Once you’ve paid for a new WordPress website, you’d probably rather not have to pay out for regular maintenance as well.
However, keeping your new site well maintained is crucial, and shouldn’t be neglected, so here are our top five reasons why you should keep yours updated!
SECURITY
The open source nature of WordPress is one of its greatest features, meaning there are always new features being developed.
However, this does also leave the platform open to the threat of being attacked by hackers.
Thankfully, there’s also plenty of developers out there who are constantly working to counter the threat of hacking.
WordPress offer regular updates to ensure the security of your site, so it’s really important to keep up to date with these to avoid putting not just your site at risk, but also the details of your customers.
And it’s not just the site itself which needs to be updated. All of the plugins and themes that you use need to be maintained as well, to prevent them coming under attack.
You should have a proper maintenance plan in place to ensure that everything is kept up to date and safe.
TO KEEP THINGS FRESH
Another key asset of WordPress is its scalability. This means that as your business grows and changes, your website can do too.
Although it might be easier to just build a site and then never touch it again, a site needs to be kept fresh throughout its lifetime with new features and designs.
Web design trends change very quickly, and while you don’t need to be changing the site every five minutes, it’s a good idea to review it every year or so to see what you can do to keep things fresh for your visitors.
ERRORS
The most important thing about your site is that it be easily accessible and usable for your visitors.
Over time, errors will undoubtedly creep into the site (things such as broken links) and these things leave a really unprofessional impression on visitors.
All it takes is for one aspect of the site to stop functioning and it can leave the whole thing at risk, and even just one broken link could convince a user to go elsewhere instead. (WordPress’s own Broken Link Checker is a valuable tool).
It’s important to keep on top of these things so that users aren’t just leaving the site as soon as they land on it.
LESS DOWNTIME
If you don’t properly look after your site, it’s going to experience more downtime, which is bad news.
Any period of time that your site is down for is time that it’s losing you money. All it takes is something small to bring down the whole site, and if you’re not constantly monitoring the site, these things can easily go unnoticed.
If you’re operating an ecommerce site, this is even more important, as nobody will be able to place any orders!
IT’S AN INVESTMENT
Websites can cost a lot of money, so it’s understandable you might not want to pay any extra on top of the initial cost, but it’s important to treat your site like the investment that it is.
Just like any other investment, a website needs to be looked after, even if this means some ongoing costs.
If you choose not to update the site, then that big initial investment is essentially going to waste as the site becomes less and less functional over time.
What’s more, much of the maintenance that a site requires won’t even cost you anything, as many basic upgrades are free, so there are no excuses!
As for how often you should update your site, this is a matter of preference, although WP Co-Pilot suggest you should be updating on at least a monthly basis.
While this may not be necessary for your business, it pays to keep an eye on your site and make sure it isn’t neglected, otherwise, your business will start to suffer.
If you require any further advice about keeping your new WordPress site up to date, feel free to drop us a line here at Liquid Bubble.
