Today, there are several resources available to create a website based on your business needs, but what people often fail to realize is that ensuring the website continues to run smoothly and maintain a positive user experience is equally important. Implementing regular website maintenance allows your business to continue to succeed its online presence and drive traffic to the product or service that you offer. A website that is maintained is more likely to convert site visitors to potential customers.
Every site varies with the amount of maintenance it requires. The site complexity and customization will determine the type of maintenance as well as the frequency of maintenance performed by either you or a hired professional. In this article, we’ll dive into further defining website maintenance, why website maintenance is important for your site, as well as the different types of website maintenance so that you can decide what type of maintenance makes the most sense for your business objectives.
What is Website Maintenance?
Website Maintenance is the ongoing process of keeping your website’s performance running smoothly and optimally. To ensure that your site remains functional and secure, check that all links are unbroken, content is regularly updated, and custom plug-ins are also working properly. Some of these tasks are more time sensitive than others, but the ultimate goal is to offer users a seamless experience, maintain search engine visibility, and prevent any downtime of the site.
Why is Website Maintenance Important?
Website maintenance is important to implement for any site to prevent technical issues from occurring. It also ensures your site maintains a positive user experience and impression for new customers, and maintains its ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs). By putting off routine maintenance, your site is at security risk of running slower, getting hacked, and potentially resulting in less traffic. If you want to keep your search engine rankings, you should have a maintenance plan to keep your site up to date.
What are the benefits of Website Maintenance?
Website maintenance is a proactive process that offers several key benefits for the business, one being what we mentioned earlier of improving the user experience and engagement. By regularly assessing outbound and internal links, optimizing images, and reviewing mobile responsiveness, you’re ensuring that visitors get the best experience and representation of your business. This will improve engagement with your site and ultimately lead to more conversions.
Website maintenance also naturally aligns with the ever evolving technology and trends, keeping the site not only keeps it visually appealing but it also extends its lifespan by meeting user expectations and web standards.
Another benefit that’s also a critical step when performing website maintenance is reducing security against cyber attacks. A well maintained website, which includes updating software and plugins, will reduce the risk of data breaches or malware infections, protecting not only the business but the users that are accessing the site as well.
What are the types of Website Maintenance?
Security Updates
This entails regularly patching software, firewalls, and SSL certificates to protect users and the business against cyber threats, such as hacking or malware..
Content Updates
Refreshing copy, images, or videos that will keep the information on each page current and engaging to the user. Implementing this in the routine maintenance will keep the site looking active and peak user interest
Plugin & Theme Updates
Updating plugins and themes will ensure site browser compatibility and security. Having outdated plugins could cause site errors or slow down performance.
Backup and Recovery
Whether it’s your site or a client’s, it’s good to store copies of the website’s data to restore it in the event it crashes or gets hacked. The best practice would be to automate this either daily or weekly, so that minimal data is lost and recovery time is minimal.
Performance Monitoring and Optimization
It’s valuable to assess the site’s speed that users experience to determine if any page or code needs optimization. By improving the site’s performance and load time, you’re also increasing the user experience
Security Scanning
This is an especially important type of website maintenance for e-commerce sites that are handling sensitive information daily. This includes running scans to detect malware or suspicious activity to catch early threats.
User Management
Remove inactive users or updating their roles to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information.
Uptime Monitoring
This includes making sure that the website is accessible at all times and minimizing outages to retain user trust.
Mobile Responsiveness
Not only do you want to perform website maintenance for users using desktop devices, but also ensure that you’re testing the site across devices like smartphones and tablets.
Software updates
To prevent compatibility issues, keep the CMS, server, or other core software current.
Legal Compliance
You’ll want to ensure that the site meets regulatory requirements including privacy policies or adding cookie consents to avoid fines.
Social Media Integration
If applicable to the business, update links, feeds, or sharing features to connect the site with social media platforms.
How Often should I be Performing Maintenance on my Website?
Depending on the site’s complexity, the frequency may vary. However, it’s good practice to implement routine maintenance to ensure your website is functioning properly. Let’s dive into each recommended website maintenance schedule so you can determine which cadence makes the most sense for your business needs.
Daily Maintenance
Perform daily site maintenance to monitor the website uptime, security alerts, and review any analytics if there appears to be a sudden traffic drop. Daily website maintenance immediately detects any issues like downtime of the site or hacking attempts. This type of maintenance schedule is best for high traffic sites like large e-commerce sites or content-heavy blog sites.
Weekly Maintenance
Weekly website maintenance makes sense for businesses to back up the website, test any forms or links on pages (you don’t want broken links!), and make minor copy changes. Performing weekly maintenance will prevent any data loss as well as catch any small issues before they escalate. Weekly maintenance may be something that business owners do to maintain a smooth user experience.
Monthly Maintenance
Monthly maintenance may include updating any plugins or themes. These tasks keep the site secure, efficient and competitive. Depending on the site activity, a maintenance schedule of four to six weeks should be performed depending on the site’s activity. This cadence is usually sufficient for most small to medium sized websites.
