The Ongoing Value of Keeping Your Website in Top Shape
It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in; nowadays, a website serves as your digital storefront. Perhaps more importantly, it establishes your online presence and carves out a crucial space for your business with the leading search engines.
There are 1,119,023,272 websites on the Internet across 270,782,860 registered domains. However, only approximately 193,890,945 websites, or 17.32%, are currently active. Approx 30,000 websites are estimated to be successfully hacked every day
Even with regular website maintenance as a critical aspect of success, many businesses overlook its importance. This can have significant implications for security, performance, and overall user experience.
In fact, a study conducted by IBM Global Services reports that the cost of revenue due to unplanned site downtime was estimated to be about $400,000 per hour.
Unplanned downtime may happen for various reasons including human error and, most recently, cyber-attacks, which comprise about 36% of cases and have resulted in devastating losses in revenue.
Most businesses cannot afford to take a hit like this, and chances are, yours can’t either. That’s why website maintenance matters.
At Bloom Digital Marketing, our website maintenance plans are designed to address all aspects of website upkeep, ensuring that your site remains fast and as functional and secure as it should be.
In this blog post, we’ll explore why a website maintenance plan is imperative for every business website, highlighting the key benefits and how regular website maintenance can help you avoid costly issues going forward.
1.Regular Security Updates
According to Cybersecurity Ventures, cybercrime continues to rise, the cost of which is predicted to hit eight trillion and rise to a whopping ten trillion by next year.
Outdated plugins, themes, and software are common entry points for cyber criminals and, as a result, are highly vulnerable to security breaches. Malware infections as well as hacking may also pose a risk to cyber security.
As the Harvard Business Review states, “A cyber incident will directly consume a company’s resources, leading to an increased cost of doing business.” A cyber attack doesn’t just hinder the way you manage your business currently, but also your future abilities and reputation.
As a business owner, you likely can’t afford to be put in this position. Instead, you want to opt for a website maintenance plan that includes security patches, security scans, and plugin updates. A proactive website plan is a secure one.
2. Website Performance Optimisation
Site speed is a critical factor in user experience and search engine optimisation (SEO). Not only can a slow-loading site frustrate visitors and lead to higher bounce rates but a slow site can deter search engines like Google from ranking your site highly.
A website maintenance plan includes website performance optimisation tasks such as database cleanups, caching, and image optimisation to improve load times. Additionally, your website developer can help identify and fix broken links, 404 errors, and other performance issues, facilitating a smooth browsing experience for your visitors.
When things go wrong with your website, you don’t want your users glitching along with it (and forming a bad opinion of your business). Professional website maintenance provides you with the management your site needs, effectively lowering the risk of poor rankings and visitor responses.
3. Enhancing User Experience
It goes without saying that user experience (UX) is pivotal to the success of your website. With the increasing use of various devices and screen sizes, ensuring your site is fully responsive and accessible is more important than ever.
According to a study by Forrester Research, a well-designed user interface could increase conversion rates by up to 200%. This could potentially lead to your users becoming regular visitors and consistent customers.
Regular website maintenance also keeps your site and business on trend and in keeping with a modern look and design. This is a great way to maintain engagement with users while increasing visibility.
No matter how new or “pretty” your site might be, UX (user experience) audits are a vital part of maintenance. They help you have a clearer idea of your site’s user-friendliness as well as help identify problem spots where users might face frustration.
Additionally, compliance with accessibility standards ensures that your site is usable by people with disabilities. This is a great way to provide equal access for all of your users and improve the overall experience for everyone.
4. Keep Up With New Technologies
The online world is changing all the time. New tools like AI chatbots, smart content suggestions and voice search are shaping what visitors expect from websites.
A good maintenance plan keeps your site safe, working properly and easy to use on any device or browser. But real progress happens when you go beyond just ticking boxes.
That is where our Business Amplifier growth plans come in. These plans do more than maintenance. We bring in the latest tech, add fresh features and grow your site in line with your business goals.
Whether we introduce AI features, simplify how people use your site or make your content and SEO future ready, we help you move forward not just hang on.
5. Search and Content Improvements
Search is changing quickly. It is no longer just about Google. Tools like ChatGPT and other AI search platforms are becoming part of how people find websites and information online.
Our standard care plans do not include SEO. But our higher plan does cover the technical side that helps your site get found. We run regular audits, check how easy it is for search tools to read your pages, speed things up and make sure your content is ready for both search engines and AI tools.
If you provide the content, we will help get it ready for search. We also run strategy sessions every few months to review how your site is doing and make a plan for any updates.
We do not write new content or run full SEO campaigns, but we do make sure your website has a strong base to perform well in a world where search is powered by both engines and AI.
6. Backup & Recovery
Data loss can be devastating for any business, making regular backups an essential component of a website maintenance plan.
According to a survey by Consoltech, 70% of small businesses that experience data loss go out of business within a year. Regular backups protect your site from security breaches or hacks, keeping your business running just as effectively regardless of attempts.
The website maintenance plan includes automated backups and a well-defined recovery process to protect against data loss. In the event of a site failure or an outage, having up-to-date backups ensures that you can quickly restore your site to its previous state, minimising downtime and preventing potential loss of revenue.
In Summary
Your website is one of your most valuable business tools but without regular care it can quickly fall behind. From security threats and slow performance to a poor user experience and missed chances to be found in search the risks are real.
A good website maintenance plan keeps everything running as it should. It protects your site from attacks speeds up loading times keeps your design working on all devices and helps you stay up to date with new technology.
Search is changing too. It is no longer just about Google. AI platforms like ChatGPT are becoming part of how people find information. While our standard care plans do not include SEO our higher level plan handles the technical seo work that helps your site stay visible.
We also include backups so if anything goes wrong your site can be restored quickly without major disruption.
At Bloom Digital Marketing we offer flexible care plans built for UK businesses. With regular updates support and a clear strategy you can count on your website to keep working hard for your business.
Schedule Regular Maintenance for Your Website
Bloom Digital Marketing is an award-winning digital marketing agency that offers tailored website care plans designed to meet the unique needs of UK businesses. Our plans provide peace of mind, knowing that your website is in expert hands.
If you’re ready to invest in your website’s long-term success, contact us today. Let us help you protect your data and user experience while continuously improving.
