Why Hire a Website Maintenance Company Even if There's Nothing to Fix

Your website is an investment. It's the cornerstone of your marketing, sales, and overall business strategy. It's also a reflection of your brand, so it only makes sense to maintain its pristine condition. 

If you noticed, most of your competitors regularly do website updates through security scans and site improvements. In addition, they have a development team that keeps their site running smoothly and securely from hackers.

If they don't have an in-house team to do their maintenance consultation, most website owners hire maintenance companies to support their website's performance and tend to any hiccups along the way. Here's why.

Why Do Businesses Need Website Maintenance?

Having a website maintenance service provider within your grasp will do a lot more good than bad. That is why hiring website maintenance services should be at the top of your list, even if there's nothing to fix on your website. Below are some reasons why:

For Security

Security is a top priority for businesses. It's an ongoing process involving keeping up with new vulnerabilities emerging and ensuring your site stays current on all necessary patches and updates.

A web maintenance services company can help you stay up to date on security issues, including:

• Existing software applications (such as WordPress) could leave your site vulnerable to hackers or malware.
• New ways hackers are trying to gain access to user accounts or other sensitive information.

For Performance

To put it plainly, if your site is slow, it will be more difficult for you and your business. Why? Because a slower website results in less traffic—and that may mean lost revenue. 

For example, a small business owner may see their competitors doing far better in ranking just because their website loads within three seconds. One-quarter of users said they would abandon a site if it took longer than four seconds to load.

A fast-loading website will likely have more people clicking on it compared to other slow websites.

For Management

A website maintenance company can help you do a lot of things, but most importantly, they can help you manage your site. As a small business owner, you likely have other things to work on besides ensuring your site runs smoothly. That's where a website management company comes in handy.

You may need to update your contact information or add new software to ensure everything is running properly. The best way for this to happen is by having someone specializing in website maintenance manage these issues for you so that nothing falls through the cracks and gets left undone.

For example, if a person is trying to access your site but keeps getting an error message, you have to make sure this won't happen again. Your website maintenance team will fix the bugs, so your site is accessible to everyone all the time, if possible.

For SEO

Every website needs to be optimized for search engines. Your website is an advertisement for your company. Without the right keywords and content, people won't be able to find you.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of enhancing your online visibility to raise your site's organic search engine rankings (SERPs). While there are many factors involved in getting good rankings these days, SEO remains one of the most important elements of online marketing because:

• It helps attract more visitors to your website, which in turn boosts sales; 
• It expands your consumer base without increasing your marketing budget;
• It can help boost brand awareness among potential customers who haven't heard about you but are considering buying now based on their purchasing behavior;
• It helps set your brand apart from competitors since Google will likely establish your website as reliable and relevant.

For Compliance

There is a difference between compliance and security. Compliance refers to the legal requirements of your industry, while security refers to the technical measures you take (or don't take) to protect your data.

These two things can be related in some cases, but they're not always connected. For example:

• If you need a web maintenance services company because there's nothing broken on your site, it probably means that everything is working as intended. You're already compliant with all relevant laws.
• But if there's no one in charge of keeping track of new regulations or making sure that those rules are being followed by everyone involved with your business, then something like GDPR or CCPA legislation (both of which went into effect in May 2018) can sneak up on you without anyone noticing until after an audit has occurred.

What is Included in Website Maintenance Services?

In addition to the things listed above, a website maintenance company also offers the following services to make your website maintenance costs worth paying. Of course, it's always best to remember that some website maintenance service providers don't offer all of these. Therefore, it's best to hop on a call with them and discuss what their website maintenance services include.

Depending on your budget, others may offer the basic plan or an extensive package that will include all we've mentioned so far. Regardless, if you have an extra budget or you're simply curious about what good you can get from website maintenance services, keep on reading.

Site Upkeep

Apart from keeping your website's files regularly updated, a website maintenance service also includes upkeeping your website's design. For example, if you have broken links or corrupted images, a service provider may fix this, especially if it's included in the maintenance plan.

Content Analysis or Performance Monitoring

If you want to know what content isn't working out for you and which ones you should continue producing, some website maintenance companies provide weekly reports on anything and everything on your website.

Security Fixes

Website security is especially important if you're an eCommerce website that gathers card information and payment details. Security patches are made to prevent website issues that deal with hacking, credit card fraud, and more. Cyberattacks are becoming more common, and solid security updates are the best way to ward off attacks.

Keeping your website up-to-date with security patches is essential if you want high placement on search engines like Google. Google has stated that they reward websites that use HTTPS by giving them a slight ranking boost. This means that if your site doesn't use HTTPS or uses it improperly, Google could penalize your rankings for this reason alone.

Uptime Monitoring

To ensure that your website is always accessible, an uptime monitoring program will perform checks at predetermined intervals. As a result, you will be notified quickly via several channels every time your website goes down, giving you ample time to fix the problem and restore service.

Think of it as routine website maintenance. Use it to check on your site's inner workings and guarantee flawless operation.

Website Backups

In addition, some website maintenance services include backups in their maintenance package. When your site experiences technical difficulties or crashes, restoring it from a backup is your best bet for getting things back up and running as soon as possible.

You can restore your site from a backup if something crucial is lost, such as if you delete something by accident, if a theme or plugin/module causes damage, or if your site is hacked.

Tech Support

Companies that focus on their products, such as website maintenance services, often employ technical or tech support to ensure that their customers get the most out of their purchases.

This is typically done through knowledge bases, live chat, email, or the phone, and aims to resolve technical problems, including installation mistakes, login problems, and other hiccups that users encounter when using your website.

What to Look for in a Good Website Maintenance Company?

A website is the mouthpiece of your institution. It is what brings in new customers, and it's how you communicate with your existing customers. Therefore, it's important to ensure that your website is up-to-date so it can function as a tool for your business.

For your website to thrive, you must keep up with it and fix bugs or problems. There are a plethora of companies whose sole purpose is to ensure that your website never experiences any downtime. Therefore, you should pick one that is reputable and has plenty of experience.

This is why it's crucial to have an idea of what to look for in a company beyond just the services they provide before making a final decision to work with them.

• They have a good grasp or extensive knowledge of web hosting.
• Website support and maintenance services are provided with each website maintenance package. 
• The line of communication with the business or website owner is always open.
• They keep up with a consistent schedule in terms of regularly updating information.
• They have tech support to help with bug fixes.
• Their utmost goal is to keep your eCommerce site secure.

Mesmeric: Your Go-To Website Maintenance Team

For the best website maintenance services, best believe that Mesmeric is the way to go!

Investing in a website maintenance package might well be the smartest thing you do. As a result, your site will be more secure, have faster loading, and outrank its competition. Apart from that, your website will be updated with all the latest software updates and trends, so it doesn't fall behind.Book a call with Mesmeric to find out about our website maintenance offers and other services like website maintenance and technical support today!