Broken Links and More

Having a brand-new website design is exhilarating. Like your firstborn baby, you just keep staring at it imagining the world-wide impact it will have. The content is perfect for your target market, clear messaging, call-to-action, fast loading, engaging, and utterly irresistible. Now that it looks and functions perfectly it’s done, right?
 
The truth is, your website is like your car and your baby. A website left to itself will run out of gas, wear down its brake pads, and eventually end up in the junkyard. Over decades of designing websites, I admit that looking at a website StraightFire has designed but no longer maintains can strike terror to my heart. If I cringe, your visitors will too.
 
Many smaller organizations try to find ways around website maintenance by hiring an IT person or equally horrific, giving it to the secretary to figure out. The result is a Frankenstein website complete with odd looking body parts stuck together without cohesion- clumsy, hard to look at, slow, and stumbling around in the dark. There are many smart and economical reasons to keep your website design team on-call for website maintenance.
 
What it Really Takes
Over time, things change. There is a myriad of variables that can take place after your website goes live that will affect the way it looks, loads, and functions without you or anyone else touching it. A website needs continual maintenance, or it can turn into a mess and your investment will be lost.
 
Here are just a few issues we run across regularly:
• Plugins that are outdated
• Google blacklisting
• Low-ranking on Google from slow loading time
• Java updates that need to be maintained
• Automatic updates that scramble the website appearance
• SEO updates not being made
• Website speed slowed by automatic updates
• Hackers and viruses that compromise website standing in Google search
• Hackers and viruses that forward people to other sites that contain viruses
• Hackers and viruses that infect your visitor’s device

 
Should You Maintain Your Own Website?
The only logical reason an organization should take over and manage their own website is if they have an in-house digital maintenance team who can do the job with expertise. Your smartest move is to keep your trusted website designer as your maintenance team also. The relationship has already been established with your team, and remember, no one understands your website better than the one who built and designed it. A second option is to hire a seasoned website maintenance team who can quickly understand how your website was designed to function, and will keep it steadily creating revenue for your organization.
 
Keep Your Website Bootiful
Your website should work hard for your business and have an immediate return on investment (ROI). It needs to be optimized in a way that allows you to seamlessly attract your target audience organically and create a steady stream of conversions. It needs to instantly provide a superior user experience to all visitors. It should be a 24/7 salesperson for your brand.
 
At StraightFire, we offer white-glove service where your website is our top priority. Whether we built your website or not, you will get access to the very best security, performance, and monitoring tools, priority support response times, and unlimited change and update requests.
 
Some of our website maintenance services include:
• SEO Updates
• ADA Compliance Updates
• Website Speed Updates
• SEM Rush Repairs
• Google Analytics Setup
• Google Search Console Monitoring
• Google Search Console Website Repairs
• Daily Malware Scans
• Login Protection
• Daily Server Backups
• Visual Tests
• Unlimited Email Support
• Backup Restoration
• Firewalls
• 24/7 Security Monitoring
• Plugin Updates
• Phone Support
• Software Updates
• Thirty-Minute Tasks
• More
 
Broken links, a poor interface, or an IT person making design decisions, will cause visitors to assume their business doesn’t matter to you. They’ll even go to another provider instead of contacting you.
 
We truly want you to succeed, and we believe that your website baby has the power to transform your business. We want your website to live a long and prosperous life, through care, attention, and expert maintenance.
 
Contact us to learn more about our ongoing website maintenance plans.