The 4 Biggest Website Maintenance Mistakes Business Owners Make

Website maintenance is a critical part of keeping a business website running smoothly. It’s important for both small businesses and large corporations alike.

While some companies are able to handle everything themselves, most rely on a third party to help keep things up and running.

In this blog post, we’re looking at 4 big mistakes that business owners make when it comes to maintaining their website so you can avoid them.

Mistake 1: Doing nothing

Doing nothing when it comes to maintaining their website is the most common mistake that business owners make. Business owners need to look at their website as an investment. By investing in website maintenance, you’re investing in the success of your business. 

It’s important for business owners to realize that they need to be on top of their website maintenance. This means taking the time to invest in a maintenance plan and regularly checking their website for broken links, outdated content, and any other issues.

This is a critical part of keeping your business running smoothly. If you don’t have a maintenance plan, it’s possible that you’ll end up with a broken website that will cost you money and potential customers.

Mistake 2: Relying on their hosting company for backups

Don’t rely on your hosting company for backups. Here’s why:

• They don’t back up your website at all.

Oftentimes, website owners don’t realize this until they need to restore a backup after having a problem. It is possible to back up manually with some hosting companies, but are you going to remember to do this? You need a reliable, automatic backup system that you won’t forget about.

• They may not backup frequently enough

You may only get a weekly backup from some hosts. If you think about how many changes (posts, pages, comments, contact form entries, orders, etc.) that happen on your site each week, weekly backups may not be enough. Can you imagine losing a week’s worth of data? You need a backup system that backs up frequently. For most sites, that means daily backups.

• They may not keep backups long enough

It is common for hosting companies to keep only five revisions, and sometimes even just one. If you have a host that takes daily backups, but each one overwrites the previous one, you can only go back a day. In the event that you discover that a problem occurred three days ago, it’s too late; there is no going back. Backups are occasionally kept only for a limited amount of time, limiting how far back you can restore. You need an adequate backup system that allows you to go back in time and revisions far enough. 30 days of daily backups should be sufficient for most websites.

• Host may not store backups offsite

The same disaster that wipes out your website will likely wipe out your backup if your web host stores it on the same server as your website. Natural disasters or issues such as hacking, network issues, or even legal problems can be disastrous for a web hosting company. You need a backup system that stores backups off-site. 

Backups are not only critical to ensure that your data is safe, but they’re also a great way to ensure that your website is running smoothly. For these reasons, I recommend that business owners rely on a backup service such as UpdraftPlus.

Mistake 3: No disaster recovery plan

Having a recovery plan ties in with backups. When it comes to maintaining a website, it’s important to have a disaster recovery plan. If you don’t, you could be at risk of losing everything if it gets hacked or destroyed in a natural disaster.

Having a recovery plan in place provides business owners a simple process to follow and to get their website back online. You’ll be able to recover quickly and efficiently from any issues that may arise with your website.

Mistake 4: Trying to do everything themselves

Most business owners (or their team) do not have the experience to look after their own websites. It’s a common trait for business owners to try and do everything themselves. A lot of business owners feel like they might “have a go” at it, but do they really know what the buttons they’re pressing mean? It’s a dangerous game of digital Buckaroo.

Although this can often help you save money, it can also cost you time. If you are trying to do everything yourself, you are not only not reaching your true potential, but you are also spreading yourself too thin. The best way to avoid this mistake is to outsource your website maintenance needs.

There are many companies, including mine, Vivid Pixel Studio, that can help you maintain and update your website in a professional manner so you can spend less time worrying about your website.

Final thoughts

I’ve heard far too many stories of website owners who ran into problems with their website when it wasn’t being properly maintained… I know the clients on my maintenance plan are covered, but what about the ones (like you) who are handling the website maintenance themselves?

With my maintenance plans, I provide peace of mind by keeping your website updated and running smoothly. Book a call today to learn more!