Already have a website – Here’s why you should be regularly updating your website?

In the early years of the Internet, things were different, website owners could publish their website and be done. The website would then sit on the Internet, and the leads would flood in. Sites didn’t need extra attention and hands-on maintenance except to change out the occasional wording of something. Now, things have changed….

Websites need constant maintenance whether that is regular general maintenance which affects the day to day running of your website or more superficial maintenance associated with carrying out a refresh and updating the content of your website when it is considered to be looking tired or the support no longer exists for the version operated. 

Maintenance prevents long term issues; you keep your home clean and maintained; you keep your car up to date, so why not maintain your website? You’re probably ok for the short term if minor issues arise, however for the longer term you could hit some big issues which could have been quite easily avoided. 

In truth, there are numerous reasons why you should be constantly maintaining your website. Here at Robert James, we think the following reasons are the most important to keep your website maintained:-

1. Security Risk – this is one of the major risks. You may think that you are a small business and won’t be targeted. However, if you have an older and unmaintained website, the likelihood of getting hacked is a lot greater due to it having less secure coding and modules that are not up to date. 
2. User experience – If your website isn’t user-friendly, why have a website at all? Website traffic is increasingly being generated through mobile phone searches so ensuring your online presence is appropriate for both tablet and desktop is vital.
3. Slow speed of your website – When you visit a site, and it takes too long to load – do you get impatient and navigate off? If you’re using an older version of WordPress, your overall experience is a lot different and often slower than someone using the latest version. Think about it, when you implement updates onto your phone, you have a better overall experience. 
4. Updates and upgrades – The more often you update, the less likely problems will arise. If you have to go back to carry out updates, it will take more time and cost more money than carrying them out as and when required. This is because some updates may have been superseded and could impact upon the functionability of your website. Running your website off older versions which no longer benefit from support could end up costing you more money in the long run rather than upgrading your website.
5. Improve SEO rankings and ratings –  Another benefit of adding new content to your website is that it can significantly help improve your search engine rankings. Whenever you update your site with new content, search engines will crawl your site and boost your rankings. Websites with old content rank lower in google searches for example.
6. Save Money – You may not have considered it, but paying for website maintenance is probably not as expensive as you might think and can save you a lot of money in the long run. What if your website is hacked, or if something else goes wrong and your website goes offline? This not only makes you and your business look bad but it could also be costly to fix. It’s a much better approach to be proactive in doing all of your normal website maintenance / updates.

If the reasons above haven’t convinced you on why you should be regularly maintaining your website then how about your business image? A website with outdated information presents poorly to prospective customers and is likely to turn them away. Remember, the website is the online home for your business.

Making these regular updates will help you avoid potential downfalls, save you time and money, and make your site secure as possible. If it seems like an overwhelming and intimidating process to handle on your own, don’t worry, that’s why we’re here.

If you’d like to learn more about our services, please contact us.