Many businesses make the mistake of creating a website and then neglecting it. Just like a building that is not maintained, a website that is not looked after will start to experience wear and tear. This could impact everything from search rankings to security. This is why it’s so important to keep your website regularly updated.
Below are just a few of the things that will happen if you don’t update your website and what you can do to prevent these things from happening.
Your search engines rankings will fall
Updating your site regularly is important for maintaining good search engine rankings. If a site hasn’t had any new content uploaded to it in a while, search engines may start to register it as inactive and your rankings may suffer.
Adding new content (such as blog posts or new product listings) or editing existing content can help you to maintain good rankings. Of course, you can go one step further than this and make sure that content is SEO-friendly. Adding keywords, titles and hyperlinks will not just help you to maintain good rankings, but could help boost your rankings. It’s worth hiring an SEO agency to help you with this content. Fixing bugs will also help to improve your rankings.
Your website will start to become vulnerable to new threats
Cybercrime is constantly evolving and websites need to be constantly updated to make sure that they are secure against the latest threats. Fail to update your site regularly, and you could leave your website open to new viruses and hacking techniques.
If you’re using a website builder platform like WordPress or Wix, it is likely that security updates will be carried out automatically for you. However, if your website was coded from scratch, you’ll need to rely on developers to make these security updates. Make sure that you’re paying someone to do this.
Browsers may flag your site as dangerous
Keeping up with security updates isn’t just important for preventing your site getting hacked. Browsers may eventually start to flag your site as potentially dangerous if it has not had any security updates in a while – particularly if malware has been detected.
If your website has been flagged, you’ll need to get to the bottom of the cause. Any viruses will have to be removed and security updates will need to be made to make sure that your site is secure again. You can then request a review of your site. It is worth hiring a web developer to help you with this.
Links and plug-ins may stop working
It’s important to periodically check that links and plug-ins are working on your site. Over time, web pages that you linked to may be deleted. Developers of plug-ins meanwhile end support, at which point plug-ins may become prone to bugs or even vulnerable to viruses (a common way in which malware can infect a site).
You should periodically use online tools to check your site for broken links so that you can then remove/replace these. Similarly, get rid of any old plug-ins or themes that you’ve been using for years and replace these with new plug-ins and themes.
The design will eventually start to look dated
Web design is constantly evolving. What looked fresh 10 years ago could now be making your site look old-fashioned. Images, fonts and colors are the biggest culprit. To stay current, consider using a website builder.
It is worth redesigning your website every few years to make sure that any dated features are removed. You may be able to do this yourself, or you could try hiring a web developer to do it for you.
All in all, you’ll lose visitors (and customers)
The bottom line to all of this is that you will lose visitors. Poor search engine rankings will prevent search engine users from finding your site. Security weaknesses and browser warning messages will scare away many other visitors. Broken links, inactive plug-ins and outdated design will meanwhile cause those visitors who do make it to your site to lose trust, leading to a high bounce rate.
If your business relies on web traffic, this could all result in a loss of customers. Therefore, it’s so important to regularly update your website to prevent all of this from occurring. If you haven’t updated your website in years, it may be too late to fix it with updates, however you can always still rebuild your entire site. This could allow you to make a fresh start with a modern, clean website.
