The maintenance of a website is as important as its development. If you have a website and you are not maintaining it regularly, you may be experiencing many issues that could affect the functionality of your website and sometimes even compromise the security of your website.
Just like any other valuable possession that you own, you must maintain your website too. If you don’t have the time or the required skills to maintain it, you can hire a web developer to do this job for you. It may cost you a bit, but this investment is worth it.
But the question is, “How should webmasters maintain their websites?“. In this blog post, we’ll explore 21 crucial website maintenance activities you can carry out to take care of your website.
1. Regular Backup:
Maintaining up-to-date backups of your website, including databases and files, is always advisable. Every webmaster should take regular backups of their website so that they can use it to restore, just in case of an emergency. When you hire a web developer or a web design agency to maintain your site, they will always make sure to backup all the files & folders of your website.
So, taking regular backups will ensure that:
- You always have the latest & fully functional copy of your website.
- You can restore your website with a backup in an emergency situation.
2. Software Updates:
Another important task that every webmaster or web developer does to maintain their websites is to upgrade/update the website software to its latest version. In today’s dynamic era of technology, it’s likely that website software will become obsolete. Therefore, it’s important to keep updating the website software regularly.
Here are some of the major benefits of updating the website software:
- It ensures the performance of the website.
- It ensures the security of the website.
- It ensures the optimized loading speed.
- It helps with the SEO indirectly. When your website performs well, is secured, and loads quickly, it may achieve higher rankings on search engines.
3. Security Checks:
Regular security checks are an integral part of any website maintenance program. Performing regular security audits to identify vulnerabilities and protect against potential threats is crucial for every webmaster.
There are many ways in which you can check your website for its security:
- You can use an online tool like Sucuri.net
- You can install a security plugin/module on your website that will continuously monitor the security performance of your site. It will send you notifications when there is any compromise with the security of your website.
4. Malware Scans:
Run malware scans to detect and remove any malicious code or files that might have infiltrated your website. You can use an online tool like https://sitecheck.sucuri.net/ to run malware scans on your website.
5. SSL Certificate Renewal:
Ensure your SSL certificate is updated to maintain secure data transmission between your website and visitors’ browsers. Updating your server’s SSL certificate is essential for users’ security. Having an up-to-date SSL certificate also helps in SEO rankings. So, there are two major benefits of regularly updating your SSL certificate:
- Ensures the security of users’ confidential data.
- Helps with Google SEO rankings.
6. Mobile Responsiveness:
One of the essential tasks that comes under website maintenance is checking the site’s responsiveness. Having a mobile-friendly (responsive) website can help you in many ways, such as the following:
- A responsive website can enrich the browsing experience of users who access it using smart devices such as mobile phones or tablets.
- Search engines like Google consider a website’s responsiveness a crucial signal for ranking it and showing it to users.
- A responsive website can get you more conversions & sales compared to websites that are not user-friendly.
- A mobile-friendly website also ensures the quick loading of webpages on mobiles.
Every professional web design agency includes checking and troubleshooting the responsive design of their website in their website maintenance package.
7. Speed Optimization:
Optimize your website’s loading speed. Lagging website load times can impact not just your search engine rankings but also the overall user experience. If your website is constructed on the WordPress platform, you can effortlessly improve its loading speed by installing a plugin like “WP Fastest Cache.” Occasionally, sluggish loading may stem from a problematic theme or plugin.
Hire a WordPress developer to enhance the loading speed of your website.
8. Broken Links:
What’s a broken link?
A link that leads users nowhere when they click it is known as a broken link.
How can broken links affect you?
- Broken links can turn your users down when they experience links on your website that open a page with the message “Page Not Found.”
- Broken links can also harm your SEO rankings. Search engines like Google don’t like broken links, as they negatively impact users’ smooth browsing experience.
Therefore, you must conduct a website scan to check for broken links. Once found, you must fix them immediately. If you don’t have time & resources to check and repair your website’s broken links, hire a web developer for this job. You can hire an agency or a web developer to regularly maintain your website and check for all the critical issues, such as broken links.
9. Content Review:
Review and update your website’s content to ensure it remains relevant and accurate. Remove outdated information and improve SEO where necessary.
10. SEO Audit:
Conduct regular SEO audits to identify and address issues that may be affecting your search engine rankings.
11. Image Optimization:
Optimize images to reduce file size without compromising quality. Large images can slow down your website’s loading time.
12. User Experience Testing:
Test your website’s user experience (UX) to ensure easy navigation and a pleasant user journey. Make adjustments based on feedback.
13. Contact Forms and CTAs:
Test contact forms, calls to action (CTAs), and other interactive elements to ensure they are functioning correctly.
14. Broken Page Elements:
Check for any broken or missing page elements, such as images, videos, or buttons. Get them fixed as soon as you can because it can damage your reputation.
15. 404 Error Pages:
Customize and monitor your 404 error pages to guide users back to your site when they encounter a dead end.
16. Database Optimization:
Regularly optimize your website’s database to improve performance and reduce loading times.
17. Accessibility Compliance:
Ensure your website complies with accessibility standards like WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) to accommodate all users, including those with disabilities.
18. Review Analytics:
Analyze website traffic, user behavior, and conversion rates to make informed decisions for improvement.
19. Content Backups:
In addition to full website backups, maintain backups of your critical content, such as blog posts and product descriptions.
20. Spam Control:
Implement anti-spam measures, especially for comment sections and contact forms, to prevent spam from cluttering your website.
21. Test Cross-Browser Compatibility:
Test your website’s compatibility with different web browsers to ensure a consistent user experience for all visitors.
Don’t have the required time, resources, & skills to maintain your website? Hire a professional web developer for your website maintenance.
