact your online visibility, attract more organic traffic, and give you a competitive edge.
Also, install the latest bug fixes and security patches as part of your routine maintenance. Outdated plugins may contain known vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit. Additionally, avoid running on expired security certificates, as they can jeopardize the integrity of encrypted connections and expose your site to potential attacks.
Backup and recovery
Data loss can severely impact your website’s functionality and reputation. Although prevention is better than a cure in this case, it’s still highly recommended that you perform routine backups so that you can easily restore your website to its previous state.
This is where a well-defined backup strategy proves valuable. Regularly scheduled backups act as safety nets because they create copies of your website’s data, files, databases, and configurations.
You can manually back up your site with a file transfer protocol (FTP) client such as FileZilla or CyberDuck. However, this might seem tedious for someone without prior experience or technical knowledge.
Thankfully, numerous software and tools are available to simplify this process. For one, you can use user-friendly scheduling tools like BlogVault and UpdraftPlus or cloud storage services like Google Drive and Dropbox. Some web hosting providers also offer their own backup solutions.
Bug fixes
Website functionality hinges on consistent bug fixes. This website maintenance process involves identifying and resolving issues that impede your website’s user experience. A few examples of this include:
- Broken links
- Malfunctioning elements
- Incorrect button actions and page redirects
- Typos in key information
- Issues in layout and site navigation
By prioritizing these fixes, you create a reliable and enjoyable online environment that encourages engagement and trust.
Site performance monitoring and optimization
Website maintenance relies on closely monitoring what’s working and what needs improvement. To do this, you need to keep track of the following key metrics:
- Bounce rate. This is the percentage or amount of site visitors who leave your website after viewing only a single page. A high bounce rate can signal content relevance, usability, page design, or site speed issues.
- Time on site. This metric tracks visitors’ average duration on your website during a session. Longer times often indicate engaging content and a positive user experience.
- Conversion rate. This is the amount or percentage of website visitors who successfully completed a purchase, sign-up, or download.
- Page load time. This is the average time for a page on your website to fully load in a visitor’s browser. Faster load times are best for user satisfaction and SEO performance.
- Pages per session. This indicates the average number of pages a visitor views during a single session on your website. A higher number often suggests users find your content interesting and navigate further.
- Website traffic. This refers to the total number of visitors accessing your website over a specific period. Analyzing traffic helps you understand your audience size and the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
- Page uptime. This fundamental metric reflects how consistently a webpage is operational and accessible to its audience. The generally accepted industry benchmark for website uptime is 99.9%.
Analyzing your website’s performance, optimizing code and images, implementing caching, and prioritizing mobile optimization can ensure exceptional website performance. This will leave a positive impression on visitors and drive your online goals forward.
Accessibility testing
Accessibility testing is a vital part of website maintenance, going beyond standard functionality checks to ensure your site is usable by as many people as possible. This includes:
- Users with disabilities. Individuals with visual impairments (relying on screen readers), auditory limitations (needing transcripts or captions), motor disabilities (using keyboard navigation or assistive technologies), and cognitive differences.
- Mobile device users. Ensuring responsive design and touch-friendly elements for seamless navigation on various screen sizes.
- Users with slow internet connections. Optimizing content for faster loading times and providing alternative formats where necessary.
By proactively testing and addressing accessibility barriers, you create a more inclusive experience and potentially expand your site’s reach. This often improves overall usability, SEO, and compliance with accessibility standards and regulations.
SEO maintenance
Similar to updating website plugins and security patches to provide an excellent user experience, optimizing your website to boost its search engine ranking is equally important. Here are a few website maintenance tasks that can improve your results in search engine results pages:
- Collecting backlinks from reputable sources. This helps your website gain credibility and authority. It signals to search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy.
- Building an internal linking structure. This ensures and enhances your website’s crawlability and indexability on search engines, which leads to better visibility in search engine results.
- Posting relevant, high-quality, and fresh content. Valuable and informative new blog posts attract and engage your target audience. More than that, it signals to search engines that your website is active and up to date.
This approach to SEO helps drive organic traffic, increase brand visibility, and ultimately contribute to the success of your online presence. For all the best tips and tricks, check out our small business guide to SEO. And if you need help with your website’s SEO, you can trust our SEO experts to get the job done!
Upgrading web hosting plan and domain name renewal
Upgrading your web hosting plan and renewing your domain name are fundamental, often overlooked, aspects of website maintenance. Forgetting domain name renewal will result in its expiration and makes your website inaccessible to visitors. And worse, it potentially leads to its permanent loss. This disrupts your online presence and can severely impact your brand and traffic.
