To build a home is like building a life for you and your family. Will you leave it unattended forever then? Similarly, building a website is like building your company’s existence in the digital world. It is how the world will see you and come to you. Will you let it run stoic, and your business perish then?

We believe the answer to both our questions is negative. However, a website demands much more maintenance than your home in that pursuit. In this article, we will uncover the latter but less pressed upon side of website development, that is website maintenance.

What is the meaning of website maintenance?

In a nutshell, web maintenance is simply the process of assessing the website thoroughly, keeping an eye on its performance, and updating it regularly for traffic growth. In the words of Web Hosting Companies in Dubai, maintaining a particular website plays the most critical role in attracting, engaging, and customer retention.

What makes website maintenance essential?

Looking from the eye of a prospective client, your website is the first thing that they see. They are searching for relevant information, some value, and a sense of professionalism. This is where web maintenance comes into the picture. With regular updates and relevant content as part of the maintenance, your website attracts, retains customers, and maintains a high search rank.

Better customer satisfaction

From a customer’s viewpoint who has entered your website, low loading speed, broken links, irresponsive web design can be annoying. However, suppose the website is maintained professionally and diligently, adding responsive web designs, good content, attractive templates. In that case, it will make the customer happy. A well-maintained website always impresses visitors and encourages them to associate with you. If they are satisfied with your website, they will only opt for your products and services and become loyal promoters of your brand.

Boosting the SEO

Google has an affinity for websites that are well optimized. However, if the website includes poor redirections, it will rank poorly on the search engine. You might even get de-indexed if one fine day Google crawls to your website and finds errors. Driving traffic is the objective of SEO. Therefore, regular updates with good content, news, keywords, etc., helps you to stay in the league.

Better security

The security of your website is of utmost importance, especially if you have sensitive information in nature. Web maintenance with regular software updates and security patches makes your website safe and secure. If left un-updated for a long time, a website attracts hackers, resulting in downtime and loss of business eventually.

How is web maintenance done?

Web maintenance involves several tasks that have to be carried out regularly so that your website is always up and ready on the search engine. Following tasks are adopted under web maintenance –

(1) Reviewing Search Console

You must check the Google Search Console regularly since it helps you identify specific potential issues that might arise affecting your online marketing activities. For example, this tool notifies you if a particular problem stops search engines from indexing your page and if malware has infected your website.

(2) Checking broken links

Nothing frustrates a user more than broken links, and thus it deteriorates organic leads like no other. Furthermore, if the search engine bots cannot find links to the pages, they will also rank you low.

Generally, broken links occur due to the reasons as under –

If you have moved a page, other pages still link to it.
The links are still pointing to the pages that do not exist anymore.
The most common reason – is a spelling mistake in the link.
A plugin was deleted but left links in your content.
Replacing an image with a different file name.

(3) Updating the CMS and Plugins

You must make it a point to update your CMS (Content Management System) monthly since new vulnerabilities keep arising regularly, which must be identified and dealt with immediately to keep hackers at bay from accessing those defective plugins or CMS. This can be done quickly by logging into the admin panel.

(4) Reviewing Analytics

It is the best and more like the only way you can assess the performance of your website, detect potential problems, and strategize for your business. The analytics enables you to observe traffic trends, bounce rate, engagement metrics, etc. This gives you proper insights into what changes have to be done on priority and generates content relevant to the audience.

The complete checklist for website maintenance –

The weekly checklist for website maintenance –

Checked for dead pages, fixed (in case found any).
Post at least blogs to enhance the SEO traffic.
Checked all forms were working correctly.
Shared blog post for my network.
Checked for broken links.
Updated core plugins and software.

The monthly checklist website maintenance –

Do a thorough security check.
Tested loading speed and fixed issues.
Analyzed major statistics.
Ensured local search visibility.
Tweaked content for more relevancy.
Analyzed the most popular and least popular content and updated them accordingly.

The quarterly checklist website maintenance –

Checked content enhancement if and where possible.
Updated graphics and images.
Updated meta tags (meta description and meta titles).
Managed website backups.
Checked popups, forms, etc. working correctly.
Tested the website on popular browsers and devices.
Checked the uptime logs ensured it is 99.9%.
Ensured that the website was mobile-friendly.

The annual checklist website maintenance –

Updated web design.
Updated the copyright date in the footer and other additional references.
Renewed the domain names.
Reviewed the accuracy of the content.
Updated the blogs performing best.

Is it worth paying for website maintenance?

Suppose you are not convinced yet how critical website maintenance is for your website. In that case, we will give you more reasons why you must pay for maintaining a website.

Staying updated

Keeping up with the latest web updates keeps your website healthy, relevant, and in the A-game. It works seamlessly on different devices, as new gadgets keep flocking in the market. In addition to that, keeping it stoic and stagnant without updating attracts hackers and chases away customers.

Focussing on core business

We agree that maintaining a website requires dedicated time and diligence. Unfortunately, it might be the only reason you keep yourself away from it. However, this is where Web Hosting Services in Dubai help you out. While they maintain your website proficiently, you can concentrate on doing what you should be doing, strategizing to grow your business.

Protecting the brand value

No one appreciates a website performing poorly. It is okay if it goes downtime once; such instances are understandable, but regularly having it leaves a wrong impression on the customer. Your brand will lose the credibility of the most loyal customers, who will then resort to your competitor. Therefore, maintaining a website is like meeting the expectation of your customer. Would you like to compromise then?

What is the cost of website maintenance in 2022?

WebFx says web maintenance costs range from AED 100 to AED 10,000. However, this is not a cut-and-dried estimate since multiple factors influence the cost of website maintenance. Therefore, you should only choose a website plan after knowing your website requirements and getting quotes from different web maintenance service providers.

Approximately following is the estimated monthly cost of website maintenance incurred in UAE,

For a Personal website, the monthly estimated cost isAED 20 – AED 100.
For a Small business website, the monthly estimated cost isAED 125 – AED 400.
For a Corporate website, the monthly estimated cost isAED 750 – AED 12,000.
The monthly estimated cost for a Custom business website isAED 1200 – AED 16,000.
For an E-commerce website, the monthly estimated cost isAED 5,000 – AED 10,000.

You must choose wisely and associate with a website development company after pondering enough on choosing efficient and affordable web services since, as established, this role is a critical one for your business. Therefore only after understanding the pricing structure of the website maintenance company following the size of your business, the requirements of your website, and features that will be inducted in the case of an E-commerce site, decide upon a company that is reputed to be your best bet.

Conclusion:

If website maintenance was an afterthought for you, too, we believe you will think again. It turns out that web maintenance is the perfect approach to maintaining a fresh and lively site. Building a website is only the first step for taking your business virtual, regularly updating software, content, design, and being vigilant of trends; adopting them will take your business a long way.

Why Should You Be Taking Website Maintenance Seriously?