Web Basics Series: Why you need to care for your website and not fix it and forget it

When was the last time you looked at your website? Like really looked it over and not just added another blog post? Websites need love and caring just like a garden, this is what you need to do after you launch it to continue caring for it. One of the benefits of continuing website care is that you know it is always accurate. Many times we get busy working with clients and forget to make adjustments to our own stuff even if our business has changed.

Often we get our websites up, it was quite a journey, and now you want to sit back and focus on other things. While this is true for a time you still need to care for your site over the long term to keep it working for you!

There are a lot of strategies that you can use to help keep your website up to date. You can set appointments with yourself to spend some time reviewing your site. You can spend a little time each morning. Or plan for a big review twice a year but the important thing is to revisit your site and click around because websites change. Especially in today’s web world where you are relying on so much data being served to your website if one of those things quit working it will quit working for your site.

Review your site regularly

I’m sure you’ve had this happen either on your site or someone else’s site where you get intrigued by this headline and click to read more only to be taken to a page that says the content doesn’t exist. Eek! None of us want that to happen on our site. So regularly revisiting your site can help you notice when this happens and get it fixed faster.

Review your site a few times a year and adjust copy/photos etc based on where you are now in business, also check and make sure links are going where you want. AND that you don’t have dead links. Also, if you spend a little time with your copy/photos/services/offerings then you won’t end up with a huge mess on your hands after adding and adding to your website. As we grow, sometimes we and our business could change week by week and you may be presenting offers in places that you no longer wish to offer or maybe your prices changed and you get in a weird spot when someone asks you why there is a discrepancy.

Update your software

You’ll want to make sure you update your website software. This will help prevent security leaks and keep your website up and running.  If you are using a hosting/website service for your site then you might not have to worry about this one. But definitely, if you are hosting your own you will want to make sure things are up to date to prevent security vulnerabilities from becoming a nightmare.