Owning a well-planned website involves more than the initial phases of web development. After website planning, building, testing, and going live, another key step is maintenance. Website updates and maintenance are key for a great user experience. By ensuring your website is secure and bug-free, you are encouraging visitors to come back and enjoy your website to the fullest. In addition, maintenance is necessary for keeping a site look on-trend.

Here are some considerations when planning maintenance and timing it well:

Why Have Regular Website Maintenance

Website maintenance is useful for keeping content up-to-date. This includes updating images, product descriptions, contact information, or forms. Fast loading speed and high-quality media often enhance the user experience. In addition, fresh content is useful for improving search engine rankings. It''s also important for fixing any bugs or security issues. These are just some aspects of a website that need to be monitored and maintained.

It''s All About Timing

The planning and timing of website maintenance is also crucial. Some well-known websites balance the disadvantage of losses in sales with the advantages of a well-maintained website. Updates to a site, when planned well, optimize the user experience and decrease larger problems in the long run.

Low traffic hours are often the best times for web maintenance. For example, many retailers update their sites at odd hours of the night, such as 2 or 3 am. Certain retail sites offer promotional discount codes to users who visit during maintenance hours, so that they visit the site again at a later time.

When a site is down for maintenance, potential business or revenue could be lost. Well-timed website maintenance allows businesses to minimize user frustration or decrease losses in sales. A savvy landing page that notifies user of maintenance can be helpful.

The day or time of the month that businesses choose to update their websites also matters. For example, it doesn''t make much sense to update a site on a key shopping day or holiday. Consider scheduling an update or site maintenance during a day or month where traffic is low. That way, the site will be fully optimized and running smoothly for those times when business is booming.

Based in Australia, Folio1 provides web design and strategy services to a range of clients. To learn more about our skills, contact us.

Sources: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/website-maintenance-important-48199.html