“I designed my website and I paid the fellow a lot of money for it. Now you say I should maintain my website. And spend more money on it?…. Bullshit!! I mean; why the hell would I want your website maintenance? I don’t even know what I would get in return…. ”. Extract of a conversation between a prospective customer and our meek tele caller!
The customer is fully justified with his opinion. But the ground reality can be much harsher.
When customers invest in their business website, there is a common mis-conception that it “should work flawlessly forever”.
Unfortunately, it won’t!
Let me give you an example:
Have you ever tried to save money by not servicing your car periodically? I did and paid the price for it. When I took my car to the service station next, I ended paying much more than what I actually saved.
The same is true for your website. If you don't maintain your website regularly, you would end up paying more money to enhance it. Like the car, your website requires regular maintenance to keep it up-to-date and attract viewers.
Three reasons why you should have regular website maintenance!
- Search engines like it fresh: Search engines always scan the internet for anything new that can be showcased. They place these fresh contents in the top position so that it can be noticed. When you do website maintenance and update your website regularly, search engines would find fresh contents on them and they would try to push it up for your viewers to find it.
- Open invites to Hackers: When your website stagnates without website maintenance, it invites hackers who would hack your website and replace the contents with unwanted contents and virus. Search engines would report this and it would have adverse effect on your business. You would spend much more money and time correcting this than would you would have with regular website maintenance.
- Improves customer base: Regular website maintenance would help you to improve your customer base and keep ahead of your competition. Here’s how it works. With regular website maintenance, you would update your website regularly. Search engines would find your website fresh and always move it up. You would have more viewers. These viewers would eventually turn as your customers.
So there it is… Website is not a final product that one develops and forgets. It has to be looked as an evolving entity in an equally fast paced evolving environment.
To get the best returns from your website it has to be nurtured and well maintained.
