The importance of post-launch website support: why your site needs ongoing care

Recently performed studies say that most website failures occur due to webmasters ignoring ongoing maintenance and updates. This can lead to various consequences including technical errors and reduced customer engagement. For example, about 50% of people will leave an online platform with a poorly designed website.

No matter what niche you are operating in, when you launch a website, you hope to get more customers, improve brand awareness, and generate more revenue.

Who Needs Website Support?

A quality website is an essential element of any business or entrepreneur in 2024. Let's compare a website to something simple, like a typical vehicle. When you buy a new car, you know how important it is to have regular checkups, engine oil changes, and repairs. If you ignore these processes, the car will simply fall into disrepair and will not be able to perform its primary functions. Website monitoring after launch is very similar in meaning to the car example. However, many people don't realize who exactly needs post-launch website care.

1. Businesses and enterprises. Obviously, such services are primarily needed for businesses that want to strengthen their online presence. Business websites often have common technical errors, poor design and also platform security issues. It doesn't matter at all what the business is in.
2. Web developers and agencies. Website support service for clients who do not have the in-house technical knowledge and skills to manage their own web projects.

What Services Do Website Support Consist of?

Website maintenance is an umbrella term that encompasses an entire set to improve the platform. Below we have gathered 7 key processes that you should include in website maintenance after launch checklist.

1.Website Speed Optimization

Do you know where your potential client starts evaluating your platform? Statistics show that the average user leaves the website if the pages take more than three seconds to load. This is why you need to work on website speed optimization on a regular basis. Here's how you can achieve it:

1. Replace heavy images with those that weigh little.
2. Use caching plugins to improve speed.
3. Change or improve your hosting.
4. Remove various ?junk? from website pages.
5. These tips will help you achieve optimal loading speed for your website, both on a PC and mobile device.
6. Don't forget how important this can be to your customers.

2. Improving the User Experience

The website support entails enhancing the overall UX and navigation. The aim is to keep the key pages largely clean and accessible so there are more conversion opportunities for the visitors.

Some site support services that improve user experience include launching A/B tests of new page layout and flow, using exit intent popups to lower abandon rates, adding testimonials/social proof, making sure the site is responsive to mobile, and adding breadcrumb navigation. The end of the process is a website design that is optimized to capture and sustain consumers’ attention.

3. Regular Addition of New Content

Having new articles, videos, resources, research, or other content on your site helps you create a sense of update for a constant visitor. It also informs search engines that your site is active and reminds the requirements of website content refresh.

Try to give potential customers as much new content as possible, including articles, tips, guides, explainer videos, images, and more. This also affects your company's credibility, as customers find websites useful if they provide valuable content. You can also create a social media presence that will drive targeted audiences from Instagram and Facebook to your website.

4. Updating of Existing Information

As practice shows, changes in business operations, product range or functionality can happen frequently. Imagine an online store with several thousand products in its assortment. You should change information in your catalog as quickly as possible about items that are out of stock or new products. If some services or data on your website are outdated, you must replace them with up-to-date information. This is why you should regularly analyze the content of the website.

Another method of website promotion is link building, which allows you to attract more organic traffic. Check if there are any broken links on your website that can negatively affect SEO.

5. Tracking Key Metrics

This includes tracking data on users’ interactions, sales figures leads, and any other site activity figures. The website support team will configure the analytics tracking to get this information as well as prepare detailed reports that you can receive on a monthly or quarterly basis.

This data analysis allows one to determine what aspects of a website are effective and where there is potential for tripping up. For instance, high bounce rates may indicate a problem such as webpages are not properly stimulating the interest of the visitors. Knowing clear indicators of such metrics will help you improve website conversion rate in the future.

6. Fixing Technical Errors

This could mean addressing concerns relating to pace, website plugin updates/extensions to enhance security and functionality, and ensuring that the website works well on multiple browsers/devices.

A good support team is also involved in monitoring the website's health on a daily basis. In the event that problems emerge, they fix them as fast as possible since this can cause an interruption of service or a negative user experience.

7. Making a List of Recommendations for Website Improvement

Beyond addressing these issues, a website support team can provide guidance on how to enhance the website and make further changes as necessary. For example, the data generated might show that particular landing pages convert at a lower rate than others. The support team would then review elements such as the layout of pages or the type of content they have, etc., and give insights on the changes that should be made to these pages to enhance the conversion rates.

Potential Consequences of Neglecting Website Maintenance

f you think that by ignoring all these services, your website will still perform well, this is not the case at all.

1. Security issues. By not updating a website and its plugins/extensions frequently, it will remain defenseless against hackers. Malicious users can easily infiltrate a system to capture sensitive information from an unsuspecting user.
2. Getting a bad position in search engine ranking. Websites require frequent updates and replenishment of interesting information in order to remain on top of the rankings. Websites that have no updates on the articles posted for some time gradually reduce their positions.
3. Reduction in download speed. Overlooking certain technicalities such as web hosting plans, the sizes of the images used, and even the organization of the databases used on a site can considerably slow down the page loading speeds.

A website is a complex mechanism on the Internet that has different pages, functions, and content. If you don't work on optimizing and updating, your website is only moving backward. Platforms need regular maintenance after launch to ensure efficiency. The most important thing in this aspect is regularity. For example, filling your site with new content only on a regular basis can guarantee you quality SEO promotion.

Something else to read: 5 Branding Tips for Real Estate Business

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