Technology changes fast, and a website that hasn’t been regularly maintained and updated will show its age quickly. You may wonder how your small business can afford monthly website care? Here are five reasons you can’t afford NOT to continually improve your website.
1. Security is a significant concern with WordPress sites that aren’t well-maintained
WordPress websites are convenient, incredibly powerful and versatile, and there is a reason why it is the #1 content management system used today. However, the convenience of using someone else’s prebuilt theme or adding yet another plugin to solve an issue can lead to a site being vulnerable to malicious attacks. The risk is greatly heightened when WordPress core, theme, and plugin updates are not regularly installed and tested.
Website security risks are easily preventable by having a website care partner who proactively monitors security, secures your hosting environment, and ensures all plugins are well-maintained and security patches are installed in a timely manner.
2. Lack of monthly care now leads to massive updates later that will break things
Updating a website that hasn’t been maintained in over a year can be risky and expensive. Often, if incremental minor updates are not taken care of monthly, the giant leap in versions of a theme, plugin, or WordPress core update can be much more involved.
3. Website standards and best practices continually evolve
The internet changes rapidly – and the technologies available for web developers to build upon advance frequently. Devices people use to browse the web are also continually evolving, so your website must adapt. Standards for website accessibility are also developing, with WCAG 2.2 now on the horizon.
4. Google – and other search engines – are monitoring your website and will reward you for continually optimizing it
The foundation of a good SEO (search engine optimization) strategy is proactive, ongoing optimization of performance, best practices, accessibility, content, and more. Google will penalize your website in search rankings if it is not performing well, and since it looks at 30-day windows of user experience for page load times, a reactive “fixing things later” approach doesn’t work well for SEO.
5. Your website is usually the first impression on potential new customers
In today’s world, your website is your digital storefront. You want potential new customers to enjoy their experience on your site so they will come back to learn more and get closer to finalizing their purchase decisions for your product or service!
