By a show of hands, how many of us have created a website (because we know we need one) and haven’t really looked at it since? 

We know this is common, so many of our clients come to us with this exact scenario! They’ve invested time and money into creating and launching their website but have spent no time or effort to maintain their site. 

Just like anything else, a home, a car, your own health – maintenance is necessary to keep things working properly. From links and keywords to design trends and more, there are many reasons why website maintenance is important! 

1. Security

At the top of the list, and rightly so, security is a major concern as it relates to website maintenance. By neglecting to take security precautions on a regular basis, you not only run the risk of losing important information, both customer data as well as your site as a whole. 

You can never fully prevent hackers from compromising your website, but proper maintenance can make the process much easier to gain access to your information again in order to restore your site. 

2. SEO

Google likes fresh, new content and updated websites. The bots that run through the internet to determine which website should be listed above others look into how updated a site is. A major reason that this works this way is because, typically, older websites are slower, they don’t have accurate information and they give the user a poor experience. Google does not want to suggest bad options to their users. Their goal is to keep people coming back, by giving them excellent results! While website maintenance isn’t the only thing that goes into SEO, it does have a big impact on where a website would rank. 

Read More: Best Practices for Website Security

3. User Experience

As we mentioned above, with an old website, chances are information being presented would likely be inaccurate or unhelpful. The website would also probably be slow. Worst case scenario, the site was hacked and since you haven’t been maintaining it, you simply aren’t aware! 

All of this aside, design can even play a part in user experience. If your site hasn’t been updated in several years, your users may be expecting something more updated in terms of functionality and design, think hamburger menus, parallax, or even poor quality photos. Like it or not, but our websites are often the first interaction we have with our customers and we want to make a good first impression to show that we are capable professionals.

4. Conversions

Taking each of these points into consideration, the bottom line is: a poorly maintained or neglected website can cost you business!

If your website has been hacked, has the wrong information, isn’t showing up on search engines, and confuses the user, you are losing valuable customers. You may believe that maintaining your website isn’t necessary. You may believe it will cost you too much time and effort to make it worthwhile, however, it’s important to consider how much business it costs you in the long run. 

You can even outsource your website maintenance to a web designer! If you’re interested in learning more about how to gain more business through a well-maintained website, give us a call!