One example is a client of ours who owns a law firm and operates his business in a few key metropolitan areas within the state. We perform monthly maintenance and some of the key items we check off are as follows:
- Update all plugins to ensure they are all working properly, stay secure and don’t cause glitches
- Deleted unused plugins that are no longer needed, which helps make the website faster and less prone to issues
- Testing the website thoroughly, or regression testing, where we check each page, forms, links, and other features to make sure everything is working properly.
- Inform client of any security vulnerabilities and offering solutions
Quarterly Maintenance
A quarterly maintenance schedule may include a full security audit, updating outdated content, testing responsiveness on all devices, and user feedback for user experience improvements. This cadence ensures that any security threats are addressed and the site has relevant content for users.
Annual Maintenance
Perform annual website maintenance when reviewing the entire site for design updates or compliance with web standards. Annual maintenance is valuable when assessing design relevance or adapting to new technologies. This is best to be performed during the slower season of the business.
How Metapixel performs testing is through a checklist for each client.
Below is a checklist of the key maintenance services we perform for our clients’ websites to ensure they perform at their best:
Create and Update a Site Profile: We start by building a detailed profile of your website, noting its key features and any unique aspects. We update this profile over time to guide our testing and ensure we focus on what matters most.
Test Before Updates: Before making any changes, we test the website’s core features to spot existing issues. This helps us report problems that were present before our regular updates, ensuring transparency.
Set Up Uptime Monitoring: We use tools like UptimeRobot to monitor your website 24/7, alerting us if it goes offline so we can act quickly to restore it.
Cross-Browser Testing: We check your website on different browsers to confirm that pages, posts, popups, and forms look and work correctly, ensuring a consistent experience for all visitors.
Test Representative Pages: For sites with many similar pages, we test one page from each group to verify that each type functions properly, saving time while ensuring quality.
Test Content Management: We confirm you can create, edit, and delete pages and each type of post (e.g., blog posts, services) to ensure the site’s admin tools work smoothly.
Test Form Functionality (If Plugins Updated): If plugin updates might affect forms, we test form submissions to ensure they are emailed to you or saved in the website’s admin panel. (Note: We can’t test if submissions reach third-party systems like Salesforce.)
Test Unique Site Features: Every website has special features, like booking systems or galleries. After profiling your site, we test these key functions to ensure they work as intended.
This checklist helps us catch issues early on, keeping your website accessible, and ensure it works for both visitors and your team. Performing regular maintenance prevents downtime, enhances user experience and protects your online reputation.
Website Hosting Types
Not only should you consider the cadence of the website maintenance, but also where your site is being hosted. There’s a few types of hosting types, Shared hosting, VPS/Cloud hosting, and Managed hosting.
If you have a small site, such as a personal blog or a local business page, Shared hosting may be the best option for you. It’s an affordable option, but may require a more active role in keeping your site optimized and SEO-friendly. Examples are resizing any images you have on your pages, saving backups of your site and performing the security updates yourself. Hostinger, DreamHost, HostGator, or Bluehost are great shared hosting sites that can support these types of websites.
Another hosting type is VPS or Cloud hosting. This is a great option if you anticipate heavier traffic. What’s nice about a VPS/Cloud hosting is that the provider will often handle the technical fixes, such as slow loading time. This allows your focus to be more on the front-end of your website like descriptions versus trying to fix your site if it ever crashes. It is more costly than shared hosting, but may be worth the investment if you have a more traffic heavy site.
Lastly, the third type of hosting is Managed hosting. This is the most expensive of the three, but you’re looking to alleviate a lot of the heavy lifting this is the best option for you. These hosting companies, such as WP Engine or InMotion, take care of a good majority of the maintenance required. This includes updating the software, securing the site, and making sure it’s always online. In turn, your focus is more dialed in on content updates and the visual components of your site.
Common Questions asked about Website Maintenance
What is website maintenance and why is it necessary?
Website maintenance is the ongoing process of keeping your website secure, updated, and running smoothly. It’s necessary to maintain a positive user experience, avoid downtime, improve search engine optimization, and protect against security vulnerabilities.
How often should I perform website maintenance?
The ideal frequency depends on your website’s complexity. Daily checks are best for high-traffic or e-commerce sites, while most businesses benefit from weekly or monthly tasks. Full audits and design refreshes should be done quarterly or annually.
What are the most important website maintenance tasks?
Key tasks include security updates, content refreshes, plugin and theme updates, performance optimization and data backups. These ensure your site remains secure, functional, and user-friendly.
Can I handle maintenance myself or should I hire a professional?
If your site is simple and you’re comfortable with basic tasks, DIY maintenance can work. However, for larger or more complex sites, hiring a professional can save time and prevent technical errors that may affect performance or security.
How much does website maintenance typically cost?
Website maintenance costs can vary widely, ranging anywhere from $50 to $5,000 per month depending on the size and complexity of your site, and the services needed. Investing in maintenance is crucial to avoid costly downtime or data breaches.
