You can’t afford to depend on a website that is not performing at its best, or not optimised for conversion.
Even a Ferrari needs regular services.
Your website needs to help you to become the leader in your industry, growing client relationships and connecting with customers wherever they may be found. This is why the right approach to website maintenance is so crucial.
Let’s take a look at some of the most common website issues your business can face and how to remedy these issues with website maintenance.
Site structure begins to break down
It’s likely that your site is now considerably more expansive than it was when you first started out. Adding additional pages and functionality is great for supporting your users and for converting new customers. However, it also adds to the burden of website maintenance, and this can cause the structure of your website to break down.
What do we mean by breaking down? Well, your site needs to be more than just a collection of different pages. It has to be an integrated network of digital locations that performs as a fully functioning whole. If pages become marooned or orphaned from the rest of your site, it becomes difficult for users to find these areas, and your SEO performance may take a hit.
How to remedy this
Use your cPanel to track down any orphan pages, and either delete them or make sure they are linked to the rest of your site structure. Adopt a methodical process of site mapping whenever you add or remove pages from your site in the future.
Design is out of date
The design of your site needs to achieve two basic functions — represent the identity of your brand while also remaining at the cutting edge of best practice and user experience. This requires something of a delicate balancing act, and businesses don’t always get this right.
Too many businesses try to take on a high level of responsibility for themselves. This makes it difficult to keep up with the changing landscape of design, and it can leave the company trailing their competitors. If this out-of-date design hinders user experience, revenue will begin to suffer.
How to remedy this
Consider outsourcing design services. This element of website maintenance is difficult to get right, and it can be extremely time-consuming for your team. Putting this in the hands of third-party professionals can help your site stay ahead of the curve while also taking a load off your mind.
Backup is inadequate or non-existent
Backing up your website on a regular basis is a critical best practice for website maintenance as you move forwards. If you are not properly backing up files and assets, these could be lost in the event of unforeseen circumstances. This results in unplanned downtime for your business, which, in turn, will harm your revenue and your reputation in your industry.
Even if you are backing up your website regularly, great care needs to be taken that this is being carried out in the right way. For example, your website backup needs a baseline — a point at which everything was working in the right way and at which your users were reporting a great experience. You certainly need to update this baseline backup over time. However, don’t be too hasty in replacing a reliable baseline backup point, or you may find yourself in trouble if this untested baseline does not do the job.
How to remedy this
Make backing up your website a systematic process, adding a backup whenever you add a new page or update. Apply thorough testing whenever you replace your baseline backup.
Conversion funnel no longer matches buyer profiles
No matter what kind of business you run, your website is going to be a key source of conversions and revenue for your organisation. Of course, this is not going to happen by accident, and your website needs to be geared towards supporting this directly. This is why you craft your pages in a way that will help to ease your customers towards the point of conversion.
But what happens when your pages are not aligned with the needs of these customers? The obvious answer is that conversion rates decrease. Unfortunately, this is a genuine concern as your business grows. During the period of growth, your customer base will evolve, as will the broader market — it could be that your customers now expect a different experience to the one they enjoyed when you first built your website.
How to remedy this
Draw upon data to create buyer profiles. These profiles represent different demographics and customer types within your consumer base. They will tell you what your customers are looking for from your business and how you can deliver this. Update these profiles with the latest data whenever possible, and feed this back to your website maintenance team as you craft the optimal path to conversion.
Access points are not mapped
What is the first point of contact for users when they visit your site? Once upon a time, the answer may have been simple — your home page. However, this is certainly not always the case anymore. Sophisticated search engine algorithms, rich snippet search results, pay-per-click ads, social media shares, and a whole host of other factors now mean that customers may find themselves arriving at a diverse array of points on your site.
If you do not know where your customers are making contact, website maintenance becomes difficult. You simply don’t have the insight needed to support a positive and intuitive user experience.
How to remedy this
Build specific landing pages to support product launches and other campaigns. Deploy analytics software to track where your users are landing on your site.
Pages are slow to load
If your page loads within 2 seconds, around 9% of users are not going to wait around and will instead “bounce” to a different website. If your page takes 5 seconds to load, this bounce rate increases to 38%. In other words, every second counts when it comes to page loading.
Your website maintenance strategies need to reflect this. Be aware of any elements of your page that are causing slow loading, and be sure to fix these.
How to remedy this
Deploy techniques, such as lazy loading, to defer the loading of some elements of your page to support a speedier experience for your users. Be aware of any larger page elements and reduce files where possible to make the website more streamlined.
Call upon our team and get website maintenance done the right way
Website maintenance can sometimes seem like an unwelcome chore, and it may burden your in-house teams with an excessive workload.
However, it’s still worth investing in doing website maintenance the right way. Outsourcing certain key functions can not only keep your business safe from many of the pitfalls you may face online, but it can also help you truly unlock the potential of your website and your brand.
Our team has the services you need to achieve this with ease. Reach out today to find out more, and start building a website that delivers precisely what your users need.
