Our recent post on regular website maintenance, “How Rapidly Changing Technology Affects Long-Term Website Maintenance”, outlined ways you can mitigate the risk of falling behind amidst rapidly changing technology.
We can tell you confidently that keeping up with the changing technology will benefit the long-term success of your website. But, just in case you’re still not convinced we wanted to explain how regular website maintenance benefits your web presence and business.
Regularly scheduled updates
If you don’t keep your website up-to-date, pieces of it will undoubtedly stop working. Once one piece goes awry it can affect other elements of your website. It can trigger a domino effect that you’re better off avoiding at all costs. Regularly scheduled updates can fix security issues and bugs. It’s a minimal time investment on your part and can save you from a potential disaster.
Plus, without updates, security monitoring, and proper optimization your website is more prone to security threats.
Design refreshes
If you don’t update the design of your site, it will affect the impression users have of your company. From a technology standpoint though, an outdated design can make your site unusable in certain browsers as they’re updated (and we all know how often browsers are updated).
For example, Flash functionality used to be all the rage and now the most popular browsers are doing away with it all-together.
- Adobe’s Flash Player is switched off by default in Google’s Chrome browser.
- Mozilla has taken steps to reduce usage by blocking certain Flash content in Firefox that’s not essential to the user experience.
- Microsoft announced that the next version of its Edge web browser will automatically block Flash media from displaying when people visit websites that use the video player.
- Apple announced that the macOS Sierra version of Safari will block Flash by default for all websites. Visitors to your Flash website will be greeted with a pop-up message to opt-in and use Flash.
Investing in website maintenance saves you money
A common argument against investing in web maintenance is that it’s too expensive and not completely necessary. Most people would rather fall mercy to the ticking time bomb that is their website without regular maintenance.
We’re debunking that argument. In reality, it’s cheaper and quicker to regularly make small updates your site than it is to make big leaps or patch huge issues. What seems like a small version update to you is actually a larger undertaking with a heftier price tag than if the updates were implemented regularly.
On the customer-centric side of the argument, without updates, refreshments and improvements, you’re missing out on new features that website visitors might expect. WordPress, for example, is constantly adding brand new or user requested features, which could make your site easier to use, faster, or more responsive.
Still not convinced? Need help convincing your manager or leadership team? We’d love to help your cause – because it’s our cause too. Contact us to speak with a Client Success Manager.
Read about what to do if your website is broken and need help now.
