The Crucial Importance of Routine Website Maintenance

Websites are a lot like cars: they’re shiny, powerful, and fully functional at first. Yet as time passes, they need regularly scheduled maintenance and upgrades to retain their original glory. 

With your sedan, you may need to change the oil or rotate the tires. Similarly, your site’s content will need to be refreshed, its plugins switched to the latest versions, and its security checked against contemporary hacking techniques.

At Coal Creative, we never let our clients’ websites get rusty. Instead, we offer comprehensive website maintenance—regardless if we built the original site or someone else did. 

Why are we so passionate about website maintenance? Let’s unpack the importance of routine upkeep and explain the varied services we offer that will help your page remain modern, functional, and secure. 

What Happens When You Don’t Maintain Your Website?

Not maintaining your website can cost you dearly down the road. If you don’t have a professional routinely check and update your site, you run the risk of:

• Sharing misinformation – Times change and so too should the information posted to your website. If you’ve moved locations, keeping your old address posted could lead customers to the wrong doorfront. Similarly, product pricing and stock must be up-to-date so you don’t mislead potential clients regarding the costs and availability of your goods.
• Data breaches – From Facebook and Yahoo to Alibaba, even the web’s most secure, routinely updated platforms have fallen victim to data breaches [1]. The best way to prevent them for your site is to have it routinely checked by a professional who knows how to exploit security vulnerabilities and can quickly patch and update any flaws in your protocols. 
• Incompatibility – Big electronics brands are constantly introducing new smartphone, tablet, and computer models to the consumer market. Meanwhile, there are at least nine major internet browsers in daily use around the globe [2]. With routine maintenance, you can ensure your site renders properly across as many mediums as possible and adapt it to new devices and technologies as they arise.
• Downtime – Broken code, plugin errors, and update issues are three of the main reasons why sites unexpectedly go down [3]. Routinely maintaining your site means checking and testing the code to ensure it doesn’t crash once it’s live, scrutinizing and verifying every plugin you activate, and updating all of its elements. Even if this means taking your site offline for a scheduled period, it’s better than experiencing an unexpected outage and scrambling to find the cause. 
• Becoming outdated – A lot has changed since the internet went public in 1993 [4]. Back then, sites were basic pages consisting of little more than a blank background and some informative textual elements. Sadly, some sites haven’t evolved much past this early format. Unfortunately, 81% of modern consumers immediately think less of a website if they find it to be outdated [5]. So, if you don’t routinely maintain and update your website, you’re not just harming your brand—you’re hurting your chances of attracting customers. 

Luckily, routine maintenance isn’t rocket science—it’s, well, computer science. And, here at Coal Creative, that just so happens to be the type of thing we specialize in.

How Coal Can Help You Meticulously Maintain Your Site

If you’re starting from ground zero, we can help you build your website to match your business’s ambitions, aesthetic, and needs. Then, we can discuss the kind of maintenance you’ll need to keep your online space in tip-top shape going forward.

Even if we didn’t build your website, we can still take care of any issues or ideas you have on the maintenance end (after all, you don’t always take your car for repairs at the manufacturer, right?). 

Some of the key website services we offer include:

• Page and post updates – Changed your prices, products, or persona but haven’t yet updated your website? Coal can masterfully write up new descriptions, add on beautifully shot photos, and bring your site in line with your brand image upon your request. That said, as a leading creative agency, we don’t just update your pages and call it a day—we do it with a unique panache that’s sure to capture your users’ attention.
• Page additions – Starting a blog, expanding your services, or adding a community page? Don’t do so with a generic, uninspired template. Instead, call on Coal to build beautiful, functional, and bespoke web pages from the ground up to give your site its own unparalleled flair. 
• Emergency services – Remember those data breaches and site crashes that can happen without proper maintenance? With Coal on your side routinely checking your page, we aim to stop them before they even have a chance to begin. However, if you forgo maintenance and your site does unexpectedly go down or has its security breached, we’ll be actively waiting to get it back online and do damage control. 
• Consultation – Some business owners are also tech-savvy individuals who can handle their own routine maintenance and updates. Once in a while, however, we all encounter an issue that seems unfamiliar and daunting. If you usually do your own upkeep but suddenly find yourself needing a helping hand, don’t hesitate to confer with Coal’s expert designers and developers to sort the problem out and get your site back on track.
• Education – Maybe you strive to perform your own website updates and maintenance, but don’t yet possess the skills and knowledge to do so. No problem! Simply schedule a web training session with Coal’s competent representatives and they’ll teach you the ins and outs of keeping your website in working order.
• Monthly checks and updates – Many of our customers don’t think about website maintenance. Instead, they simply have us check in monthly and ensure everything is functional and up-to-date. During monthly maintenance checks, we’ll make sure you’re utilizing the latest security protocols and your site is compatible with emerging technologies and new devices.

Whatever website services you need—from building to expansion and maintenance—it’s always best to go with trusted professionals who know customization and coding like the backs of their hands. And, whether you’re in Northeast Pennsylvania (NEPA) or anywhere else in the world, there’s no competing with Coal’s extensive knowledge and expertise.

Partner with Coal Creative for All Your Website Maintenance Needs

Coal Creative is more than a creative marketing agency. We’re your all-in-one website design, building, and maintenance partner. From ideation to creation to maintenance, we cater to your online persona and keep your website running at the top of its game. 

Whether it’s deciding on a color scheme to match the aesthetics of your brand or rewriting your code to optimize your site for the latest version of Chrome, there’s no task too big or small for Coal. 

Request a proposal to see exactly how we can help modernize your page and optimize your customers’ online experience of your brand.

Sources: 

[1] “Most significant cases of data breach worldwide as of August 2023 (in millions), by number of compromised data records and individuals impacted.” Statista. November, 2023. https://www.statista.com/statistics/290525/cyber-crime-biggest-online-data-breaches-worldwide/. Accessed February 23, 2024.

[2] “Global market share held by leading internet browsers from January 2012 to February 2024.” Statista. February, 2024. https://www.statista.com/statistics/268254/market-share-of-internet-browsers-worldwide-since-2009/. Accessed February 23, 2024. 

[3] “7 reasons why websites crash.” TechTarget. November 23, 2022. https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/feature/Reasons-why-websites-crash. Accessed February 23, 2024. 

[4] “30 years ago, one decision altered the course of our connected world.” National Public Radio. April 30, 2023. https://www.npr.org/2023/04/30/1172276538/world-wide-web-internet-anniversary. Accessed February 23, 2024.

[5] “81% of People Think Less of a Business if its Website is Outdated.” Search Engine Journal. January 29, 2019. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/81-of-people-think-less-of-a-business-if-its-website-is-outdated/290283/. Accessed February 24, 2023.