As a small business owner, you know a website is critical for driving traffic to your business. However, many small business owners don’t realize that websites need to be maintained in order to be effective — and can end up with problems down the road.
Unless you run a technology business, chances are you’re not interested in handling constant website maintenance. That’s where website maintenance plans come in: they work behind the scenes so you can focus on running your business.
If you’re wondering what website maintenance plans are or whether you need one, read on. This post will explain how regular website maintenance will benefit your business:
What Website Maintenance Plans Are
Contrary to popular opinion, websites aren’t a set it and forget it kind of deal. Yes, you can keep your website’s appearance the same for as long as you like, but the details you can’t see are actually the most important ones.
Optimization, reports, and multiple other factors need to be dealt with on a regular basis to keep your website running smoothly. This is what website maintenance plans do — they take the extra work off your hands and allow you to focus on the day-to-day of your business.
Keeping your website maintained is essential for its effectiveness, which is why website maintenance is such a big help. Unless you’re a coding whiz with a ton of extra time on your hands (which most business owners aren’t), a website maintenance plan is a good idea.
Benefits of Website Maintenance Plans
There are multiple benefits that come with a monthly website maintenance plan. Your website maintenance provider will walk you through your options when you sign up, to determine what works best for your website and business. Some standard website maintenance benefits include:
Bug Fixes
Bug fixes are just what they sound like: fixing bugs, glitches, or other issues within your website’s coding. These things happen sometimes, and the smallest issue can make a huge impact on the effectiveness of your website. Having a trained professional monitor your site and fix bugs as they happen is the best way to ensure they don’t go unnoticed, keeping your website functioning optimally.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is another helpful benefit of website maintenance. Ranking on Google is high on every business owner’s list of priorities, and rightly so. It’s the best way to ensure your business is visible among your competitors, driving business in your direction instead of somewhere else. Having this aspect of your business handled by experts ensures you continue to rank high, keeping your business visible and accessible.
Analytical Reporting
While you don’t have to know coding to have a website, it’s important to know how your site is performing. Analytical Reporting tells you what’s working well on your site, how many visits it’s getting per month, and what needs to be improved upon. This helps you to make changes and updates where necessary, and ensures your site remains as effective as possible.
Plugin Updates
Plugins are additions to software that allow for the customization of programs. These guys need constant updating for your website to run smoothly, which is another reason website maintenance plans are so helpful. Instead of having to remember which plugins to update and when, your website maintenance provider takes care of all the annoying little details for you.
Regular Backups
Anyone who’s ever lost an entire website to a crash or security failure will tell you how important it is to back up your data regularly. This task makes the difference between starting from scratch and simply restoring your last website version — and the latter is definitely a better choice. Website maintenance plans ensure that your data is backed up regularly, so in the event that something unexpected happens, everything can be saved and restored.
Content Updates
The quality of your content means everything for your website, so keeping it updated is important. Whether you have a blog for your visitors to read or a standard business website, outdated content gives the impression that you’re not paying much attention to your site — not a good look. Website maintenance plans ensure that your content is always up to date, helping your website depict a professional, conscious business.
Business Information Updates
Things change in businesses all the time, and you want your customers to know when changes are made. Website maintenance plans can include business information updates, too. This allows you to focus on the bigger tasks that come along with running a business, leaving the small details to a qualified professional.
How Website Maintenance Plans Help Small Business Owners
Aside from the benefits listed above, there are even more ways that website maintenance plans help small business owners. Here are a few more reasons to consider enlisting a website maintenance provider’s help:
Time — Business owners are notoriously short on time. Dealing with technical issues can be extremely time-consuming, so preventing them by hiring professionals to care for your website is a great way to save your precious time for more important things.
Money — Tech problems can be costly, especially if you’re putting out one fire after another. Website maintenance plans ensure that your website never gets to this point by keeping a watchful eye on any potential issues and handling them when necessary.
Sanity — Trying to figure out tech when you’re untrained or busy with running a business is not good for your mental health! Leave it to the professionals and run your business with a clear-headed approach.
Security — Peace of mind that your website and business are safe from potential threats is priceless. Website maintenance plans bring you this peace of mind, and without charging an arm and a leg to do it.
To Sum it Up Nicely
Running a business is time consuming enough without worrying about potential tech issues. Monthly website maintenance plans do the work for you, so your website runs smoothly and does what it’s designed to do, which is make your business stand out in the best possible way.
If you’re an Indianapolis small business owner struggling with tech issues or wondering why your website isn’t performing like it used to, consider a monthly website maintenance plan. It’ll save you time, money, and headaches, so you can get back to doing what you love: running your business!