Hopefully, your website will be a great asset for your organisation. Be it bringing in sales, generating leads, providing information and education, whatever you’re trying to achieve, the investment you’ve put into your website should be giving you a positive return. Even if you don’t ‘sell’ directly from your website, it still positions your organisation as someone that the visitor can trust.
Websites depend on software, and there’s a few levels. Let’s compare to a car. Just like your car, your website needs regular maintenance to itself. For a car, think of the weekly tyre-pressure checks, oil-level check, top up of windscreen washer, look for oil leaks, make sure the tyres aren’t bald or rubbing, check lights all work etc. For a website, maintenance comes in the form of software updates, security updates and performance optimisation - preventing the bad guys getting in and keeping things running smoothly.
Other levels of maintenance would be akin to the roads that we drive on. Do you fix the potholes? Probably not. Do you manage the webserver that powers your website? Probably not. But someone needs to. Road maintenance is outsourced and handled by someone else, and for your website, what we’re talking about is webhosting. Typically, you’ll be paying a separate fee for webhosting (annual or monthly), and that should include making sure the server is maintained on your behalf.
However, where the website is concerned, it is up to you to handle maintenance - or contract with someone to do it for you. Just like a car, if you don’t look after your website, you run the risk of a breakdown. This could cause you to lose revenue through lost sales or enquiries, never mind the waste of time and the aggravation of getting things fixed up.
You also need to remember that there are unfortunately some bad apples in the world. It’s pretty common for most websites to be targeted by multiple automated hacking attempts each day. Yes, that will include your website, regardless of what it does, sells, provides or contains.
Attackers look for weaknesses that they can exploit. If an attacker gains entry, you could suffer from data loss, malicious content being uploaded or even just a defaced website. All very unpleasant actions that can be very damaging for your business.
As a web marketing expert, we understand how important it is that a website stays secure and up to date. This is why we offer Website Care to our customers.
A Website Care plan is a monthly service where we look after your website. We keep it updated, install security updates and ensure that it’s performing as expected. We also make sure there are frequent backups in case things somehow go really wrong, so we can get you back online quickly. And we monitor the site 24/7 to be notified straight away if it isn’t working as it should.
The whole process is designed to give you peace of mind. We want you to feel comfortable and happy in the knowledge that your website is in good hands. This allows you to focus on more important tasks in your organisation.
You may even be on a Care Plan with us now. If you are, then you’ll already know about the benefits of keeping your website secure.
There are a few myths when it comes to Website Care though:
Myth #1 - A Website Care plan is just a way of you making more money
We provide Website Care to protect businesses like yours. The damage to a business from a hacked website can be extremely expensive. Anything from lost sales to stolen data will cost you time and money.
The worst example of this would be if your website was hacked and the hacker was able to steal credit card data from your customers. Damages at this level can be difficult to recover from.
Being completely honest with you, Website Care also brings predictability to our business. Your payment means we can focus our attention on helping you and keeping your business safe. It’s a partnership, not a profit machine. We know your website, we know it’s up-to-date, we can tailor advice and suggestions better.
Myth #2 - I don’t need you, I can update my website myself
Firstly, if you have the skill set to look after your own website then you absolutely can look after it yourself. It’s definitely possible.
However, you may not possess this skill or knowledge. You may not know how to keep your website updated. You might not understand the different threats that your website faces.
In this situation, it would be unwise to attempt to go it alone. It only takes one mistake or one unlucky moment to cause you a headache and an expensive problem.
Myth #3 - I don’t sell anything on my website, so it’s not important
If you’ve invested money in a website for your business, then it should be considered an asset.
You don’t need to sell something directly from your website in order for it to be important. Think about why you have a website in the first place, and the value it provides to your website visitors. Your visitors may be at different stages in the buying cycle, with only a small percentage ready to purchase your products or services. Or they may be seeking knowledge, advice or guidance in your area of expertise.
Usually, your visitors are either researching a problem that they’re facing or looking for a solution. A potential customer can visit your website to learn more about how you can help them with their problem. It provides trust and shows your expertise.
Your website is almost always more important than you think it is.
If you’d like to learn more about our Website Care Plans and how they can help you keep your website safe, check out our page here.
You might like to download our free guide to understand how to keep your website safe and learn about the regular maintenance that your website needs to stay secure - it comes with a short series of emails that build on that guide too.
