Do you own a website? If you do, you must be well aware that launching a website and leaving it mid-road isn’t how to move forward in establishing a robust online presence. There are a whole lot of web rituals and WordPress maintenance tasks that you must do to keep your website updated.
Even if you own a WordPress website, you must run regular security checks and back it up from time to time to secure its database. Security checks and other Australian WordPress maintenance services will ensure that your site isn’t susceptible to viruses or hackers. Otherwise, you risk losing your website entirely! Keeping up with WordPress maintenance doesn’t have to be time-consuming or cost-prohibitive; you can do several inexpensive or free things to ensure your site runs smoothly and functions excellently.
To help you learn more about why maintaining your WordPress website is so important, we have mentioned the top reasons why you must consider upgrading your website. Before going through the reasons let’s discuss the importance of maintaining a website.
Importance of Maintaining a Website
If you think designing a website and putting it on the server is all that needs to get done, think again! There’s a lot required between floating your website on the host’s server and attracting the leads from it.
The experts recommend that it is necessary to maintain your website to ensure it renders peak performance. Websites need upkeep to function correctly, just like any online platform does. If you want your website to perform flawlessly, you may ask your developing team to keep your website updated. It will help to enhance security, traffic, functionality, encourage return visitors, and more. These can lead to a better impression on the visitors, which can eventually help you elevate the conversion rate.
Reasons for Maintaining Your WordPress Website
1. Reduce Traffic Loss Due to Technical Error
Remember, your website is your brand’s first impression on potential customers; make sure it’s a good one! If your website is down, you’re losing out on valuable leads and conversions. Search engines are known to penalise websites that are not up-to-date. Outdated plugins and themes can leave your website vulnerable to security threats. To avoid this scenario, you must update every feature of your website to maintain optimal performance and compatibility, preventing all minor issues from turning into big, expensive problems.
2. Increase the Website’s Conversion Rate
Your website’s conversion rate is equal to the percentage of visitors. Their desired action on your website could be anything from subscribing to your newsletter to making a purchase. A high conversion rate is essential for any successful website, and there are a few key ways that you can increase yours. The first way is to ensure that your website loads quickly. Visitors will lose interest in waiting for your site to load if it takes more than five seconds.
Another way to elevate your conversion rate is by installing an analytics plugin such as Google Analytics. These plugins will allow you to see what areas of your site drive traffic and enable you to focus on those areas of your site better.
3. Improve SEO
One of the most important reasons you need to follow the WordPress maintenance tasks is that it can help improve your search engine ranking. If you keep your site updated with fresh content, Google and other search engines will reward you with a higher order. It is because they see that you are an active site providing valuable information to users.
4. Improve User Experience
A well-maintained website with regular WordPress maintenance support will offer users a better experience overall. It is because updated content, new design elements, and fewer broken links will all be present. Furthermore, features like fast load times and easy navigation will also be present in a well-maintained website. These factors create a more positive user experience, leading to more conversions and higher engagement rates.
5. Increase Visitor’s Stay Time
You must keep things fresh if you want people to stick around your website. That means regularly adding new content, updating existing content, and maintaining a design that looks good and is easy to navigate. All this takes time and effort, but it’s worth it if you want people to visit your website often.
6. Better Security
Ensure your site is secure. Another significant aspect of the Australian WordPress maintenance service is security. WordPress websites are especially vulnerable to attack, so it’s essential to make sure you keep your site up-to-date with the latest security patches. Through regular maintenance, you can protect your website –
- Use a strong password for your WordPress admin account; never use admin as your username.
- Keep your WordPress installation, themes, and plugins updated.
- Use trusted themes and plugins from reputable sources.
- Don’t give away too much information in your user profile.
- Restrict access to your wp-admin folder
- Use a security plugin to scan malware and block malicious IP addresses
- Back up WordPress database and files regularly.
7. Avoid Downtime
Downtime is inevitable when you have a website. Running an outdated WordPress exposes your site to vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit. It increases the chances of a website going down at any time. Downtimes occur due to a technical error or an attack. It leaves a negative impression on the website visitors, which you will surely not want. With the help of the Australian WordPress maintenance services, you can get rid of downtimes by having backups and ensuring that your site will be up and running again in no time. Backups also protect you from data loss. If something happens to your website, you’ll still have all of your content and data backed up. You can also relax knowing that your site is safe and sound.
8. Save Time and Money
A fast website is a website with good grades. Not only do faster websites rank better in search engines, but they also convert better and generate more leads. A website maintained with WordPress maintenance support can help you save time and money in the long run. Here are some quick ways to make your site go faster:
- Delete any images that are unnecessary or redundant.
- Use smaller image sizes for posts, comments, and widgets that don’t need as much resolution.
- Compress images with WP Smush or another plugin like EWWW Image Optimiser (free). Crop images so that they’re not so large.
- Reduce file size by optimising images with MozJPEG Resizer (free) or ShortPixel Image Optimizer.
9. Gain Valuable Insights
A brand’s website is an essential marketing tool, and it’s a 24/7 billboard, brochure, and business card, all rolled into one. Similar to any other tool, it needs to be appropriately maintained. Regularly keeping up with the latest updates can help you gain valuable insights and elevate the purpose of your website in a short period.
10. To Recover from Spam Attacks
The most common way that WordPress websites get hacked is through spam comments. These are comments posted on your website by bots or people trying to promote their products or services. If you don’t have a way to filter these comments, they can quickly take over your website and ruin your reputation. WordPress maintenance tasks can help you avoid this by giving you a way to keep an eye on your website and catch any spam before it gets out of hand.
11. Maintain Brand Value
A website with appropriate WordPress maintenance support is the first place where a brand’s potential customers will learn about the business. If your website is outdated, it affects your business in multiple ways. On the other hand, a well-maintained website shows that you’re keeping up with the times and that you care about your online presence. So, maintaining brand value is another reason to keep your website updated.
Takeaway
WordPress websites are the most popular and widely used content management systems (CMS) on the internet today, powering over 26% of websites. They are versatile and easy to use. Their easy management led to their rise in popularity among amateurs and experienced web admins. Despite all this, many small business owners still fail to take proper care of their WordPress websites, often due to a lack of understanding or knowledge of maintaining one properly.
Not maintaining a website with WordPress maintenance support can lead to many unwanted issues we’ve discussed in this blog. To avoid this, follow the tips we mentioned, and practice them with the help of an expert so that you can make the most out of its existence and meet your business goals shortly.