Your website is not something you create once, and then you are done. You need to keep an eye on its performance and do ongoing website maintenance to ensure they keep on doing the job you need them to do. To help you out, we have tried to introduce some tasks by how often you should perform them.
1. Test All Website Forms
If your website uses contact form plugins for your visitors to fill out, make sure all such forms work properly. At the same time, a suite of website monitoring tool can help you perform this task. Follow the step by step process to fill out all the forms on the website. Ensure that you try them on all the browsers and devices your visitors might use. If you think any of the form is not working pretty well, make sure you detect the issue and rectify it sooner than later.
2. Perform user testing
You spend a lot of time and money to develop a website which is intuitive to users and which can drive the kind of actions you want them to take. Uninterestingly, the way people use the site frequently changes. A website design that was good decades ago may not work well today for the same business.
In order to be sure that your website still makes intuitive sense for the target audience and work well on all devices people view on, use website monitoring tool to know website down alerts and mark time on the calendar to set usability testing once a year.
Try to invoice those people who are not linked to your business and can give a fresh eye to browse your website. Make sure your testing contains all browsers and device types visitors, so you get the full picture. The next thing is to create a maintenance schedule to make any updates your testing determines are necessary.
3. Check Security Updates
You might have heard about high-profile security breaches. Protecting your website from hackers should be your priority if you want to keep your data and customer’s details safe. And, it’s crucial for e-commerce businesses that deal with customer’s private data.
One of the most significant website maintenance practices you need to establish for security checking that you should check all your plug-ins, platforms, and scripts and make sure all of them are up to date. In general, when website developers release updates for these, it is only to enhance security or patching up a susceptibility they’ve found. Never delay making those updates, or you could end up with putting your website and visitors unnecessarily at danger.
Bottom line
Just like your home or car, maintenance of your website is a vital part of your business performance. But, it ensures that you are able to save your time, money and unwanted trouble in the long run. Among the most crucial thing is that you can use a website monitoring tool online for free that can send you alerts whenever the website is likely to go down.