One of the most important investments a company can make is investing in a solid website. Gaining a web presence can help a business to effectively and efficiently achieve their goals, be it brand recognition and marketing, gaining leads and building customer relations, or selling products to customer through an e-commerce storefront. Keeping pace with changes in technology, however, can be a real challenge. With proactive maintenance you can protect and improve the value of your website, while saving yourself the time and money associated with a costly redesign/build.
Create a Content Schedule
After an initial website project launches it is important to keep updating and adding new content. Set a schedule or content calendar and stick to it for creating new blog post, press releases or reviewing and updating existing content. This will keep both users and search engines engaged and coming back to your site. This also ensures that your site is up to date with your organizations message and goals. While every industry is different, a good rule of thumb would be to try and add a new piece of content each week, and review/update your site’s content once every 3 months.
Make Meaningful UX Updates
The technology used to visit and interact with your website is constantly changing. With the increase in mobile devices and modern browsers available, making sure your site’s UX Strategy continues to fit your user’s needs is key. It is important to make sure that any UX improvement that you make is based on data and testing. Any time you receive feedback it is a gift and should be viewed as an opportunity to review, test and improve the experience.
Keep Up with Web Standards
Web standards are constantly being reviewed debated and revised. What might have been a standard practice a year ago could be an out dated technique today. Like taking care of a physical piece of your digital property, websites need upkeep and renovations from time to time and the easiest way to do this is through ongoing, proactive maintenance.
We like to say that two years on the web is like a decade in the real world. Making sure you review and improve the code that runs your site periodicity can reduce the need for costly rebuilds. Running an in-depth audit every 6 months or so can help point out incremental improvements that can be made and help keep your website performing to its full potential without the burden of a full-fledged redesign.