How Often Should You Update Your Website?

Every business knows they need to maintain their website over time, but to what extent and how often can feel like a mystery. Website updates come in many forms: from a business launching a new product to announcing a newsworthy story in a press release to updating contact information. Behind the scenes, many other moving parts, which are less conspicuous, require regular tune-ups, security patches and user experience updates to continue working as designed.

This is why having a contractor build your website only to then hand it over to you to maintain over time can often result in a myriad of problems. A reliable, trained, professional partner who cares for your website will anticipate technical issues and mitigate downstream impacts providing a website that scales alongside your growing business.

Your Website Maintenance Checklist

Some website updates should happen on a weekly basis, while others are only needed monthly or annually. To help you keep tabs on what should be handled when, we've created a handy website maintenance checklist:

Daily

• Backup your data. This ensures you have an accurate copy of your site stored somewhere other than the hosting server.

Weekly

• Update or add new content. Adding new content, such as blogs, product updates or releases, promotions and more, is a great way to stay relevant to your consumer base.
• Monitor performance. When you add new content or make changes to your website, it can impact its overall performance and optimization.

Monthly

• Perform low-priority security patches. Security patches aren't always released on a perfect monthly basis. Still, staying on top of these releases is vital since the latest updates keep your site safe from software vulnerabilities
• Review KPI reports & analytics. Each month, schedule time to review your website's KPIs and analytics to keep tabs on what's performing best and where your resources can be best spent.

Bi-Annually

• Perform a website audit. At least twice a year, we recommend performing a complete website audit to uncover any broken links, 404 errors, accessibility and compatibility issues and broken code to keep your site fresh and functional.

Annually

• Review legalities. Every year it's essential to update your copyright, review and edit legal disclaimers, ensure contact information is correct and any other areas that impact business growth and development.

Finding the Time & Resources

Unfortunately, it's not uncommon to come across outdated or broken websites—even for large, Fortune 500 brands. That's because maintaining a website is not a simple task. One tiny adjustment can lead to a chain reaction of errors, and missing one security patch could not only leave your site in a vulnerable position but it could also drive users away by appearing as an unsafe or unreliable source, impacting website traffic, sales and your brand image.

To effectively manage a website over time, a business must have a solid strategy in place, along with a support system that can provide regular, on-time maintenance. As more content is added and your business grows, so do the demands of website maintenance. Partnering with a digital marketing partner like Web Tech Fusion can ease these responsibilities on your end, all while keeping your website in great shape.