Not Maintaining Your Website Has Consequences
There’s a common misconception that developing a website is a one-time cost. The initial development project can feel exhausting—you put in all the time, money, and effort into building the perfect digital space for your business, launch it, and it’s done, right?
Definitely not.
Your website is likely the only employee you have working 24/7 for your business. Should you drive your car for an entire year without changing the oil? Go a whole year without sweeping the floors in your store? How about wearing the same shirt for a year without washing it or updating your wardrobe?
Website maintenance isn’t something you should skimp on.
Neglecting your website can create painful, expensive headaches for your business, affecting your website traffic, security, sales, and, ultimately, your business’s entire reputation.
In this blog, we’ll show you the importance of regular website maintenance, as well as the consequences of leaving your website to fend for itself in the wild.
6 Consequences of Neglecting Website Maintenance
1. Reduced Website Traffic
Maintaining your website requires you to regularly update pretty much everything—think content, design, frameworks, plugins, etc.
If you’re not regularly updating your website, you’re at risk of hurting your business’s search engine optimization (SEO), which will make it harder for customers to find your business’s website on search engines (ex. Google), social media sites (ex. Facebook), and voice assistants (ex. Alexa).
Bad SEO is like moving your business from the front of a busy commercial street to a back-alley, hidden storefront in a scarcely visited part of town. Critical ranking factors like stale content, outdated plugins and frameworks, and slow page load times can all be remedied with regular website maintenance.
2. Security Risks
Security should be one of your biggest concerns If you’re responsible for any-sized website for any-sized business in any industry.
By not regularly performing maintenance updates, you’re leaving your business open to vulnerabilities and inviting hackers in to wreak havoc.
There are two significant consequences to getting hacked—on the one hand, you need to be worried about data loss, including your customers’ critical data. On the other hand, you need to consider all the secondary costs associated with website downtime, for example, your online store’s inability to accept orders.
Regular site backups should also be included in your maintenance plan, so if your website gets hacked, you’ll be able to get your website back up more quickly.
It’s also vital that you know who hosts your website and who has access to your domain. Domain squatters can steal URLs similar to yours, pose as your business, and hurt your reputation. It’s important that you work with a knowledgeable domain manager who can help you track, purchase, and monitor your domains as part of your website maintenance plan.
3. Loss of Reputation
How much of your business’s overall reputation depends on your website? According to web credibility research from Stanford, 75% of users admit to making judgments about a company’s credibility based on its website’s design.
What does your website say about your business’s knowledge, credibility, and reputation?
If it’s been a few years since you updated your design, customers might view your business as outdated and out of touch. If it’s missing security features like captchas when submitting forms or an HTTPS domain, they may not be comfortable doing business with you.
Technology changes fast. Regular updates ensure your website is current with design, content, and security trends.
4. Expensive Repairs and Updates
The first-time cost of buying a website is a sizeable expense for most businesses, whether you’re working with a website development company or logging the hours building your own website.
When it comes to the big purchases in your personal life, it’s common knowledge that regular maintenance can help you avoid expensive repair bills down the road—think oil changes for your car and filter changes for your HVAC. Your website is no different.
This facet of website maintenance is especially true for framework and plugin updates.
Website frameworks and plugins need regular updates. As time goes on, they may even expire or be entirely replaced by newer, more secure versions. Not keeping up with updates can lead to an expensive rebuild to discover and replace aging frameworks and plugins. A regular maintenance plan can help reassure that your website is kept up-to-date and that if a plugin is about to reach its end-of-life, you’ll have plenty of time to research replacements before something breaks.
5. Poor User Experience
Slow page load times and broken links will send customers to your competitor as fast as they can click the back button.
Likewise, accessibility plays a huge role in creating a good user experience for your customers. In serving a diverse customer base, your website should be easy to use by everyone, and it should be easy for them to make purchases and contact your business.
Poor user experience also factors into your SEO. If your critical business data is different everywhere someone looks, it detracts from your SEO. It also makes it more difficult to visit your business in person (if you have a physical office or storefront).
6. Missed Opportunities
If you’re bypassing website updates, you’re also skipping out on new technology, features, and tools that make your business’s digital doorstep more attractive. New technology gives your business better ways to show off its products, services, and promotions.
Likely, customers will find an updated website to be more engaging and help increase your brand loyalty.
In many cases, these missed opportunities also affect the business side of things, too—think of new reporting business management tools that make your website work harder for you.
We Put Your Website To Work.
With the right partner, your website can do more for your business. Ongoing website maintenance and improvements are critical for your business’s success.
Contact us to learn more about Website Services for your business, including Website Management and/or Website as a Service (WaaS) solutions.