When you first get your brand-spanking new website, taking care of it seems really easy. It’s like when you buy that shiny new car and you clean it pretty much every day. After a while, the repetitiveness of the task far outweighs its value. It’s the same thing with your website. It’s easy to get caught up with website maintenance tasks and before you know it, you’re bogged down and fall behind on other tasks. Website maintenance is a time-consuming process, and if it’s not done on a regular basis, your website will eventually suffer. Maintaining your website is important to keep it running smoothly and looking great.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss the different types of website maintenance, how to reduce website maintenance costs, and how often you should update your WordPress website. We hope this information will help you maintain your website in a cost-effective way and keep your website up and running so visitors can visit! What are we waiting for – let’s dive right in!
What is Website Maintenance?
Website maintenance is the regular upkeep of your website to keep it running smoothly and looking great. Website maintenance includes tasks such as updating content, optimizing images, fixing bugs and other technical issues, updating the CMS software, and performing security checks.
Why Website Maintenance is Important?
Website maintenance is essential for keeping your website up-to-date with the latest trends in technology and design. Without routine maintenance, your website will become outdated quickly and may fail to attract visitors or generate sales. Regular website maintenance also ensures that all functions and features are working properly and that any potential problems are identified before they become major issues. It’s a key step in preventing potential website downtime.
Types of Website Maintenance
Website maintenance can be divided into two categories: frontend (client-side) and backend (server-side).
Frontend Website Maintenance
This type of website maintenance focuses on the look and feel of your website. Examples of frontend website maintenance include updating design elements, adding or removing content, optimizing images for faster loading times, and making sure all links are working properly.
Backend Website Maintenance
This type of website maintenance focuses on the technical aspects of your website. Examples of backend website maintenance include bug fixes, software updates, security checks, database optimization, and monitoring server performance.
How Much Does Website Maintenance Cost?
Website maintenance is an important and often overlooked aspect of running a successful website and the costs can vary greatly depending on the complexity of your website, the number of features you need to update, as well as how frequently you need to make changes. Some of the website maintenance tasks involve keeping the content, graphics, and code structures up-to-date in order to meet any specific industry-wide security requirements and unique user needs.
The cost depends largely on the number of hours required for the work, meaning that larger sites requiring more attention may require higher subscription costs. Website hosting services might offer different levels of service for varying amounts of money in comparison to one-off fees for certain updates on an hourly basis. Budgeting for sufficient resources is worth it given its significance in ensuring secure servers and better user experiences which fuel conversions! It’s important to factor in website maintenance costs into any web development budget before it’s too late.
Typically, website maintenance can range from $50-$1500 per month depending on the service offering and the website’s needs. The key offering to look for in a plan is how much human time is spent looking at the site. In other words, how much time does a real developer go in and actually look at the website? A lot of plans offered at the lower price points, which look super enticing, are services that are automated and done by a computer. This is helpful when managing a ton of websites, but if you don’t have human oversight and testing, this can end up badly, really quickly.
How to Reduce Website Maintenance Cost?
Website maintenance costs can vary based on several factors such as the size and complexity of the site and its hosting environment. To reduce these costs, consider outsourcing website maintenance tasks to a professional web developer or agency (like ours <– shameless plug). This can save you time and money, as they have the technical expertise and resources to perform these tasks quickly and efficiently. You can sign up for a
WordPress Support Plan
Sign Up For Our WordPress Support Plan – The CareKit
where many of the backend maintenance factors are handled for you at a fraction of the cost.
Factors that Affect Website Maintenance Cost
Some of the main factors that affect website maintenance costs include the frequency of updates, the complexity of design elements, and the hosting environment. The cost may also increase if specialized software or plugins are needed for certain features or functions.
What to do When Your Website Goes Down?
Website maintenance can be quite costly, so if your website goes down, it’s important to take immediate action. The first step is to diagnose the issue. Is it a coding-related error or an issue with the hosting provider? Depending on the cause of the problem, you may need to consult with a professional web developer or system administrator. Additionally, consider whether any third-party services are at risk, such as databases and APIs or payment integrations. You may need to adjust some settings in order to ensure they remain secure while your site remains offline.
Website backup services are another option for restoring lost data quickly and easily. Having backups in place can help reduce the cost of debugging and recovery associated with lost files and data corruption. With your backup in hand, contact your hosting or website management service provider to review their terms of service that would cover the cost of a full recovery or replacement for your website. Website maintenance costs vary widely based on the complexity of the website and hosting arrangements, but having these systems in place before there’s an issue ensures that downtime can be minimized when problems arise, keeping costs to a minimum.
