Are you one of those very fortunate people who are as “healthy as a horse” and never have to see a doctor?
Yet…you still need essentials, such as food, water, and sleep, in order to keep functioning well.
So does your website!
It is a widespread, mistaken belief that once your website is up and running…it will stay that way. Forever. There is no need to do anything more – just let it go and let the conversions roll in.
But…just as your health depends on the necessary essentials of food, water, and sleep, your website is also in need of various fundamentals as well in order to remain a viable means of promoting your business and increasing your bottom line.
It is a well-known fact that the best way to stay healthy is through what is known as “preventative health maintenance”. According to Lacie Glover:
“Catching and treating a health problem before symptoms start, or better yet, preventing a sickness entirely, isn’t just good for your health; it can also save you some serious money down the road.”
After all, what’s worse?
A tetanus shot…or a locked jaw?
The MMR vaccination…or the measles?
Blood pressure screening…or a stroke?
An aspirin a day…or a heart attack?
A mammogram…or breast cancer?
The list for preventative care goes on and on. Your continued health could depend on catching and treating a serious or chronic condition before symptoms appear. And, as stated above, could save you a boatload of money as well.
And just as preventative health maintenance could mean the difference between remaining healthy or being sick, so can website maintenance mean the difference between a well functioning website and one that could, in the end, cost you money.
In today’s age of “googling”, your website is your face to the world. It is where you have the opportunity to make a great first impression on potential customers. However, if your website is “sick”…would you want to stay?
Is the content stale?
Is it loading properly?
Is it running too slow?
Does it have bad links?
Are the graphics out-of-date?
Is it functioning well on mobile devices?
All of these, as well as many more, could be reason enough for your users to bounce off your site…for good.
Or consider…does it have a virus? Has it been hacked?
In The Cost of Website Ownership: “Do You Do Your Own Brake Job Joshua Conran quotes this statistic:
“83% of hacked WordPress blogs are not upgraded.”
Is this sufficient reason to be convinced that your website needs preventative maintenance? Or are you just going to wait until symptoms appear?
Some “healthy” people do exactly that. Not only do they wait until they experience symptoms, they ignore them when they do appear until it’s impossible not to. Even then, they may just try to treat them themselves, completely overlooking the warning signs of a more serious underlying problem.
Does this bring anyone to mind? Maybe you?
By the time they finally do make it to the doctor, it is not only going to take longer to heal the infection, ailment, or virus, but it is also going to take more time and money. And if worse comes to worse, it may no longer be possible to cure.
Not a good outcome…at all.
Are you convinced? Does your website need maintenance? If the “health” of your website is negatively affecting your users’ experience or causing grave security issues, then you definitely need to consider it. If so, what does this “preventative” maintenance entail?
Healthy Website Maintenance
- Platform Upgrades
- Security Updates
- SEO Updates
- Plug-in Updates
- Browser Updates
- System Updates
- Code Updates
- Software Updates
- Anti-Virus Patches
- Mobile Functionality
- Content Maintenance
- Website Speed
- Website Backup
- Link Check
All in all, you want your website to be secure…and give your users a good experience.
Once you’ve decided that your website needs maintenance in order to remain healthy, viable, and profitable, who do you go to?
Do you try to take care of these issues yourself? Maybe you are tech-savvy enough to do the code and system updates. Maybe you have the time to take away from your business responsibilities and obligations to write new, fresh content as well as optimizing it for the search engines as well as making it appealing enough to grab your users’ attention. But are you able to make eye-catching graphics with a unique design and ensure your site is secure as well?
If you are not one of those individual that is an expert jack-of-all-trades and has the time available to take care of everything that is required and essential in maintain a healthy website, then where do you go?
If you were sick and need a doctor, whom do you go to? Do you choose a physician that still thinks that the latest medical technology is a digital thermometer? Or one that is up on the latest and greatest medical advances and research in addition to technology?
At this point, you probably have determined the answer to the question. If not, or you have further questions, ask us! We’re more than happy to help you! Or, check out some easy monthly website maintenance tips here.
If you google “preventive health maintenance”, you get hundreds of results from Wikipedia to a prestigious organization such as the Cleveland Clinic. They all agree…preventative health maintenance is imperative.
For children, yearly check-ups are vital. As kids grow older, these visits become less and less and some, no, many in their twenties and thirties opt out of having any preventative care at all. Instead, they choose to play roulette with their health – assuming that bad health issues are for the next person…not them.
Are you playing roulette with your website’s health? Hazardous viruses and security issues are for the next website, not yours?
Are you willing to risk it?
Finally, consider this revision of Lacie Glover’s quote:
“Catching and treating a website issue before problems start, or better yet,
preventing a breakdown entirely, isn’t just good for your business, it can also
save you some serious money down the road.”
Sources:
Free Preventative Care Obamacare
The Cost of Website Ownership: “Do You Do Your Own Brake Job?” Joshua Conran
