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Web Maintenance

Why website maintenance is important


maintenance timeline photo

1. Website Updates

A website it very similar to a car: it is perfect the first few months, but then needs regular check ups to stay performing. Technology changes on a daily basis, code that was top notch 3 years ago is outdated by now, and that is bad for speed, security and SEO, just to name a few. Updates are necessary to fight malware attacks and heck, keep that website performant.

At the same time, we realize that businesses want to focus on their day to day sales rather than on that notification requesting to update the website. The Coding Lab provides ongoing web maintenance for websites based on most CMS such as WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Drupal and Hubspot.

We will make sure that your web site is up to date at all times: we will report back anytime we perform updating tasks of course, and make sure to avoid downtime whenever possible. We always check that the latest security upgrades are in place. We look out for algorithm updates so that your SEO is always optimal. And let's not forget to renew that copyright or those T&Cs.

Whether you are a blogger, a small ecommerce business or a larger sized company we are here ready to sort you out.

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Of visitors leaves the page if takes more than 3 secs to load

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Of hacking attacks against CMS are aimed at WordPress

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Of visitors will stop browsing if web design is poor


2. Clean Up

Believe me I have seen way too many websites with clutter and unnecessary code. Some of them were so slow to load that were losing most of their first time visitors within seconds. It is easy to add plugins and new features, but give it a few months and you will begin deal with conflicts and unpredictable behavior from your webpage.

The secret to success here is to have regular clean ups, ideally from someone who has a good understanding of the tech used and is going to spend time to analyse your website and remove the clutter. And someone who will fix your dead links and broken image paths. There is nothing worst for a business: it is like being on a High Street and have a cracked window.

And why not talk about SEO? The more you post the higher the likelihood to make mistakes or forget SEO practices. I know it should not happen, and most of this can be automated nowadays, but the issue is real. That is why The Coding Lab recommends monthly SEO clean ups - meta tags, content updates, alt captions etc - both as standalone maintenance services or as part of our SEO plans.

question mark gif

Did You Know?

In 2020 US unemployment payoffs were suddenly set aback.
They were issued via Cobol, a language created in 1959.
Simply put, not enough people knew how to use it anymore.


3. Backup

Most of the times everything goes as hoped and you don't even notice. Then something unexpected happens - human error, server crash, an hacking attempt - and you are left disheartened wondering why you did not back up your files earlier on.
But by that time it's already too late.

We are here to be vigilant and avoid your data losses. The Coding Lab will schedule regular backups of your database making sure you are always covered. We recommend cloud storage for your backups and guess what? Most web hosting platforms offer that, but we can also help finding you the right provider if not.

Looking for a quote?

Check out our affordable Web and SEO plans

Agile
Guardian
  • Malware Scan
  • Speed Check
  • Cleanup
  • 3 months Updates
  • 3 months Backup
from $299
Growth
Commerce
  • Domain Appraisal
  • Gallery
  • Shopping Cart
  • Currency + Stripe
  • 3 months Maintenance
from $1099
Entrepreneur
SEO Boost
  • SEO Audit
  • Meta Check
  • Backlink Strategy
  • Keywords Audit
  • Competitor Analysis
from $899

4. Performance

Performance is all about continuous maintenance and knowing what to look for. It is also a very important factor for UX experience, hence high SEO ranking.

Performance is making sure that responsiveness is working throughout web, mobile and tablet devices.

Performance is about making sure that databases are well structured.

Performance is regular analytics checks, and fixes whenever needed.

Ultimately, performance is everything that involves the way our product impacts the user journey throughout the navigation process. We at The Coding Lab can help you by providing scheduled performance check ups for your website, analyzing pre determined, agreed, features and stress points.


5. Frequently Asked Questions

So, what does website maintenance include?

As you can see from our articles this is a broad topic. Depending on the web hosting and platform you are using, our services will include troubleshooting, updates, security checks, regular backups and performance checks. All of this to ensure that your website remains up to speed with the newest security releases and general best practices. You can also bundle up with other services in one of our packages.

How much is website maintenance?

Again, this varies according to the website size and hosting platform. You can expect to pay anything between $49 to over $1000 for your monthly maintenance. At The Coding Lab we have a plan for most of the most common CMS services including WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, Drupal and Magento.
Head over to our packages to find out more about your options.

How to improve website performance?

There are many ways to improve a website performance: everything has to start with a comprehensive audit. Once that is prepared, the web developer will need to assess the most pressing issues in your specific case and take action. Actions to take could be: file compressions, pre-fetching techniques, lazy loading, CDN setups, plugin conflicts, and anything in between all of these categories.
Reach out to a professional to get your web site up to speed.

How to measure website performance?

There are many ways to achieve that, but for self assessments we tend to suggest installing the lightouse chrome extension and running a scan while on incognito mode. This will give you a general view of the issues (if any) affecting your web page. Keep in mind that this method is quite simple and will only get rid of your most basic problems. If you want a complete assessment The Coding Lab is your port of call.

How often should website content be updated?

Content is what keeps your website relevant to the wider world. And content is the thing that impact SEO the most. To any business, small or medium, we recommend starting a blog section and keep a pace of at least one post per week, so that you keep high your chances to become known out there. Contact us if you have little time to write and prefer to hire bloggers. For other content such as galleries and media, we recommend monthly checks.