There are many purposes for website maintenance. If you are just starting out and are new to website maintenance, it helps make sure that your site is safe and secure. It also makes sure that you are not leaving the door open for hackers and data breaches. It is critical to how your site operates. This is why it is necessary that you check for regular updates on your sites to make sure that your site is running smoothly and at quick speeds.
Make Sure Website is Backed Up
Before you start making any changes to your website, be sure that you create a backup of the current condition of your site. In the event that you make a mistake, you will be able to use a backup copy to fall back on. This is a step that should not be overlooked since it is good practice for any business when performing website maintenance.
A good general rule of thumb to go by is to always have at least three backups on your website in a few different places. For example, you can store a backup of your website on CDs/DVDs or drives. Having a copy of your website in several locations can save you if any of your backups become corrupted.
Check for Updates
There are normally updates available every so often for website hosting services. However, you can easily miss them if you are already busy juggling a to-do list. These updates can be extremely important for things relating to the function and security of your website. This is why it is important to always be on the lookout for these updates, so your site doesn’t fall behind.
After you have installed each update, check your website to ensure nothing has been disrupted. If something has been disrupted, you have a backup.
Read into Analytics
Having good content and a great design doesn’t mean much if your website continues to fail at helping you reach your core KPIs. This is why it is highly recommended that you check out your analytics page to look for different engagement metrics. If you are seeing any bad patterns such as certain pages not seeing a good amount of traffic, it could signal something wrong with your site. These problems may also mean that there is something wrong with the user experience that you are offering on your site.
A good first step to take when figuring out the pages that need to be optimized on your site is to check your analytics. This is a great way to check how your pages are performing on the back end and can help you determine the pages that need to be more closely monitored.
Usability Testing
Usability testing, while crucial, doesn’t need to be a part of your quarterly or monthly maintenance schedule. However, you should at least make sure that you are performing usability testing once a year. Using a second set of eyes to catch issues is important because there are things that you could have overlooked.
Bring in real users to navigate your website. This opens you up to gather a lot of information on what is working and what is not. Additionally, you want to make sure that you perform accessibility testing. You want to make sure that your website can be used for those who have a disability.
Also Read: Importance of Website Maintenance