Tips for Reducing Website Downtime
Downtime is inevitable when it comes to website maintenance, but there are a few things you can do to reduce the amount of time your site is offline.
Tip 1: Scheduled Maintenance Off-Peak Hours
Make sure to schedule your website updates for off-peak hours and, if you have the budget for it, have an alternate server ready in case something goes wrong. This will help minimize the impacts of any downtime, as fewer visitors and customers will be affected.
Tip 2: Monitor Website Downtime
Set up monitoring tools to detect and alert you when your website is down, so you can act quickly. Website performance monitoring allows you to track the performance of your website over time, and downtime alerts will help you identify when an issue arises. You can use a free service like
Uptime Robot
Check out the world's leading uptime monitoring service
to monitor your website’s downtime and SSL certificate. It can be configured to send you email notifications and even integrated into your Slack app for free.
Tip 3: Test Website Updates Before Deploying
Before deploying an update, it’s important to test it in a staging environment first. This can help identify any bugs or glitches that could cause issues after the update is released. It also ensures that all features are working correctly and no data is lost during the upgrade process.
Tip 4: Automated Backups
Be sure to set up automated backups of your website data on a regular basis. By automating the process and storing the files off-site, you can restore your website quickly if it ever goes offline. We have hourly and daily backups for our
CareKit
Check out our WordPress Support Plan
clients so they can rest easy!
Tip 5: Better Hosting
Choosing a
reliable hosting provider
Read our blog post on choosing the best hosting provider
is key. Look into various company customer reviews and make sure you’re signing up with a provider who will deliver quality service. We recommend
Kinsta
Check out Kinsta WordPress Hosting
if you haven’t tried them already.
Tip 6: Software Update Compatibility Testing
Finally, make sure all of your software is fully tested before publishing changes or upgrades on your site; this helps to ensure there are no major bugs in the new version that could cause issues down the line.
With these tips in mind, you can protect yourself from website downtime and keep your websites running smoothly and efficiently.
How Often Should Website Maintenance Be Done?
The frequency of website maintenance largely depends on the size and complexity of your website as well as how often you make changes or add new content. As a general rule of thumb, we recommend performing full site maintenance at least once per month while smaller tasks such as bug fixes and security checks should be done more frequently on a weekly basis.
Preventative Measures for Maintaining a Website
You can minimize the cost of website maintenance by taking preventative measures. Website testing, backups, monitoring, and regular updates are all critical for keeping your website running smoothly and minimizing downtime. Additionally, setting up automated processes such as scheduled backups and software compatibility checks can help reduce the manual labour associated with website maintenance. This can also have a great impact on website recovery should that nightmare ever become a reality.
The DIY Option & Tips
We don’t normally recommend this but if you’re on a budget, there are certain steps you can take to maintain your website without hiring an expert – the Do It Yourself Option (DIY). Basic tasks such as regular software updates and backups should be done regularly. For solopreneurs, we recommend checking your website on a daily basis and updating only the plugins you’re sure won’t break the site.
Additionally, be sure to know your website well and test your website by clicking around, submitting forms, or performing transactions. Take screenshots of your website on a weekly basis, label them, and store them in a folder for future reference. This way if something breaks you can always reference a previous screenshot to check how it used to look. Finally, consider investing in automated backups. This can be a premium plugin or a service, but it will help with recovering your website should anything happen.
We recommend
Updraft Plus
Check out the most popular WordPress Backup Plugin
, which is the world’s most popular free WordPress backup plugin. The premium version which retails for about $195/year comes with a suite of useful features but we like one in particular: Remote Storage Option. This feature allows you to automatically back up your website and send it to a third-party remote storage like Google Drive or Dropbox. This feature helps you keep your server disk space light as it’ll only keep a copy of your backup in your remote storage and purge it from your website server. Pretty nifty if you ask me!
Other Frequently Asked Questions
What are the benefits of website maintenance?
Website maintenance helps to keep your website running smoothly and efficiently, reducing downtime and helping you stay on top of updates. Maintaining your website also ensures that all software is compatible with the current version of your website, reducing any potential issues or glitches caused by outdated code.
What are some common Website Maintenance problems?
Common Website Maintenance problems include broken links, poor loading times, compatibility issues with third-party software, and security vulnerabilities. Each of these can be addressed through regular Website Maintenance practices such as updating software, running backups, and testing cross-browser compatibility.
Takeaway
Website maintenance can be a daunting task, but it’s an essential part of keeping it up-to-date and secure from potential threats and hacks. It can be time-consuming and costly, but by using this guide, you can minimize the cost of website maintenance and protect your site from downtime and other common problems. With regular website maintenance, you can rest easy knowing that your site is running smoothly and efficiently for both visitors and customers alike.
