Website Maintenance & Recurring Costs

Website Maintenance

Once you’ve got things up and running, don’t forget to maintain your website. In this regard, a website is like a car: you’ll get better use out of both of them if they are properly maintained. With constant maintenance your website will be safer, run more smoothly and attract more visitors.

Note that all forms of maintenance requires time, effort and may cost money; you may need to hire someone to do maintenance for you.

Let’s take a look at the areas that need maintenance.

Website System & Security

Your phone’s Operating Systems needs updates. Your web browser of choice needs updates. Your favourite application software needs updates.

If your website is running any sort of software (like a CMS) it likewise needs updates. With updates you get newer features, bug fixes and security patches.

Security is a constantly moving target. As we learn and discover more, websites may become more vulnerable than they were 2 years ago. The Heartbleed bug demonstrated that security flaws can go years before being noticed.

Different Website Systems provide different ways of keeping themselves updated. Some offer simple one-click updates while others may require the new files be manually copied. There are even Web Hosts provide auto-update services for some Website Systems.

But before installing any updates, it is advisable to do some research on the update itself. Software manufacturers try to iron out all the bugs before releasing updates but no one is perfect. Search the Internet to see if anyone has had problems with the new updates. The last thing you want is to have a new update completely break your website.

It is also good practice to back up your website before applying any update. That way, in the event an update does break your website you can always restore and older copy.

Maintaining your website, especially against security threats, is a very important part of having a website. It is something we encourage you entrust to people familiar with web-related security threats. If you have the resources, make sure your Tech team is well-prepared to keep your website in good, running condition.

Website Content

One way to keep your website visitors coming back is to regularly update your Website Content. Depending on the type of website you are going for, you don’t have to update every single day but at the very least keep your Basic Information up-to-date. If you have a webform that users can use to send messages to you then make sure someone is regularly checking & responding to these messages.

Creating new content regularly (e.g. on a blog) can be a viable strategy to keep your customers engaged. Connecting to social media platforms helps you stay connected with your market. But all this requires manpower: make sure you have people who will create new content and engage your customers on social media platforms.

Backup-and-Restore

As much as we protect our website against security threats we also need to be prepared in the event the website is compromised. A backup-and-restore plan is just as important as protecting the website against security threats.

Backups need to be consistent and preferably automated. How often backups take place will depend on how often you create new content on your website.

If you are using website software like a CMS, remember to backup your website database as well as your files. Also, do not store your backups on the same computer/server as your website. If the computer/server goes down you lose your website and your backups.

Depending on how sensitive your website data is, you may also want to encrypt your backups.

Recurring Costs

Finally, we would like to provide a friendly reminder that websites have recurring costs. Domain Names, Domain Privacy & Web Host accounts need to be renewed annually. Using Dedicated Service Providers or Third Party Services may require a subscription. Maintenance definitely will have costs attached to it.

When planning for your website, make sure you have the budget to handle all recurring costs.