When your computer requires an update, you get a little nag notification to remind you. Or maybe there’s no reminder and it spontaneously reboots. Don’t you just hate it when that happens? But without the update, your computer bogs down to a crawl and NOTHING seems to work right until you go ahead and allow it to perform the maintenance it needs.
When your car needs servicing, generally you’ll be notified by some idiot light on the dashboard. Ignore that light at your own peril. One tiny bit of maintenance now for $29.95 can save you thousands in repair bills later.
The same concept is true for your website. Maintenance is key. Your website is made up of thousands of lines of code and multiple pieces of software that all must integrate seamlessly for it to perform at its best. With updates pushed out daily on one or more pieces of that puzzle, it’s easy to let things slip. That can quickly turn into a mess that will be expensive to fix.
Website Problems = Lost Opportunities
When visitors go to a website and find things wrong with it, they usually don’t stick around. Do you? If pages take forever to load, links don’t work, or you see “404 page not found” you go elsewhere, right? Yet too many website owners never check their website to see how well it functions. Problems on the page, as well as things like downtime can lose you potential customers. But a well-designed, properly functioning website can and should help you produce revenue.
Website Maintenance for the Win
Website performance, its load time, downtime and uptime, is dependent on WordPress software and plugins being up-to-date and functioning properly. The quality of your website hosting also comes into play, but that’s a topic for another blog post.
Your website’s growth, keeping its content fresh, design changes as needed, and monitoring of your site’s analytics is all dependent on having someone who will make sure all updates to your website are done professionally and without errors.
Our Website Maintenance Workflow
At Zero To Sixty Marketing LLC we take great care to first backup the website, and check the website after our updates for any issues. We keep a record of all plugins as they are updated so if there is ever an issue we see what plugin version was changed and revert back. This information is included in a monthly maintenance report, along with your website performance grade and results of security scans. In the event we catch an issue, it becomes a support ticket and we address it before you even know there’s a problem.
Yes, but Why Shouldn’t I just Do This Myself?
If you have a system in place that includes performance and security monitoring, daily backups, records of what gets updated and when, an understanding of how to revert or restore your WordPress installation, then you’re good to go.
But if you’re like the majority of website owners who either neglect updates altogether or don’t have a plan in place to fix what can go wrong during an update, DIY can be costly. An update gone wrong can easily take your site offline, and without a record of what changed and when, it will be more difficult to fix. You may end up losing content changes, sales orders, contact entries, etc.
It Costs More to Fix Than to Maintain
Inexperience and neglect can damage the look and functionality of your website. You can try to fix it yourself, possibly creating more work and further damage. Or you can pay the sometimes hefty price for someone with the experience to fix it. Just like your car or your computer, it costs more to fix it than to simply maintain it properly. Regular oil changes help keep your car running properly; regular site maintenance helps keep your website looking and functioning at its best.
Call in a Professional
As a business owner, you’re already wearing multiple hats. I know that’s true for me, and it’s why I no longer try to do it all myself.
So why not deal with what you know best and let us deal with what we know best? Would you try to fight a court battle without a lawyer? Then why try to maintain your own website if you’re not a web professional?
By securing an experienced web professional to update and maintain your site properly you are actually saving potential lost sales and visitors.
If you’re interested in securing a maintenance contract for your website, contact us to learn how we can keep your site in proper working order.
