A Successful Website Redesign Shouldn’t End With Launch
You’ve spent countless hours with your website developer to get your website ready for launch. Your team has reviewed and tweaked to the point of overkill. Finally, it’s ready for the world to see! The day the site goes live is like New Year’s Eve. You celebrate a new beginning, you tell everyone to check it out and maybe even pop open the bubbly!
You’re so excited about the new site that it’s easy to forget about one of the most critical aspects of your website - its security. But in the months following launch, there your site sits, vulnerable. If you’re like so many other busy professionals and business owners, by the time the site launches you have dozens of other priorities piling on your plate and probably aren’t thinking about bugs, updating plugins or hackers. Don’t forget though, unless your site is maintained and loved on a regular basis, it’s susceptible to major threats and you risk losing new business opportunities as well as credibility among clients and prospects. Does this all sound overly doomsday?
Sadly, website threats and their negative consequences on your organization are all too real and common. Hacking is big business and it can happen to anyone. In 2013, Forbes published an article stating that 30,000 websites are hacked every day. And that was two years ago (the numbers are increasing every day as “hacking for a cause” becomes more prolific. The Forbes article also states that cyber criminals source the web looking for websites to infect with their malicious codes….ANY website. Your website is not immune.
So, what’s a company to do? Three words people; ongoing website maintenance! What does that mean exactly? Our Lead Developer at Stratus, Jeff Aspenburg, breaks down website maintenance and why it’s a must!
I asked Jeff to tell me why maintenance is non-negotiable in the modern age of business and this is what he has to say:
“Regardless of size, website maintenance is important to any business. Your website is a worldwide window into the heart and soul of who you are as a company. Therefore, not following a strict website maintenance plan opens the door for malicious hackers to wreak havoc and cause functionality features to become outdated; resulting in serious headaches and guaranteed stress."
What is the risk?
"Hackers can take full control of your website, create backdoor exploits, add malicious code, create pharmaceutical hacks, and even get your IP blacklisted. In simpler terms, this means any site on your hosting account using that IP is marked as spam. As a result, emails start bouncing, your search engine ranking drops and visitors can’t access your site without getting a virus."
So, why exactly does this happen?
"Sites are hacked for hundreds of reasons. It can be as simple as having a weak and simple password that hackers can easily guess or something more complex, such as not having a firewall or security plugin installed. Luckily, most Content Management Systems send out security updates automatically whenever a major security vulnerability is spotted, making it a safer platform for your site. However, you are still manually responsible for your site’s security and need to consistently implement the necessary measures to keep it safe."
What are some website maintenance measures needed to keep your website safe?
- Keep your Content Management System, scripts, themes and plugins updated
- Choose themes and plugins from a trusted source
- House your site with a trusted hosting provider
- When possible, choose a dedicated server vs. a shared server
- Use a strong password with a username that isn’t something generic like “admin”
- Never store credentials, like your FTP password, on your local PC or Mac
- Regularly backup your entire site, including all your files and your database
Bottom line, your website is not a printed brochure. Once you have it up and running, you can’t just sit back and let it collect dust. To be a successful (and safe) site, it needs to be incrementally improved over time for optimal security, relevance and credibility. What it needs is website support and maintenance.
Not all businesses have the resources to hire dedicated website support internally and the skills required are beyond the company’s in-house expertise. And that’s fine! Website maintenance is rarely a full-time job - in fact, if you have an expert handling maintenance responsibilities, your site may need just a few hours of attention each month! But no matter how you choose to maintain your site, it’s a must-do to protect your business and your digital presence. We urge you to reach out to your developer and request information about a continued website maintenance program to ensure a functional, safe and sought-after website for years to come. If you’d like to pick our brain or find out how we protect and support our clients’ websites, give us a shout - call us directly at 610-692-6229.
