It took a while but you have managed to get yourself a beautiful new website for your company. Congratulations!
So, what happens now? Are you just going to leave it untended in the wilderness of the Internet? We hope not.
A modern website is not a static affair. Every website needs to be maintained, updated and protected. Here are some key points if you need help convincing your management of the importance of website maintenance.
Transfer Accountability to Experts
If you’re a manager in a corporate environment, then this has to be your greatest reason. Seriously, you have so many things on your plate that even if you knew how to use WordPress, do you really want to be responsible for maintaining and updating it? Imagine the hassle of getting content update requests from various departments on a regular basis.
And if it gets hacked or goes down during a busy period, who is going to be held responsible? Are you going to risk your career just to save your company a few hundred dollars? Why not just let the web maintenance experts do what the are trained to do, so that you can focus on building value to both your company and your career?
Adapt to Business Changes
The pace of business is so fast that things change almost constantly. Whether you are a B2B or B2C, any changes in your business need to be communicated to your customers and your website is your primary communications channel.
Keep Your Website Core & Plugins Updated
Do you know what caused the famous Panama Papers leak? The largest data breach in history was caused by an unpatched WordPress plugin called Revolution Slider. It’s such a popular plugin that chances are, your website might be running it if it’s based on the WordPress CMS. Don’t worry, that particular vulnerability has been fixed now but that’s not the point.
The point is that nothing is ever 100% secure. Security breaches will always occur and the only thing that software developers can do is to develop a patch or update as quickly as possible to fix those issues. You need to continuously update your website if you’re planning to stay ahead of the hackers.
Keep Your Website Secure
If just updating your content management system core and plugins were enough, there wouldn’t be so many IT security companies around. Website maintenance packages usually come with additional security options such as firewalls that can help keep your website safe. We recommend that you take it.
Domain Expiration Monitoring
This may sound really silly, but you would be surprised at how many companies actually forget to renew some of their most important domain names. We’re not talking about small mom-and-pop shops either. Many big companies do not have dedicated digital marketing or IT teams, and sometimes important things like this fall between the cracks.
Maintain Backups of Your Site
Your web hosting provider might provide backups, but in our experience, it’s also important that backups are stored in locations other than your main server. And of course, you should have as many backups in as many different places as possible.
