Congratulations, you are officially a website owner! Now that you’re feeling extra excited and proud about your new online identity, we don’t want you to forget some key steps that result in keeping your new website properly functioning. Yes, owning a website comes with some maintenance responsibilities just like owning a car.
- Visual Check – Don’t rely on your customers to be the only ones who visit your website. Check your site periodically to make sure it is loading and functioning properly. It’s easier than receiving calls from customers with the dreaded news of a broken website!
- Functionality Check – Does your website have a blog that allows comments? Does it respond to devices of various sizes? Does it have any forms or a shop for customers to use? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, make sure you test these various tools periodically to verify they still work. Send yourself a test email through your contact page and make sure you receive a response that looks and works the way you want it to.
- Security – Having security for your website is just as important as oil changes for your car. Malware and hacking has become a norm in the web world, and we don’t want you to fall victim. While signing up and paying for security for your website are two steps in the process, it is also important to make sure the monitoring and firewall that your security company has in place is running properly and providing reports.
- Backups – Verify that backups are running periodically and stored outside of the content management system and hosting platform. Although your hosting company may do website backups it is important to not rely on these backups alone.
- Update Software – Your website content is only one variable that needs to be kept up to date. Websites also require plugins, themes, the content management software, HTML and PHP to be kept up to date. As soon as any of these variables become outdated, your website becomes vulnerable to breaking and or being hacked.
These tips will help you keep that website oiled up and running properly, as we would hate to find out it’s broken down and needs repair!
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Senior Designer Julie Varley is Imagine’s resident ray of sunshine, which is fitting given her Florida residence.