Website Maintenance

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Website Maintenance

Website Maintenance is often viewed as a necessary evil. It may not give an immediate tangible benefit but has to be carried out to ensure everything’s ok. Being the face of a business on the world wide web one cannot ignore the probabilities of a website being down, hacked or showing stale and outdated information. This can be detrimental not only for a company’s image but also carries the risk of turning away customers.

But besides being equipped for eventualities, scope of maintenance also covers technology upgrades and keeping your website fresh with content to reflect the latest state of the business. And if your website has an active viewership or is a source of sales leads and purchases then the stakes are much higher. A proactive maintenance & support regime is of utmost importance.

Perils of Unmaintained Websites

The consequences of an unattended and unmaintained website can be far reaching. Some of the common dangers that exist are –

Down Time

Downtime can happen due to many reasons, like web hosting issues, website code errors, network problems, etc. Hence the pre-emptive health checks and proactive monitoring of the website is essential. Having your site unavailable can have a drastic impact to your business depending on whether your site is static, dynamic or transactional in nature and its daily viewership.

Security Risks

Websites are always prone to hack attempts, malware and spam bots trying to plant dubious content and code. Popular CMS based websites are often targets for such malicious activity. The fallout from a website compromise incident can be as serious as losing years of data, content; getting de-indexed from Search Engines or putting your well-established online presence in jeopardy.

Outdated Information

In the digital age where people are so dependent on the internet for information, commerce and social interaction having stale or obsolete content can be a big turn off. Affecting not only your brand but also turning away prospects which would come your way.

Old Technology

Security risks are heightened when software is not upgraded to latest versions. Besides you also miss out the technology advancements and new features that can enhance user experience and engagement on your website. Not to mention the risk of losing out to competitors.

How does it Help and What does it Involve

Keeping your website running in good health has its obvious benefits. Other than having the peace of mind against the possible hazards mentioned earlier, a frequently updated website with fresh content also helps in Search Engine rankings and also in bringing repeat visitors. And if your website is a means to get sales leads and customers then an on-going maintenance and upkeep routine should already be part and parcel of your marketing strategy.

Though the scope of website maintenance may vary on case by case basis, it may typically cover the following services –

Site Backups – Taking regular backups and testing out if they work by restoring
CMS version upgrades – For CMS based websites, keeping them on latest CMS versions
Theme & Plugins upgrades – Other Website components such as the theme, plugins, modules, extensions should be updated to their latest versions
Implementing security measures – Securing the CMS and website backend
Site structure technicalities – Missing URLs, redirects, 404 errors, etc
Webmaster notifications – Monitoring error notifications from Webmaster Tools

Updates – Modifying and keeping up-to-date the existing content on the website such as the text, images, banner, etc
Content Publishing – Upload and publish of regular blogs, articles, news & events, testimonials, etc
New Functionalities – Adding features like online forms, booking capability, calculators and so on

Attending to and recovering from incidents of file corruption, malware infection, hacking and so on

General Health Check – Checking server, email space, system warnings, error notifications, etc
Clean up – Purging logs, comments and other unwanted system files
Operational Monitoring – Page Load times, indexing, etc
Renewals – Keeping track of domain name and hosting renewals

Chores for Website maintenance and upkeep

Outsourcing Website Maintenance

Given the technicalities involved in administering websites and managing the content on them outsourcing Website Maintenance is a viable, trouble-free option. Every company may not have the internal expertise and the staff who can carry out the required tasks, this is especially true for small businesses and SMEs.

Website Design experts in Singapore such as WebSell Solutions offers services to clients to manage their websites. We structure our maintenance package such that it covers not only the typical technical tasks but also content publishing requirements.

Clients just need to grant us access to their website backend and hosting (optional), and we’ll take care of all your needs to have an active online presence. Services are rendered remotely within the agreed scope and SLAs under our monthly maintenance contract.

Request a Case Study

Interested to know how WebSell helps maintain a Tuition Service Provider’s website and its content under a monthly retainer program. Request this Case Study that we’ll be happy to forward you.