Imagine having the most exceptional product or service in the world, coupled with the most sophisticated and captivating branding. Surprisingly, all these efforts can be futile due to a single, avoidable, yet significant oversight… Neglecting your website maintenance.

It’s easy to overlook website maintenance, particularly for businesses without a dedicated web team. However, its importance to a company’s success cannot be overstated. The good news is website maintenance can be effectively handled by companies of all sizes, especially with a practical checklist!

To provide you with all the necessary knowledge for success, we’ll delve into:

• What website maintenance entails
• Why website maintenance is crucial
• Effective website maintenance practices and frequency
• The cost implications of website maintenance Let’s begin.

Understanding Website Maintenance

In simple terms, website maintenance involves ensuring your site is secure, operates smoothly, and provides an excellent user experience.

Specifically, website maintenance encompasses various activities contributing to your website’s functionality and success.

These activities include:

• Security updates: Regularly inspecting for plugin and content management system (CMS) updates to mitigate security risks.
• Traffic metrics: Analyzing your site’s traffic for significant drops or sudden spikes in bounce rate, which might indicate underlying technical or content-related problems.
• Content review: Examining your website for missing content, faulty HTML code or images, and slow-loading pages.
• Design audits: Evaluating your site’s design for potential slow load times, navigation difficulties on any device, and accessibility for all customers.
• Technical audits: Monitoring overall website uptime, detecting broken links, ensuring all pages are crawlable, and more to prevent technical issues from hindering your progress.

Numerous other activities fall under website maintenance, often depending on your website type, platform, industry, and more. For instance, ecommerce businesses usually have more comprehensive website maintenance measures due to concerns about cart functionality, payment processing, etc.

The Importance of Website Maintenance

Besides the obvious advantage of a fully functional website, website maintenance offers several other benefits.

• 67% of people have demonstrated increased online shopping behaviors since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
• Conversion rates are significantly 5x higher for B2B websites that load within 1 second, compared to those taking 10 seconds.
• Websites appearing on the first page of Google have an average load time of 1.65 seconds.
• 45% of shoppers tend to abandon purchases on websites with slow loading times.

Recall the previously mentioned exceptional product, service, brand, etc.? When your website maintenance is impeccable, you’re not only free to concentrate on delivering outstanding products and experiences—your offerings and brand can truly stand out.

Website Maintenance: A Practical Guide

Websites are composed of numerous interconnected elements. Therefore, it’s not surprising that website maintenance involves a multitude of processes. However, you don’t have to handle everything at once; break it down into manageable tasks.

Take a deep breath and use this website maintenance checklist to provide your customers, brand, and products with the platform they deserve.

Website Backups: Ensuring Site Availability

First and foremost, your website needs to be accessible. (Functionality can be addressed later.) What starts as a simple plugin update or article edit can quickly escalate to blank pages and a broken website. Regular website backups are crucial to prevent such minor mishaps from turning into significant loss of work.

Your hosting provider or CMS should have automatic site backups enabled. Ensure these backups are active to avoid any catastrophic website failures. It’s also recommended to download copies of your site to a secure hard drive. Frequency: Monthly + after any major website modifications

Site Speed Optimization: A Crucial Factor

Your website’s loading speed significantly impacts your overall online success. (Remember the higher conversion rates associated with fast-loading websites.)

Utilize tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights to analyze your website’s loading times. If your site is slow, it’s time for a technical audit to identify the bottlenecks. Remember to test your page speed across various devices and browsers.

Frequency: Monthly + After any significant website modifications

Prioritizing Security Updates

The performance of your website is inconsequential if it’s vulnerable. Neglected security measures put both your customers and your brand at risk.

Establish a monthly routine of verifying that your website platform/CMS is current. Additionally, don’t forget to check for plugin updates, as outdated plugins can have security flaws that jeopardize your entire website.

