Complete website maintenance checklist of a live website

We create different kind of websites for different types of business. If we do not give proper value to our website, it is not possible to get the best result from website. We do SEO, digital marketing to reach end customer and generate leads from our site. But if we do not maintain our site, all our investment will be in vain. It is just like, you purchase a car and use it for long time without any maintenance. Then after few years, it will start malfunctioning leaving you in great trouble. Consider the example about yourself. We do haircut, shaving regularly for maintain us. So, maintaining your car, yourself or website always gives you better and profitable result in future. Your website must have the maintenance plan from day one.

Let me share some tips and ideas about HOW TO MAINTAIN YOUR WEBSITE

1)Complete backup including database

Taking a regular complete backup of your website should be your first priority. You can take monthly one or two back-ups including database from your website hosting panel. Download it into your personal computer and also make one or two copy and place them into different computers or cloud server. So if one computer destroys for some reason, you can get the complete files from another computer. You can do the whole process manually. But some hosting companies give the automated option to take regular backup with some additional charges. Try them. Another point is that you can set up a complete website form your backup once in a month to verify the backup is working correctly or not.

2) Update Site regularly with new version

Web technology is changing and becoming updated everyday. So when you create a website using some technology, it is your duty to upgrade the website with current software/technology version. This will help to protect security issue as well as give new features which will incorporate with the current software version.

3) Check website error

We must regularly check our website bugs & errors to give better results to customers. Before making a website live we should check the whole website thouroughly from user convenience. Also after making website live we should check the website once in a month and also the different types of log files in our hosting panel. This will give your business better profitable output.

4) Check broken links/ Dead Link

Broken links are one type of site URL which do not exist into your website but somehow they stay into your website due to manually URL change inside content or create new website using old website. If you click on a broken link, you’ll see a 404 error page or similar message explaining that the webpage is not available. Broken links also affect your SEO strategy. There are different websites online form where you can check broken links and then rectify them.

5) Check website loading speed

In today’s busy world, no one has the “time to stand and stare”. Everyone wants quick response of their queries If your website can’t quench the thirst of their queries quickly, they will divert from your website and move forward to other options. So we must optimize your site to load first. Use Google Page Speed Insights or GTmetrix or Pingdom tools to check your website pages load status and then work on their suggestions too.

6) Check Analytics

Create an account in Google Analytics or any web analytics platform and review trends, referrals and page-flow. Consider how to use this information to increase traffic to your site.

7) Optimize database and delete unnecessary files

Delete unnecessary page/s and post/s which is never required in future. If you have comment system in your website, empty your comment spam. Then optimize your database and tables by running different types of database software. You can also delete unnecessary files, images, videos and audio. This can minimize site vulnerabilities also. Perform a backup before deleting anything! If your website is built in WordPress then deactivate or delete all unnecessary plugins and themes. Unnecessary plugins increase your website’s overhead and the risk of vulnerabilities.

8) Test website dynamic form

Website dynamic forms are a very important part for lead generation, business growth, and communication with customers. So this needs to be checked regularly. Send yourself a message using your site’s contact form or any form and make sure that you are getting it. If you use any third-party email marketing services like MailChimp, GetResponse or other, those should test carefully.

9) Update website content time to time

We all know that good content is the best part of a website. It increase your site’s traffic, If visitor always get same content time to time, they will lose interest on your site. So you must change or update your content twice in a year to make your audience busy and please check spelling, grammar & readability before making your content live. You must proofread everything before it goes online.

10) Update sitemaps

Sitemap is very important for search engine platform like Google, Yahoo, Bing. It helps to interact with search engines about the url structure of your website. So that your site can get higher rank on those search engines. Check the sitemap to ensure that it is up to date, also check the newly added content links, present in sitemap and also important pages are added in sitemap. Update your sitemap.xml file automatically or manually and submit it to search engines if necessary.

11) Website Design

Always update your site with the latest design technique for better user convenience. Try to make a responsive website and use relevant images and videos. Create original graphic for your site. Check W3C validation for your website. Present your website to your customer in a way that they can feel the difference with others.

12) Search engine optimization

Ensure all pages are optimized for search engine. Use different types of SEO related tool like Google Webmaster, SEMrush etc to find SEO related problems with your site. You may get plenty of options to make your website better for search engine using those tools. Fix critical issues first, and then fix other issues day by day to get better output.

13) Update password regularly

Change your admin panel, hosting panel (Cpanel), database password time to time for better security. If you have multiple admin/ users, change theirs’ too. Delete or minimize unnecessary admin/ users if possible. Always use a strong password so that hackers cannot break it. If any hacker gets your admin password there is a full chance of damage of your website within a second.

14) Check your website in all major browser

Test your website on all the major web browsers. Web browsers are updated frequently and sometimes it affects the display. By checking the browser compatibility regularly, you can catch any display problems which help you to hold your customer. There are various online tools to test browser compatibility. One of them is https://crossbrowsertesting.com/. Here you can check 1500+ real desktop and mobile browsers.

A website is an online presence for your business. If you follow above steps and maintain it regularly you will be benefitted surely. But if you do not have enough time in your hand, you are free to contact us. We are providing website maintenance services since last 5 years with proper planning which leads to good result to our clients. We also want to make sure that we are maximizing every opportunity to drive relevant traffic to your website and that we are converting that traffic into leads and sales.

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Complete website maintenance checklist after website is live