subject: Web Maintenance Is Important [print this page] If you have a self-hosted blog or you have a business website then you are surely aware of the importance of proper website maintenance. In fact, it is a business in itself ever since the internet was discovered.
Web maintenance concerns all the activities done in order to make sure that the website functions as intended. Any neglect in any of these functions would be immediately reflected in your website and would be visible to your readers or would have been clients. Website malfunctions like a missing image, or an incorrect link must be avoided always.
Some things to look out for, are all the contents in their proper format and order? Are there any broken links or misspelled texts? Is the support system and news up to date?
Inadequate support could be due to real financial difficulties. But most of the time it's because the interest in the web site has waned. It has become a nightmare to look after it constantly. The real truth is that some company managers consider that once a website is live it will amazingly looks after its own self!
The real difficulty for a web master is to discuss this, when this is not the case. There is a very strong argument to demonstrate why regular maintenance is so necessary. A simple way of doing this is to show how these tasks can lead directly to a higher quality visitor experience.
You will also want your website to be an interactive tool for your customers. Getting a call from an unhappy customer is not a pleasant thing. Keeping your website updated with things like an FAQ page or support questions and answers can help stave off these potentially discouraging situations.
Other functions of web maintenance also include:
- Publishing: content update
- Quality: Check for spelling errors, glitches, and other errors in your site.
- Feedback: Return communication to all those who write to your website.
- reporting website performance
- Links: Make sure links on the website work fine.
- Change Control: Managing technical or other changes in a coordinated way.
Your website maintenance team in the beginning could be lead by one person who has multi-functions since your website is still relatively small and easy to manage. However, as your site grows, so does your website team and pretty soon it will be managed by a small group of people lead by the maintenance coordinator.
As time progresses, you may want to consider having a website maintenance team ready for you with just a phone call or email. As your business website expands, you may need more specialized skills like programming to help you get ahead of your competition. Also, larger problems may arise and you may need more than just basic support. This is where having a professional website maintenance company with dedicated staff is an asset.
Most small websites only require one or two people to maintain it. Other larger websites can take a whole team. If you do have a website management team, you should meet with your board regularly to discuss different issues of the site that need work on, and give out tasks to be done. A plan and deadline should also be set on upcoming changes to the website, and you should always have a maintenance report. Another important step is to go over your the statistics of your website to see what your clients prefer when making a change.
