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If you allow yourself to believe even just one of these seven website maintenance myths, you are risking your time and money. Don’t fall prey to these myths when you can easily avoid them. Get the information you need to make informed decisions and protect your online assets.
Learn about the website maintenance myths that persist and how you can protect yourself.
Contact our office to find out about our website maintenance plans and how you can work with a dedicated website manager. Call us at (844) 972-6224 or send us a message through our website maintenance inquiry form.
Office: (844) 972-6224 Contact Us
Myth #1. I don’t need website maintenance
The top website maintenance myth is that you don’t need maintenance at all.
Too many people innocently believe that once their website is up and running, they’re good to go — no need to do anything else. It’s a brand new website, right?
But a newly built website isn’t like a newly built house that won’t need work for years.
When you launch your website, you should already have a plan in place that addresses regular maintenance. Making regular updates is the only way to keep your website secure and performing well.
What should that plan include? Scanning for security issues, checking your website speed, and updating plugins are activities that should happen on a regular basis. Product information should be current. Copy should be accurate. Forms and checkout pages should be tested regularly.
The pitfalls of ignoring routine maintenance are serious. Websites that load slowly cost retailers a whopping $2.6 billion in sales every year. You need regular website maintenance to protect your site from hackers and to provide a good customer experience, ultimately boosting revenue.
You earn the trust of your website visitors–customers–through a seamless browsing experience, streamlined and secure checkout, and error-free copy and imagery. This fact makes website maintenance critical to the health of not only your site, but your overall business.
Watch our video to learn about our website maintenance services.
Myth #2. Website maintenance is easy
The other most common misconception about website maintenance is that it’s easy. Anyone can do it–even if they don’t have experience.
I’m surprised at how popular this belief is among nonprofit organizations, who often view website maintenance as a volunteer opportunity regardless of the volunteers’ relevant experience. They don’t automatically ask their group of volunteers, “who wants to be responsible for doing our taxes?” It’s just automatically assumed that a volunteer should do the website work.
The truth is that maintaining a website can be complex and a lot of work. Spend some time learning about proper website maintenance and you’ll find out quickly that the back end of a website is best handled by someone who knows what they’re doing. Not just any willing set of hands you can find.
Emily’s team knows how to do this
“Emily Journey has managed our website for 3 years and at least 80% of our business has come from the website they developed and manage for us. We’ve tried print, radio and online ads, but nothing compares to a website that is functional, well designed, and at the top of the list. She knows how to do this and the web site is the single biggest reason we have grown from 3 planes to six planes in just two years.”
Myth #3. My site won’t get hacked
When the subject of hacking comes up, it’s natural to think…That will never happen to me. Especially if you have a small business. Who’s going to care about your little blog?
Hackers, that’s who.
Hackers often specifically target smaller websites because they know these sites are less likely to be secure. A report on techjury.com states that 30,000 websites are hacked daily. Of these attacks, 43% target small businesses.
Website maintenance can help deter hackers by catching and addressing security vulnerabilities. By fixing bugs as they come up and keeping all systems up-to-date, you can take a proactive approach to website security.
Keep your website safe and secure with professional website maintenance services from Emily Journey & Associates. Contact our friendly office at (844) 972-6224 or send us a message through our website maintenance inquiry form.
Myth #4. My website developer will support my website
Can a website developer handle website maintenance? Sure. Do they want to perform website maintenance? Usually not.
That’s why we see three things happen when people hire their website developers to do their website maintenance:
- They aren’t responsive to your needs, which is troubling at best, but a disaster if you have an urgent issue with your site
- They charge you outrageous prices for basic maintenance tasks
- They are great at building a website, but don’t have the organization or follow-up skills to maintain a website properly.
At Emily Journey & Associates, we specialize in ongoing website maintenance that is prompt, fairly priced and backed by years of expertise. Learn more about our monthly maintenance packages here.
Myth #5. Nothing will go wrong
Properly maintaining your site isn’t a guarantee that nothing will go wrong. You know the phrase. %!*& happens. The only thing you can do is to be prepared if it does.
It’s true that a large part of website maintenance is proactive — seeking to prevent issues before they come up. But other aspects are reactive. Troubleshooting is part of the work. It’s what a professional website manager is trained to do. They will quickly and efficiently handle any problems that occur with your site.
Bottom line: You need a plan for both preventive and reactive maintenance. Yes, regular website maintenance greatly reduces the chances of things going wrong. But issues will still come up. And that’s what an expert website manager is on call to handle.
Myth #6. Website maintenance doesn’t require my input
Custom website maintenance is not a one-size-fits-all job.
The reality? Custom website maintenance should be customized to meet the site’s specific needs and the goals of the business. A small business with a couple of product pages and a blog won’t need the same maintenance as a large e-commerce site. And maintenance for a nonprofit website will have different tasks than site maintenance for a law or accounting firm.
Your website manager needs your input and wants to understand your goals in order to successfully exceed your expectations.
At Emily Journey & Associates, we work with our clients to develop strategic and tactical website maintenance plans that address their specific business goals.
Office: (844) 972-6224 Contact Us
Myth #7. Website maintenance is too expensive
Even businesses and organizations that prioritize website maintenance balk at paying a professional to do the work.
Rather than a professional service worthy of payment, they view website maintenance as a volunteer opportunity or an “add on” to an already busy marketing person’s responsibilities.
Who’s to blame? The industry itself. Too many people with mediocre website skills are actually willing to work for next to nothing (until they start feeling resentful and quit because it’s a lot of work that they deserve to be paid fairly for).
Another issue is that people don’t quantify the value of their time. You or someone on your staff might spend hours messing around with the website, trying to get it performing better. This is valuable time that could have gone to business-building activities.
Similarly, people also don’t think about how much money is lost when their website goes down. This is especially true of ecommerce sites. 45% of large companies say that a mere hour of unexpected downtime leads to a loss of $1 million or more.
Hiring a professional for website maintenance–like our website managers at Emily Journey & Associates–is an investment that will always deliver a positive ROI. And professional website maintenance doesn’t have to be expensive. Contact us at (844) 972-6224 or send us a message through our website maintenance inquiry form to find out about our monthly website maintenance packages.
Get on top of your website maintenance
Escape these top myths of website maintenance and start giving your site the attention it needs to stay healthy. At Emily Journey & Associates, our friendly team of experts has been helping people with their websites since 2012.
We offer basic, premium and custom website maintenance packages, all with:
- direct communication with your website manager
- a 24-hour response time during the workweek
- options for WordPress training
- a strong focus on search engine optimization
In terms of pricing, we are among the higher priced agencies for a website maintenance plan. And that’s for a good reason: our experienced website managers are also WordPress instructors and SEO specialists. Their high level of expertise paired with first class customer service makes us the premiere provider of website maintenance in the United States.
Contact our friendly office at (844) 972-6224 or send us a message through our website maintenance inquiry form.
Services and Pricing
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