After implementing any updates, confirm that your site functions correctly on all devices and browsers, and ensure your load times remain unaffected. Frequency: Monthly

Removing Unused Plugins: Enhancing Security and Efficiency

While we’re on the topic of plugins, remove any that are no longer in use. By eliminating unused plugins, you not only reduce potential security vulnerabilities associated with outdated plugins but also make your CMS cleaner and easier to navigate from the backend. Frequency: Monthly

Content Analytics Review: Identifying Areas for Improvement

Utilize analytics tools and regularly assess the performance of your content to monitor:

• Overall website traffic
• Top-performing pages
• Lowest-performing pages
• Pages with the highest bounce rate
• Month-over-month performance trends If you observe a general decline in traffic, it’s possible that a technical issue is affecting your SEO. Similarly, if a particular page or article’s performance suddenly deteriorates, investigate for broken elements within that page.

Tools like Google Analytics 4 or Google Search Console can provide more in-depth content performance and URL performance metrics.

While content analytics is a part of website maintenance, it can also be monitored by your marketing team. Regardless of who handles it, encourage interdepartmental communication to ensure both your content/marketing and technical teams are informed. Frequency: Monthly

Identifying and Fixing Broken Links

Broken links contribute to a negative user experience, ultimately impacting your bounce rate, SEO, and brand reputation. Incorporate the use of a tool to check for broken links into your website maintenance routine.

For instance, Ahrefs offers a free broken link checker that quickly identifies links leading to 404 pages on your site.

You can either replace the broken link with updated content or remove it entirely if a suitable replacement page doesn’t exist. Frequency: Monthly

Cross-Browser Compatibility Testing: Ensuring a Seamless Experience

Your site might perform flawlessly on Chrome but encounter issues on Edge or Safari. The same applies to mobile and tablet devices.

Perform the aforementioned speed tests on your site using various major browsers and mobile devices (including tablets). Ensure consistent speed and note the overall user experience. Is navigating the site as user-friendly on a phone as it is on a desktop? Are all elements displaying correctly? Frequency: Quarterly + after any major website updates

Testing Site Forms: Validating Functionality

Contact and lead forms are only beneficial if they function properly. From recently launched landing pages for gated assets to long-standing contact forms, all site forms require occasional attention.

Complete various forms on your website using a test email address. Ensure that the response not only reaches your company inbox but also captures all the necessary information accurately.

You should verify that your test pulled in all the relevant data from your form. Perform the same test on different browsers and devices, as some forms might not render correctly on mobile devices or tablets by default. Frequency: Quarterly/Every time you launch a new landing page

Learn how to make amazingly effective landing pages. Download the guide >> How to Make Great Landing Pages (with Crazy High Conversions)

Conducting Content Audits: Maintaining Relevance and Quality

Regularly auditing all content on your site, from your blog and press releases to landing pages, is essential. Content containing outdated information can negatively affect your bounce rate, while excessively large images can hinder site speed.

Create a spreadsheet and systematically review all your website content, checking for the following and more:

• Broken links
• Broken images
• Missing/outdated information
• Large images/files
• Outdated design or branding Ideally, content audits should be conducted quarterly. If this isn’t feasible, strive for at least one audit per year. Frequency: Quarterly/Yearly based on available resources

Optimizing Image File Sizes: Balancing Visual Appeal and Performance

While large image file sizes often result in visually appealing hero images, they come at the expense of page speed. In fact, a single large image can be detrimental to your overall Google Core Web Vitals score.

During your content audit, identify any images exceeding 1MB in size. Subsequently, optimize these images using one of the many available compression tools. Once compressed, re-upload the image to the page and ensure its visual quality remains satisfactory.

One of our top image compression tool recommendations. If you have infographics, ebooks, or other visually-rich content, don’t worry! Offer a small preview on your site and provide a way for users to click and view it in a separate tab, where they can experience it in its full >1MB glory. Frequency: Quarterly/When publishing new articles

Enhancing Content with Visuals: Engaging Your Audience

As you create new content and revisit existing content, look for opportunities to enhance it with (responsibly-compressed) visuals.

