Website maintenance might not be the most fun thing you want to do, but it is an essential part of keeping your website secure, up-to-date, and relevant.
This can mean various tasks such as keeping an eye on your site’s security, finding and fixing errors, or even just making necessary changes to the content.
In this article, we will go through the different types of website maintenance, their costs, and everything to consider when dealing with maintenance tasks on your site.
What is Website Maintenance?
Website maintenance is the process of keeping your website updated, error-free, and relevant. It includes tasks that assist in monitoring the overall health and performance of your website, such as adding or removing content, updating security, fixing broken links, improving the user experience, enhancing user experience, and increasing new and returning traffic, among others.
Website maintenance is an ongoing process that should be included in your business plan; it is not a one-time task. The internet is constantly evolving, and to remain relevant, your website must keep up with the latest changes and trends.
Why is Website Maintenance Important?
Website maintenance is important for several reasons. As a first benefit, it helps you keep your website updated. Both from a security and SEO perspective, this is essential.
Having an outdated website makes your site more vulnerable to hacking and malware attacks, thus lowering its ranking on search engine results pages. By maintaining your website regularly, you can prevent users from having a frustrating user experience.
In addition, it keeps your website design looking fresh and relevant. Your website should grow and change as your business does. By maintaining your website regularly, you can make those changes quickly and easily. Lastly, maintaining your website is essential for reducing costs. A poorly maintained outdated website can cost you both time and money in the long run.
You can avoid costly problems down the road by keeping your website updated and maintained. In turn, this can result in a poor user experience, which can decrease traffic and conversions.
How Much Does Website Maintenance Cost?
Depending on the type of website, maintenance costs may vary. The following are some examples of potential website maintenance costs:
- A personal website typically costs $5 to $25 a month to maintain
- A small business website maintenance plan may cost up to $100 a month
- An average corporate website may cost between $200 and $3500 to maintain
- An e-commerce website can cost between $1500 and $2500 to maintain
Additional Website Maintenance Costs
A few website maintenance costs to keep in mind are as follows:
1. Domain Name Renewal
Your website’s domain name is its address, which you purchased when you created it. You may have to pay for your domain name on a monthly or yearly basis.
For example, Google’s domain name is google.com. Usually, domains cost $0.08 to $1 per month or $2 to $20 per year. Despite the fact that domain names aren’t too expensive, it is important to keep your payments on top of them so that someone else doesn’t buy yours.
2. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate
An SSL certificate will also help keep your site secure, so you’ll want to make sure your website has one. Secure connections enable your site to receive and transfer sensitive information. SSL-certified sites use HTTPS instead of HTTP in their URLs.
The SSL certificate will also show a padlock next to the URL in most browsers. You might be able to get the certificate free if you’re using a hosting website, but they’ll usually cost you. An SSL certificate usually includes features, such as higher encryption rates, that can be beneficial to businesses.
The cost ranges from $0.80 to $125 per month or $10 to $1500 per year. Keep up with your SSL payments to keep your certificate active.
3. Website Hosting
Another cost to consider when maintaining a website is website hosting. Hosting is either done by you or by a third party. You have several options when it comes to website hosting providers. Shared hosting involves sharing a server with several other websites.
At $24 to $120 per year, it’s the least expensive option. WordPress and Wix are user-friendly website builders that cost between $60 and $180 a year. Even if you choose a virtual private server (VPS), you share a server with others. The provider divides up the server into several VPSs, giving you a dedicated server space. The cost of a VPS ranges from $240 to $600 per year.
The advantage of a dedicated server is that you have full control over it. The cost of this option ranges from $1200 to $24,000 per year.
What Does Website Maintenance Include?
The following are some of the most important tasks involved in maintaining a website.
1. Regularly Testing Your Website
Make sure your whole website is tested once a year and after any updates are made. Make sure all features work, check for broken links; and watch for inaccurate or outdated information. Bring in someone who isn’t associated with your company to help you assess the usability of your website.
2. Compatibility Testing with Browsers
Ensure that your website works correctly in multiple versions of mainstream browsers every year.
3. Quarterly Testing of Forms and Checkout Processes
Check all your forms and checkout processes at least once a quarter to ensure they are working properly.
4. Monthly Software Updates
Maintain proper functionality and security by ensuring your hosting provider, security provider, and other third parties provide you with software updates on a monthly basis. If possible, install patches as soon as they are released.
5. Website Backup
Having a backup of your website can save you from losing a lot of time and money if something goes wrong. Check your automatic backup features every month to make sure they are working. Monthly manual backups are a good alternative if automatic backups are not available.
6. Reviewing Key Metrics Weekly
Check your website’s performance every week using tools like Google Analytics. Be sure your site is helping you meet your key performance indicators (KPIs). If it isn’t, make updates and then review your key metrics to see if they improved the performance of your site.
This is a list of the most essential website maintenance tasks, but it does not include all the maintenance work you can do. For more extensive website maintenance, you might consider hiring a professional company.
The Benefits of Having an Efficient Website Maintenance Plan
Your website is one of your most powerful marketing tools, and it needs to be relevant, engaging, and up-to-date to remain effective. The following are some benefits of having an effective maintenance plan for your website:
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Ensures the security of your website
By keeping your site up-to-date with security features and software updates, you’ll be able to keep hackers and malware at bay.
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Enhances website performance
Maintaining your website can help it run faster and perform better.
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Maintains website compliance
By staying up-to-date with the latest website standards, you can ensure your site is accessible to everyone.
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Maintains your competitive edge
Your website should be updated and well-maintained in order to show that you are keeping up with the latest trends. You can gain an edge over your competitors by doing this.
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Ranks higher in search engines
Websites with fresh content are favored by search engines. Maintaining your website can improve your chances of being found by potential customers.
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Improves user experience
The best way to keep visitors coming back to your website is to maintain it well and make it easy to use. As a result, this can increase sales and conversions.
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Cost saving
You can avoid costly repairs down the road if you are proactive and catch errors early.
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More genuine conversion
Having a well-functioning website with relevant and targeted content is more likely to convert leads into customers. To reap the benefits of having a website, you must maintain it. Spending a little time on website maintenance can go a long way toward making your site an asset, instead of a liability.
What Does Website Maintenance Cost?
The cost of website maintenance can vary from $100 to $5000 per month, depending on your website type, hosting, and size.
The following is a breakdown of how much it costs to maintain a website:
- Domain name – $10- $20/year.
- SSL certificates – $0- $50/month.
- Web hosting providers – $2.75- $15.00/month.
- Email hosting – $1- $5/month.
- Tech support – $0- $1,000/month.
- Search engine optimization – $0- $800/month.
- Content updates- $0 – $3,200 total.
- General updates- $0- $200/month.
Read Also : An Overview of Mobile App Development Cost for 2023
In conclusion
You may find website maintenance to be a never-ending struggle if you’re not prepared. When you understand its importance and what’s involved, you can keep your website running smoothly for years to come. Don’t worry; take your time to develop a comprehensive maintenance plan for your website. This guide should have given you a basic understanding of how websites are maintained.
In case you still think that you are overburdened with work, you can always outsource your website maintenance. At first, outsourcing may seem like an additional expense. By keeping your website updated and running smoothly, you will save time and money in the long run.
Scrum Digital provides end-to-end IT consulting and digital technology solutions that can help you with website maintenance, web applications, and more. Our team specializes in helping customers grow their online presence with modern technical solutions. Get in touch with us today!
