How to Keep Your Website Healthy
A website health checkup is just as important to your business as going to the doctor for a physical. If you are like most small businesses, you have put up your website with an introductory page and then haven’t bothered to keep up with it since. It is easy to forget that your site is an important part of your business, but it needs to be maintained on a regular basis.
Here are some things you should do on a regular basis to keep your website healthy.
Add New Content / Update Existing Content
One of the most important things you can do to keep your website healthy is to add new content on a regular basis. This could include blog posts, product descriptions, and news items. Fresh content will keep your visitors coming back, and it will also help you rank higher in search engine results pages.
If you don’t have the time or the ability to add new content yourself, you can hire a freelance writer to do it for you. Just make sure you give them clear instructions about what you want them to write about.
Check For Broken Links
Broken links can be a big headache for small business owners. They can be frustrating for visitors, and they can also hurt your website’s search engine rankings.
You can use a tool like Check My Links to check your website for broken links. It is a free online tool that will scan your website for broken links and give you a report.
If you find broken links on your website, you should fix them as soon as possible. You can either delete the broken link or replace it with a working link.
Review Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Performance
If you want to make sure your website is healthy, you should also check your site’s search engine rankings and improve them where necessary. You can do this by using keywords in your titles and throughout your content, and by building links to your site from other websites.
Review Your Website Performance Data
You can also use a tool like Google Analytics to track your website’s performance. It is a free online tool that will help you measure your website’s traffic, page views, and other statistics.
Many business owners don’t have the time or the ability to analyze their website’s performance. This is where free online tools come in handy.
Google PageSpeed Insights is a free online tool that will help you analyze your website’s page speed. It will give you a score from 0 to 100, and it will also provide you with recommendations on how to improve your score.
YSlow is another free online tool that will help you analyze your website’s page speed. It will give you a grade from A to F, and it will also provide you with recommendations on how to improve your score.
W3C’s Web Performance Tool is a free online tool that will help you analyze your website’s code. It will provide you with recommendations on how to improve your code, and it will also give you a list of errors and warnings.
By using these free online tools, you can quickly identify areas where your website needs improvement. This will help you make the necessary changes to improve your website’s performance.
Keep Your Technology Stack Up-To-Date
Another thing you can do to keep your website healthy is to use an up-to-date version of WordPress. WordPress is a content management system that many small businesses use to create their websites. It is a free and open source software, and it is constantly being updated with new features.
Make sure you also keep your plugins and themes up to date. Plugins and themes are add-ons that you can use to extend the functionality of WordPress. Most of them are also free, and they are updated on a regular basis.
Also, make sure you are using a good hosting company with reliable servers. Your website will be down from time to time, but you don’t want it to be down for extended periods of time. A good hosting company will have servers that are up and running 99.9% of the time.
Make Regular Back-ups of Your Website
If your website goes down, you will want to have a backup plan in place. This could include having a copy of your website on a different server or having a copy of your website’s content saved on your computer.
You can also use a tool like BackupBuddy to create backups of your website. It is a WordPress plugin that will create a backup of your website’s content and database.
Maintaining a website can be a lot of work, but it is important to keep your site healthy if you want to keep your business running.
If you can’t do all of these things on your own, consider hiring a freelancer or agency to help you out. A healthy website is an important part of a healthy business.
If you’re interested in testing your site’s security use you can get a free scan of your website emailed to you for free:
Also, if you’re looking to invest in ensuring your website is maintained, check out our affordable monthly maintenance plans:
