Sometimes you think your website is running like a bull, that it is beautiful, strong, and functioning well, like this:
But in reality, it is running like this:
Don’t be mad at the developer right away! This is probably because your website isn’t up to date.
Over the years, websites have become important business tools, making them frequent targets for hackers trying to steal data. Therefore, all developers should aim to provide more secure, better performing, and greater functioning websites, especially since new versions of platforms, themes, and plugins are continuously released to fight defects.
In the ever-expanding world of the internet, there is more and more trading, communication, and information exchange happening, and websites play an important role in these activities. Hackers are growing up too, and for either financial or political reasons, they commit crimes through unsuspecting websites. To combat this, security experts around the world scan and report security vulnerabilities. Then, developer teams work on fixing bugs and release new and improved versions. So, when your website is out of date, your site is more likely to become a victim of an attack.
When using your website as a marketing tool, it’s natural to want your website to have more exposure. But with more exposure, we need to consider the rules of search engines, such as Google. User experience, loading speed, accessibility, and ensuring documents are up to date are all part of the SEO algorithm, so checking all links and functionalities regularly is a necessary task. It is important to study the evolving SEO algorithm to make sure you are following the rules and update your site to meet the new requirements.
A shiny and attractive new feature always adds bonus points to your website and can significantly enhance its look and functionality, but it can also cause a bit of dysfunction. Once you make a new addition to your site, you’ll need to make sure all other pieces can cooperate with the new feature, and if not, make updates to ensure everything works properly together.
Once you add a new feature or make a major update, it’s important to check your website to make sure everything is working correctly. For example, say your website is built with WordPress and you update to the platform’s new version. Some of your website’s existing plugins have the potential to not work with the new version of WordPress, which can cause your site to misfunction or even crash. This issue is very common, so it is not recommended to set up auto-update in WordPress. It can sometimes take a while to find the broken elements on your site, and you don’t want visitors seeing a broken website when they’re interested in your business.
Every new release is designed to fix known vulnerabilities and introduce new features. However, while a new release is being implemented, new issues can emerge along with the updates. That’s why you often see a series of minor releases following a major one. For example, after Apple released iOS 17, subsequent updates like iOS 17.0.2 and iOS 17.0.3 were rolled out to address bugs found in iOS 17. These updates are sometimes critical and need to be implemented quickly.
It is important to set up regular website maintenance to keep your site functioning beautifully. It is also complex and meticulous work, and will be a never-ending task to keep your business’s website current.
But there is no need to be anxious! BatesMeron is here for you, and we can help you feed the bull everything it needs for a great performance.