Now, that your website is fully designed, it’s time for you to take over. If you don’t plan on hiring a website manager then here are a few reminders. And, if you do plan on hiring someone then use this as a foundational guideline.
5 Tasks Not to Forget Once Your Website is Live
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Update your site regularly
If your website is built on a CMS (content management system) like WordPress then you’ll need to log in and regularly update your site. Updates fix bugs, protect from hackers and make general improvements. If you think hackers aren’t concerned about your site, then think again.
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Monitor your security
Small businesses don’t often understand cybersecurity and that’s why their an easy target. Your security service keeps an eye on everything. One of the features I really appreciate is preventing brute force attack. Brute force attack is when hackers use software to guess your password. Your security software will block IP addresses, repeat attempts, login attempts using prespecified usernames and more. Outside of monitoring logins you’ll have a firewall and have the ability to customize your security settings. You’ll just want to check out the IP addresses and adjust the settings. But, technology is developing so you should still be cautious.
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Save your data and back up your site regularly
Even with security, your site can get hacked. Hackers are always working on new methods. This is why backing up your site is so important. The service you use is not as important as the process. But, be sure to do a full backup, not just a content backup. And, then download it to your computer, so it’ll be on your hard drive, as well as, in the cloud that your backup service uses. Better to be safe than sorry.
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Search engine optimization (SEO)
SEO fundamentals should already be done on your site. Our team assures this is done for all of our clients. But, if your web designer hasn’t done it you’ll need to look over their work to make changes. Assuming that you are already starting with a great foundation, be sure to make adjustments as the current guidelines change and add the fundamentals to new pages that you create. There are a few SEO steps you can do without coding, but if you want to build more traffic consider hiring a professional SEO.
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Check for broken links
This is easy. Every so often you should go through your website and click everything. Broken links are bad for your site’s rank in the search engines, which sucks. But, more importantly, it inconveniences your potential clients. You want all of your site visitors to have a good experience. They should be impressed and ready to work with you, join your program, visit your business or donate to your cause. So, if you find any broken links, here’s what you do. Remove them, direct them to the correct link or reach out to your designer.
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Outside of SEO, this is what you should expect from a website manager. Are there any other tasks that you’ve found that you have to keep up on now that your website is done? How are you managing them?
