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Wellbeing Websites

Website Maintenance: What's Involved

There are two sides to website maintenance: Content and Tech.

Tweaking the content regularly to try different wording, measure the results and optimise the site over time can make a big difference to your website's impact. and responding to feedback you get from clients and monitoring the number of visitors you get.

Tech maintenance is about the parts that you don’t even notice until something goes wrong: Backups, software updates, security and uptime monitoring, malware scans, checking all your links to other sites still work and more.

The Content Side

It's worth keeping your site up-to-date for several reasons:

  • Visitors will get frustrated if any basic information like opening hours aren't current
  • Posting relevant content regularly, like little news articles, thoughts or fact sheets can invite discussion, grow interest and get people following links to the full articles on your website from social media
  • Content that's regularly updated, genuinely informative and relevant to your readers is exactly the sort of thing Google is looking for in your website – there's other search optimisation you can do but this is a big one

I can't write your content for you, but with an Aftercare package just shoot me an email, a Word document or leave a virtual "sticky note" on your site (I'll show you how).

I can proofread what you've written and put it up on your site, adding stock images or other touches to give a polished, professional look.

I can also put you in touch with other professionals if you need help with messaging, copywriting or other areas of your marketing strategy.

The Tech Side

There are quite a few tasks involved in keeping a site running at its best:
  • Uptime monitoring: if the site goes down, make sure it's acted on within a day, not a month.
  • Security checks: getting hacked could be a real headache, whether the hack is visible to your clients or just a waypoint for a hacker to launch further, bigger attacks that look like they came from you.
  • Website & Database Backups: A good, recent backup is your safety net. As you hopefully have backups for all your devices, keeping your website backed up means you can recover from mistakes, hacks or even the hosting provider losing a hard disk.
  • Check for Broken Links: You can only control your own site, so if a resource or article of yours links to another site and that site changes, it can leave "broken links" on your site that don't work any more. These are frustrating for visitors and can have a negative impact on Google rankings.
  • Software Updates: It's really bad for your site's security to let its software get out of date, and keeping plugins and themes up to date can also help with site speed and performance on Google.
  • Visual Check: Automation only gets you so far. A monthly visual check can make sure the site is actually behaving correctly, not just "good enough for the automatic check".
  • Test Speed: Several things can cause a site to slow down, from database bloat to a host underperforming. Occasional checks can help keep the site quick for your users and higher in Google's rankings.
  • Database Cleaning: If you're using WordPress, its database can build up clutter over time. It helps to clean that out periodically.
  • Review and Renew: Hosting and any relevant software licenses may need renewal, and occasional consideration about whether they're still the best option for you.
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I want to acknowledge and pay my respects to the Wurundjeri people, the traditional custodians of the land Wellbeing Websites operates from. I would like to pay my respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging and additionally pay my respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders, past, present and emerging.
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