The nightmare of a broken website becomes a reality for many business owners.
Your shiny new website is up and running. Your logo looks amazing. Branding and messaging are perfect. Social media, digital advertising, or good old word of mouth are driving traffic to your site. You’re proud and you should be. You’ve reached a major milestone and a cornerstone of modern business. All is perfect, but don’t overlook website maintenance.
When your site goes live, it’s pristine and everything is working properly, or at least it should be. In a perfect world, it would remain that way. But out of nowhere, you stop receiving contact forms. One of your primary pages starts giving a “404 Page Not Found” error. A server goes down at your host and your entire site is offline. Or worse yet, your site gets hacked and your google listing gets held for ransom by cyber attackers.
This nightmare becomes a reality for many business owners. The bitter truth is that websites need maintenance. It can be a tough pill to swallow if you’re not expecting it, but it’s vital to the success and longevity of your site.
Websites become vulnerable for a myriad of reasons, but updates are a major cause. WordPress is currently the gold standard for websites. And it’s updated all the time. WordPress templates are updated. Plugins are updated. While those updates bring new features and functionality, if they’re not monitored, updated, and tested routinely, serious problems can arise.
If a site is left unmonitored and nothing is updated, the door is opened for hackers to infiltrate your site. They can and will install code that can wreak havoc on your search listings, your search results, and even your site itself. In many cases, the only way to correct the issue is to create a new site from the ground up.
In addition to updates not being installed, they can also be installed and updated in the wrong order. Many business owners think they can make the updates themselves and some can. Most cannot. When WordPress pushes out an update, it takes time for the plugin owners to adapt. If WordPress is updated and the plugins are not ready, they will break causing serious functionality issues on your site.
There are so many things that can go wrong if you ignore website maintenance. If you’re going to put the time, effort, and resources into developing a great website, protect it. Make sure you’re aligned with a team that can monitor your site and keep it updated.
If something goes wrong with your website, it’s important to have partners that you can trust. If you need help, we’d love to work with you to design, build, and maintain your website that will represent your organization. Contact Acorn+Arrow today to see how we can help drive your growth.
