Why it is important to regularly maintain and update your website

Just the creation of an attractive website is not the successful end of your digital business presence. Only through ongoing maintenance and care can you provide your customers with an all-round feel-good experience on your website in the long term and secure yourself against the competition. In this article, we explain to you what you need to keep in mind when it comes to website maintenance and why.

What happens if you don't maintain your website?

Simple answer: A lot! The digital age thrives on dynamic innovation cycles, and improved software and tools come onto the market at ever shorter intervals, replacing old standards or expanding the functional possibilities. In addition, there is constant rumbling in the data protection box, new regulations have to be observed and hackers try to infiltrate your system via newly discovered security holes. Here's an overview from PIXIT of the biggest dangers with unmaintained websites:

Security vulnerabilities increase the risk of hacker attacks

Without regular security updates, your website runs the risk of being hacked. Depending on the type of attack, this has more or less unpleasant consequences, from data loss to an infiltrated malicious code or blocking the website for your users, everything is possible. If you have a lot of data traffic on your website, for example via a webshop, a hacker attack can quickly become an extremely costly evil.

Performance drops or becomes limited

An unmaintained website can slow down and have problems with loading time, as unnecessary data and errors are not removed. The result is faltering videos or unnecessarily long loading times for a sub-page or hyperlink. In addition, there may be display errors that severely affect usability and the user experience. Such problems occur not only with unmaintained websites, but also with well-intentioned maintenance attempts by amateurs, where content is suddenly moved or important links are accidentally deleted.

Compatibility issues with plugins and external integrations

In most cases, professional websites have plugins or other third-party external integrations built in. Commonly used are plugins for automatic data backup, contact forms, video players or a web store. Now these plugins must always be compatible with the website's CMS to work properly. If the hoster of your website makes an update, he might disable the scripting language (PHP version) your website is based on or update it to an incompatible version and suddenly your page can't be displayed anymore. Also updates of your used CMS system can affect the functionality of the website, if the plugins are not manually adjusted and reset to it.

Your SEO ranking decreases continuously

Google & Co love well maintained, always updated website and rank them higher. Up-to-date content and adapted standards show the commitment of the website owner, you for example, and thus ensure good visibility in web search engines. If the maintenance is missing, the visibility decreases. This does not only mean technical updates, but also the regular updating of content such as texts, images, videos, blogs and links.

Your image and branding will be affected

Your customers expect quality from your products or services. They need to see and experience that on your digital business card, your website. Difficulties with loading time, display errors, accessibility problems, error output or even crashes are an absolute no-go. Customer satisfaction and trust in your brand will drop.

A reminder from the lawyer is looming

The EU comes up with a new version of the GDPR regulation or other directives almost every year. That's not a problem until the first reminder arrives in your mailbox. Without regular maintenance, you may miss the timely implementation of new laws in the imprint, cookies banners, your privacy policy, etc. A recent example that caused a stir in this context last spring was the warning of a website operator in Germany, whose website used Google Fonts as font design and thereby transmitted personal data of website visitors to Google. As a result, a wave of warnings broke out and many website operators had to check their websites for the use of Google Fonts. We are happy to take this work and risk off your hands.

What is done during maintenance

Depending on how extensive and complex a website is, the more elaborate the maintenance process will be. In any case, the goal is to ensure the flawless functionality of all web elements, a stylish and modern design for the optimal visitor experience, as well as to ensure protective functions and legal framework conditions. In order to exclude or prevent the problems listed above when operating a website, a variety of tasks arise during maintenance. First, all necessary security updates for the website software must be selected and installed. Security is an essential aspect of maintenance. Sometimes, additional updates are also required, for example, for performance optimization or to ensure compatibility with new technologies and standards. A professional web design agency such as PIXIT consistently follows these developments and can thus quickly identify and implement the updates required for a given website and test them for compatibility with other features. In addition to performing updates, maintenance also involves scanning the website for bugs, which are fixed in the next step. Furthermore, necessary backups as well as performance analyses are carried out, which is documented in an easily comprehensible reporting. It is also advisable to optimize content for SEO rankings and to check the correctness of the published information as part of the maintenance.

Why it is difficult to perform maintenance yourself

Updating content on the website may still be manageable, but when it comes to diving deeper into the website's web structure and functions and making changes there, a layman is quickly at his wit's end. Professional website maintenance requires specific expertise and knowledge in areas such as security, performance, SEO, compatibility and troubleshooting. Without this expertise, certain technical actions are not possible or cost an unnecessary amount of time. Moreover, professional agencies and web designers have tools and resources that allow them to quickly and effectively identify and solve problems, whereas a lone wolf can waste a lot of energy trying to identify the problems and how to solve them. A try-and-error strategy is not only tedious, but in the worst case scenario, it can cause the website to stop working altogether. Thus, a well-intentioned update attempt to solve minor problems can inadvertently trigger much larger defects. Book a free website analysis with one of our PIXIT experts now.

What errors can occur during self-maintenance

If you try to maintain your website yourself, you run the risk of making various mistakes. For example, faulty programming can lead to inadequate security measures or poor performance. Systems and plug-ins stop working, content is only partially displayed or swallowed and important functions can be lost. If these errors are not fixed, the website may become insecure or even crash. It is of course possible to maintain your website yourself, but you will quickly reach your limits. Therefore, it may be worthwhile for you to hire a professional or an agency, as they have the necessary expertise, tools, resources and experience to perform the maintenance successfully and minimize possible risks. Whether or not you can handle the maintenance of your own website yourself depends mainly on the CMS that is used and its complexity. However, professional maintenance of your website can already be realized for a small budget, which saves nerves in the long run and ensures the quality of the website.

Why it is important, why it makes sense to put website maintenance in the hands of a professional

The success of your website depends on its up-to-dateness. This means the content on the one hand, but also the web design, the functions and features and the technologies used. Professional web designers and developers make sure that all functions work properly and are up to date with the latest technology. Errors are fixed immediately and you save a lot of time and nerves from having to solve them yourself. Regular maintenance can also save you from possible customer losses, for example if you run a webshop that starts to drive away your customers with bugs or the automatic invoice dispatch gets bogged down. The cost of extensive "repairs" or a new website setup is usually much higher than a fair website maintenance package with a professional agency that continuously makes sure that your web presence continues to shine and wins you new customers instead of risking losing new and existing customers. If you too have been struggling with these problems, click on the link below and arrange a free initial consultation with one of our experts and we will solve the problem.