Incorporating diverse visuals can make your content more engaging, improve SEO, break up text-heavy pieces, potentially reduce bounce rate—all of which contribute to overall website performance. Frequency: Quarterly/When publishing new articles

Speaking of website performance… Try the LocaliQ Website Grader to see how your site stacks up

Updating Headers and Footers: Keeping Information Current

It’s easy to overlook header and footer content, yet it often contains some of the most crucial information about your organization:

• Contact information
• Terms of service
• Privacy policy
• Copyright info
• Certifications
• Important links

For example, our own footer (above) maintains a sleek design while housing essential information. (Go ahead, click the legal button.) While much of this information may remain constant, ensuring its accuracy and relevance is crucial. If your organization undergoes significant legal changes, such as a new copyright, or if you relocate your office, your header might need updating. You might also consider refreshing the links featured in your footer (or at least verifying they lead to the intended destinations!).

Otherwise, integrate a header and footer check into your annual website maintenance routine. It’s advisable to involve your legal team to review any legal language. Frequency: Yearly/After significant organizational changes

Creating an Effective 404 Page: Guiding Lost Visitors

No system is entirely foolproof, and links are no exception. It’s inevitable that users will encounter broken links or mistype URLs. When this happens, a helpful 404 page should greet them.

If you haven’t already, create a 404 page that informs visitors that they’ve landed on the wrong page. Provide them with links to helpful resources and popular pages on your site. This allows them to (hopefully) find what they’re looking for and reduces bounce rate. It’s also an excellent opportunity to incorporate internal links and enhance your SEO.

We don’t mean to brag, but our 404 page above can serve as inspiration. It links to some of our most popular resources and showcases our brand’s playful tone.

Finally, remember to review and update your 404 page during your annual website maintenance. You’ll likely have new resources to add and outdated ones to remove. Frequency: Annually

Understanding Website Maintenance Costs

Like the maintenance process itself, website maintenance costs can vary significantly. Factors such as the size and complexity of your website, whether you run an ecommerce platform, and your industry can all influence the overall cost.

Due to the numerous variables involved, estimated annual website maintenance costs can range from $400 to $60,000 every year.

Despite the varying factors, certain common elements can help you anticipate costs, regardless of industry or platform.

• Domain renewal: $10-100/year
• SSL certificate: $0-200/year
• Premium plugins/Extensions: Variable cost
• Site redesign: $0-75,000
• Secure email hosting: $2-25/monthly per user
• IT specialist: ~83,000/year salary

Various SSL certificate options Keep in mind that this list is not exhaustive. Ecommerce businesses face additional challenges associated with online stores. Businesses in heavily regulated industries, like healthcare or security, incur additional costs for security certifications, and so on.

Effective Website Maintenance on Any Budget

Website maintenance requires considerable effort and can be expensive. However, it doesn’t have to be.

Regardless of your organization’s size, you’ve achieved success because of your expertise. Leverage your existing resources to keep your site running smoothly and securely year-round.

• Limited or no IT team? Counter IT limitations by utilizing tools and automation. Automate your backups through your hosting provider or platform, streamline broken link detection with tools, and set security updates to run automatically.
• Tight design budget? Take advantage of numerous online design tools and utilize their templates. If an in-house designer is not feasible, consider a reputable freelancer for major site overhauls and content updates as needed.
• Lacking SEO or content expertise? While true content specialists are invaluable, there are ways to reap the benefits of content marketing even without a dedicated team. Interview your subject matter experts and transform their insights into blog posts, then hire a freelance editor for polishing or utilize one of the many excellent online editing tools.

Ideally, you should aim to address every item on this maintenance checklist. Even if that’s not entirely possible, leverage your internal resources, dedicate sufficient time, and stay organized as you work through the list.

Maximizing the Value of a Well-Maintained Website

Building a well-maintained website is no easy feat. Therefore, it’s essential to maximize its value.

By adhering to our website maintenance checklist, you establish a solid foundation for consistent organic traffic growth. Jumpstart your efforts with our comprehensive guide on driving traffic to your website.