Website Maintenance

Maintaining your website is one of the most important things you can do to keep visitors coming back. If the information on your site never changes, there is no reason to return once someone has read it. There are many ways to keep a site up to date, and the right approach depends on the kind of site you have built.

Back Up Before You Change Anything

Before you make changes, make a backup, so that you can roll back if an update goes wrong. Most hosts offer automatic backups; check how often they run and how long they are kept, and store an extra copy somewhere other than your hosting account.

Keep the Software Up to Date

If your site runs on WordPress or another content management system, updates to the core software, themes and plugins are the most important maintenance task of all, because they fix security holes. Check for updates every week, or turn on automatic updates and review the site after they run.

Use the Right Tools

• An editor. A visual editor shows you how a page will look as you edit it, which helps you spot mistakes early. Most content management systems include one; for hand-coded sites, a code editor with HTML highlighting makes changes faster and safer.
• Secure file transfer. To move files between your computer and the server, use an SFTP client or your host’s file manager rather than plain FTP, which sends passwords unencrypted.
• A link checker. Broken links make a site look neglected. On a large site, checking them by hand is impossible, so use a link-checking tool or plugin and fix what it finds.

Watch Speed and Uptime

Use a free uptime monitor to alert you when the site goes down, and test page speed every few months. Images that are too large, plugins you no longer use and an outdated PHP version are the usual causes of a slow site.

Refresh the Content

Review your most-visited pages a few times a year. Update facts, prices and screenshots, merge thin pages into stronger ones, and remove what is no longer true.

Time-Sensitive Sites Need a Schedule

Some sites go out of date faster than others. A sports betting tips site or a casino bonus guide can be wrong within days: odds move, promotions end and terms change. Sites like these need a content calendar, dated pages and a habit of checking every offer before a big event, and their hosting needs to keep up when traffic peaks on match day. Our guide to hosting a casino review site explains how.

Every website has its own maintenance needs, but one thing is common to all of them: if you want repeat visitors, give them something new each time they return.