4.5 Reasons Your Business Website Needs Regular Maintenance

4.5 Reasons Your Business Website Needs Regular Maintenance

If you’re asking yourself, “Did they mean to write ‘4.5’?” The answer is yes, we did. There were more than four reasons your business website needs regular maintenance but not quite five either. While the number of reasons may be debatable, what we know for certain is that these 4.5 reasons are extremely important! Here’s why:

Marketing

Content updates are an important step in any businesses’ marketing strategy. From about pages to product pages, keeping content updated and fresh is important for your clients. In addition, being able to collect contact information from contact forms and lead magnets is essential for building contacts for newsletters and other direct marketing. This kind of marketing-friendly update can include:

SEO and Reporting

Consistent site maintenance helps create great search engine optimization. Ensure that your site is working optimally utilizing keywords throughout the site as well as in blog posts. Enrolling in Google Console and Google Analytics can keep you aware of any issues with how pages are being indexed, as well as where your site traffic is originating. That information can be used to further refine your marketing plans to appeal to your target market.

Security

It does not matter if your site is a massive e-commerce powerhouse or a simple blog—it needs security. First and foremost, your site needs an up-to-date security certificate. Second, it needs to have a platform and plug-in updates regularly. Doing this keeps your site safe because the updates allow for the code to be “patched” to prevent hackers or malware from getting through any figurative holes.

Functionality

Poor functionality is just one of the reasons a visitor may bounce off your site. If the site does not load in under 3 seconds, has images that fail to load, or if the information is challenging to locate, they are more likely to leave than dig for information. In addition, it is important that your site is mobile optimized so that it can be viewed and function from a mobile device for nearly 51% of the 3.9 billion Internet users worldwide.

It’s also important to keep in mind that your site should be accessible to differently abled visitors. Consumers who are disabled account for 15% of all Internet users but that percentage could be higher if your product does or could serve those with disabilities—which means it is imperative that your site can function with the following:

  • Text that is able to be converted to audio, large print, or braille
  • Alt text, captions, and descriptions on all images
  • Avoid images and structure that could cause seizures
  • Tab navigation/all functionality available from a keyboard
  • Captions on videos and other content

How Hammersmith Support Can Help

No matter what kind of shape your site is in, we’re here to help. If you have specific questions or are curious about which of Hammersmith Support’s services can benefit your website, schedule a complimentary 30-minute consultation and let’s talk through your thoughts.