Building a great website is only one-half of the battle; next, you’ll have to consider the ongoing website maintenance! Here’s a checklist of must-do activities that are absolutely crucial to complete at the beginning of EVERY new year, to make sure that your website remains functional and user-friendly.

As your company develops, expands, and improves, your website should, too. This isn’t just updating new content, or amend your services if they ever change; you also need to comply with any legal requirements, renew your web hosting, scan for out-of-date information, AND backup the website… and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

It’s arguable that yearly maintenance is an even bigger task than building the website in the first place. Let’s jump at what you, as a website owner, will need to consider:

Essential Infrastructure

Your infrastructure is essentially the backbone of your website; it’s the basic framework that makes sure your website works. You can’t begin to build any website without first making sure that your infrastructure is complete!

Backup your site, consisting of your website files AND any databases you might use. Ideally, back it up both online and offline.

You also need to register your domain name! Domain names can often expire, rendering them useless to your business. Make sure that you re-register your domain as soon as you can!

Finally, consider your web hosting; most web hosting platforms will auto-renew, or at the very least, notify you when they’re about to expire.

Legal Requirements

Every business absolutely MUST make sure that they’re above board, otherwise, they could incur huge fines or lose their license to operate. If you want to make sure that your website is COMPLETELY legal, you will need to:

  • Update the copyright date, along with any templates you use that might still show the old information.
  • Update your privacy policy with any relevant information and changes. It’s important to remember that there are new requirements as of the 1st of January, 2020. You previously might not have even needed a privacy policy – many states have updated their legislation, though, so this might have changed.

Web Content

What’s the most important part of your website? Beyond the infrastructure and the legalities… it’s the content.

The content you release defines exactly what your website does. It’s important that each year you individually review each and every page, ensuring all of your content is up-to-date, that your backlinks all work, that there are no missing pages, and most importantly, that it’s still all relevant.

Here’s a list of just a few things you’ll need to consider:

  • About/team pages
  • Web errors
  • Services/product pages
  • Framework/template updates
  • Up to date plugins

We know that updating, checking, and reviewing a website can be a time-consuming task, and as a busy business owner, you’ve probably got more important things to consider. There’s a lot to take in when it comes to your yearly checklist, and if you aren’t confident in your web-management abilities, it can quickly become incredibly overwhelming.

Don’t worry – we can take the hard work out for you. Here at KexWorks, we’ll provide an in-depth and tailored review of your website, making sure that it’s up to date with ALL legal requirements, that the infrastructure is intact, and most importantly, it’s easy for your customers to use.

If you’re interested in seeing just how we can help you, feel free to give us a call on 727-776-5961.