When creating a website, the professional often offers his client site maintenance. The maintenance of a website is sometimes indicated as an option and from experience, I have noticed that when it was not imposed, it was only selected once in two. Why ? Because first of all, when we want to create a website, we do not necessarily know what the maintenance covers and above all we do not necessarily understand its interest. We are afraid that it is a question of paying an opaque or useless service. It is not so. Here is a brief overview of the benefits that make website maintenance essential.
Prepare for success
Unless you are a bit original, if you make a site it is for it to be successful. Who would say “no” to more visitors. Who says success, says traffic . It is therefore necessary to ensure that the hosting of your site can withstand an increase in load, in other words that it will be able to respond if your traffic doubles. And if you can’t be sure, at least this question should be answered:
What do we do if the site crashes? Is there a backup?
You will tell me that traffic does not double overnight and that we always have time to see it coming. And yet… It is not uncommon for a site’s traffic to experience a spike in traffic following a blog post that is doing well, in particular thanks to an increased distribution on social networks. In a crash, if you don’t have a maintenance guarantee, you’re going to end up without a site, maybe for quite a while. So, you will call on a professional for an ad hoc service , which will certainly be more expensive.
Guarantee the sustainability of the site
Today, most sites are made with scalable solutions ( WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc.). What does this possibility of evolution mean: it means that the content management of your site and its modules will be able to be updated (to improve their performance, make them more secure, etc.). This is an undeniable advantage because it lengthens the life of your site. On the other hand, if you do not make these updates, this advantage disappears. However, these updates are not necessarily done that simply. Often an update is smooth and easy. Moreover, since the last versions of WordPress, the process of updating plugins has become even more fluid. But if you encounter an incompatibility, it immediately becomes more annoying. Especially if it takes place on the site that is online. In that case, We understand the interest of having a backup to catch up or to deploy updates on a test version. When maintaining a website, these procedures are put in place to guarantee the integrity of the online site.
On a content management, there are three types of elements to update:
- the core of content management;
- modules ;
- and the theme of the site.
The theme must also be updated because depending on the features developed, they must be brought into line with the new version of the core or modules.
Prepare for site migration
During the life of a site, it is not uncommon for it to change hosting, move from one server to another. In this case, a “migration” is carried out. When your site arrives in a new environment, you might as well say that it is better that it be “clean on itself”, in other words that it is not a gas plant. Quite simply to avoid any accounting problems, errors or whatever.
Prevent your website from becoming a gas factory
Over the years, I sometimes see sites that, as more features are added , look likebeautifulgas factories. Sometimes new features are installed to replace old ones, which have become deficient or less advanced. In this case, the maintenance of a website is crucial because it will allow the development of the site but also to sort between what we keep and what we throw away. This avoids having obsolete modules and therefore keeps a stable system. It should not be forgotten that a large number of plugins installed on a site makes it slower. And who says a slower site, says a penalized natural referencing site.
Application maintenance and corrective maintenance
The epithet appended to the word “maintenance” is of great importance. If you subscribe to application maintenance , it means that your site and its components will be updated. We also speak of TMA (third party application maintenance).
When we talk about corrective maintenance , it means that in addition to updating the site, we will also correct any new bugs. Indeed, it can happen that with the update of a browser, a display bug appears. In this case, corrective maintenance guarantees its resolution. This type of maintenance has a wider coverage of action, so it is generally more expensive.
What if you haven’t subscribed to maintenance?
The first thing to do is to hope that no tiles fall on you 🙂 More seriously, you can subscribe one from any webmaster or web agency; or most simply with the person who made your site. I especially recommend that you choose a company that really masters the technical solution you are using. Avoid companies that sell maintenance regardless of your technical solution. When you want to do a good job, it is not possible to master everything perfectly; even if we can touch everything.
For example, even though I know Joomla and Drupal well, I do not provide maintenance for sites that use these content management systems. However, I have already created sites with these solutions, but I feel that it is not enough. I only operate on sites that use WordPress because it is THE solution I work with every day, whose progress I closely observe, whose strengths and weaknesses, and any accounting problems I know, etc. For it to be performed well, maintenance must be a specialist’s business.
In the event that you decide to do without maintenance packages , you will have to call a service provider if a problem arises. In this case, he will make a quick diagnosis in order to establish a quote. Be careful, if he does not know your site and it takes a little time to get started, the prices will be affected. Likewise, if you are in a hurry, it will be less easy to negotiate …
In conclusion…
Maintenance is a kind of insurance , a guarantee of the good performance of your website but not only; it is also to guarantee its sustainability. Having a site built is an investment and like any other investment, it must be monitored and taken care of. You will understand, maintaining a website is part of a risk economy, it is not mandatory but it is better to think twice.
