You Launched Your Website, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Missed sales. Lost leads. Invisibility. These are the consequences of not having a business website. And you know what? Your business can still suffer these consequences after your website has been launched.
How?
Your website is well-built. It has all the important features. You even hired professional developers to make sure everything is top-notch.
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Short answer: A lot… if you try to roll with a set -it-and-forget-it approach.
Building a website is not a once-and-done job.
Below is a list of some of the things that can go wrong if you treat web development as a one-time thing and leave your website to fend for itself after launch:
Security Vulnerabilities
No matter how safe your website is, it may still have security gaps. Even if you are sure your website has no security vulnerabilities, it could develop some over time.
Just like your phone or computer, the software used to run your website gets regular updates. These updates need to be installed to make sure your website has no security gaps.
Even the plugins on your website, unless updated regularly, might offer backdoor pathways for hackers to enter your website.
But why would a hacker spend time hacking into your small business website?
Customer data saved on your website may make hacking it as lucrative as going into any other big business website.
A hacker can also use your website as a platform to redirect traffic from your site to some other, shady website. Your website may even be used to distribute illegal or offensive content.
With an outdated website left alone in the dangerous online world, your business can become an easy target for ill-intended hackers. And if someone manages to hack into your website, your business may end up losing its online presence, reputation, and even customer trust.
Backup and Recovery Failures
Your website may be live today. But that does not mean it can stay like that forever.
A small error in the website’s code can cause it to crash.
A non-techie team member can break the website while trying to update it.
Your website can also go down if it is hacked.
In any case, you can run into costly downtime.
Backups work like safety nets that your business can fall back on in case of a crash or a hacking event.
But with infrequent or non-existent website monitoring and maintenance, chances are you may not have a website backup to recover from in case your website goes down.
As a result, you may end up losing the website for a longer period. This downtime may lead to your business losing customers, sales opportunities, and of course, its reputation.
Outdated Features and Functionality
The features you choose to put on your website add functionality to it, but these features can break.
DIYing a website update or switching things up at the backend can lead to the malfunctioning of a website feature, leading to a loss of some of its functionality.
And since going back to check on the website is not something you do often (or at all), you may not have the technical acumen to spot and fix the feature. So, the broken feature may continue to sit there, chipping away at your user experience, reputation, and possibly even your bottom line.
Degraded Performance
Unless your website is optimized regularly, its performance WILL stagnate.
You may update the website with new features or add new pages. This may increase the volume of code running at the backend or the number of files stored on the server.
A non-techie team member may upload new content to the website. These unoptimized files may also increase page load times.
No business can thrive online with a poorly performing website that takes forever to load.
What’s worse is that without proper website monitoring, you may not even realize that the website’s performance has dropped before it’s too late.
Outdated Content and Design
Your website relies on its content and design to communicate effectively with visitors.
It may have a great, functional design and valuable, optimized content now. But that should not be your cue to kick back, relax, and forget all about content and design.
Web design trends change. Your website must align with the latest trends to ensure your business looks professional and up-to-date.
Content also needs regular updates.
There may be some new industry trends that your customers may expect you to present on your blog. You may have launched a new product or service that requires its own section on the website. Your business may have received new, shining reviews that should be shared with potential customers.
Outdated web design and content can make your business seem lazy and negligent. They may also strip you of crucial engagement and lead generation opportunities.
SEO Problems
Search engine optimization or SEO helps your website rank higher and have a remarkable user experience.
But that only happens when your website is constantly monitored for SEO performance and regularly optimized to ensure it aligns with best practices.
Abandoning your website after launch can squash all the SEO efforts you invested in at launch.
Despite being optimized at the start, your website could lose its position in the search engine space and your business can struggle with online visibility if you forgo regular SEO updates.
Your website represents your business online. If anything fails on the website, it will negatively impact your business.
And in an era where a business’s reputation is tied directly to its bottom line, you cannot afford anything malfunctioning on your website.
So, what to do?
Prioritize Regular Website Maintenance
Many small business owners invest in developing an exceptional website. But, hiring web developers for regular website maintenance seems like an unnecessary cost.
What they don’t realize is that having a consistent website maintenance routine can help them save money in the long run.
Yes, you can DIY your website maintenance. But that requires technical expertise and regular work.
Even if you have the technical expertise, is it worth your time to go through your web maintenance checklist every week?
Probably not.
Launching the perfect website isn’t enough. A lot can still go wrong after your website goes live if you neglect regular website maintenance or choose to take it lightly.
The only way busy business owners like you can ensure your website continues to thrive and generate value for your business is by maintaining an up-to-date and optimized web presence. And that’s possible only when you hire website maintenance support.
Landau Consulting, a web development company in New Jersey, helps small businesses build and maintain optimized and secure websites that can bring genuine value to the business.
Run by a team of IT professionals, Landau Consulting provides end-to-end web development services with regular website maintenance and backups after the website is live.
With expertise in business continuity and disaster recovery, they have all the resources to help you bring your website back up and live in case it runs into a problem.
You can learn more about Landau Consulting and their web development NJ at https://landauconsulting.com/web-services/ or contact them directly through https://landauconsulting.com/contact/.
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