Similarly, not upgrading your web hosting plan when your website’s needs grow can lead to performance issues. As traffic and content increase, an inadequate hosting plan can cause slow loading times, frequent downtime, and poor user experience.
Regularly assessing your hosting requirements and ensuring timely domain renewal are important to guarantee your website remains consistently online, performs optimally, and continues to serve its purpose effectively.
How often should you do website maintenance?
It’s highly recommended to do consistent site maintenance to ensure that it operates and performs well. However, remember that some website maintenance tasks require more frequent intervals than others.
Here’s a table to help you schedule your web maintenance:
| Weekly | Monthly | Quarterly | Annually |
| Website backups (or every time there’s a new update) Analytics monitoring | Security scans Plugins update Page speed monitoring | Content updates SEO updates | Domain host and name renewal Web design update or redesign |
How much does website maintenance cost?
The average cost of website maintenance ranges from $50 to $200 per month, but it can increase depending on your site’s size and complexity.
While a basic website might incur minimal monthly expenses handled by the owner, complex or high-traffic sites that demand professional oversight can range from tens to thousands of dollars monthly.
Here’s a breakdown of key factors that significantly impact these costs:
- Bandwidth consumption. Higher website traffic translates to increased bandwidth usage. This potentially necessitates more expensive hosting plans with larger data transfer allowances to avoid overage charges and ensure consistent performance for your visitors.
- Software and tool subscriptions. Maintaining a website often involves utilizing various paid tools and services. These could include backup solutions, advanced security monitoring platforms, SEO and analytics software, and content delivery networks (CDNs) to enhance speed and reliability.
- Complexity and scale of your website. The type and size of your website directly correlate with maintenance needs. A simple site requires less upkeep than a dynamic eCommerce site with extensive product catalogs, user accounts, and intricate functionalities, which demand more frequent updates and specialized technical attention.
- Hosting infrastructure and domain management. Your hosting plan (ranging from budget-friendly shared hosting to high-performance dedicated servers) is the foundation of your online presence. Meanwhile, annual domain registration fees are recurring costs that factor into the overall expense of keeping your website operational and accessible.
Beyond these tangible factors, the level of support you require significantly impacts the maintenance costs. Opting for professional website maintenance services from freelancers or agencies offers expertise and time savings, but comes at a higher price than managing tasks yourself.
Should I hire a professional or do the website maintenance on my own?
As mentioned previously, one factor that can affect your website maintenance costs is deciding whether to do it yourself or hire web professionals. Let’s take a look at each option’s pros and cons to help you decide which is best for your site maintenance tasks and costs:
DIY website maintenance
DIY website maintenance offers a sense of control and potential cost savings for those with a foundational understanding of web technologies or a willingness to learn. This approach involves the website owner or a designated in-house team responsible for content updates, software management, regular security scans, and performance monitoring.
| Pros | Cons |
| Cost-effective and money-saving | Can be time-consuming |
| Can be a great learning opportunity | Limited expertise |
| Provides better control over your website | There might be technical challenges that require professional help |
Hiring a professional
There are various companies or freelancers who offer web maintenance services to keep your site secure and up to date. Here are some pros and cons to consider before opting for a website maintenance plan:
| Pros | Cons |
| Time-saving | Some maintenance packages are very expensive and more costly |
| Technical expertise | Communication challenges |
DIY offers cost savings and full control but requires technical skills and time for all maintenance. Professionals provide expertise and efficiency for a higher price, but they ensure a well-maintained and secure website. Carefully weigh the balance between your budget, the time you can dedicate, and the level of expertise your website truly needs.
Keep your website running at peak performance
Consistent website maintenance is important for the long-term success of any online business. After all, a fresh, modern, well-maintained website functioning properly is more likely to create a good first impression and enhance your brand image. It also shows your willingness to adapt to evolving technology and design standards and provide a reliable and trustworthy online presence.
Maximize the potential of your online business. Invest in ongoing website maintenance and combine it with an upgrade on your web hosting plan to successfully thrive in the competitive digital market.
Frequently asked questions
Announce planned website maintenance via website banners, dedicated maintenance pages with estimated downtime, social media updates, and email (if applicable) a few days beforehand, especially for longer outages.
Maintenance duration varies from minutes for simple updates to several hours for complex upgrades, depending on the website’s size, complexity, and any issues encountered. When sending out website maintenance announcements, remember to provide users with an estimated timeframe.
Difficulty ranges from easy (content updates) to very challenging (complex coding, server work), depending on your technical skills and the task. Basic content management system tasks are simpler than advanced technical troubleshooting.
