Maintaining your Website
Keeping your website fresh and sparkling

Maintaining a website

Maintaining a website is just as important as building it in the first place! Unfortunately, most designers put much more effort into the initial design and launch of a site than they do in keeping the content fresh and keeping the site growing to best serve all visitors.

It is imperative that you maintain a commitment to posting accurate, timely information online. If people who visit your site find that the information never changes, they will stop accessing it.

Maintaining a website is never done: new information will always be waiting to be uploaded, old information will need to be updated, users will provide suggestions that need to be incorporated, etc.

Never take your website down when launching a site redesign.

There are even for-profit organizations that will do this -- take their website down and put a "hold" page that says something ridiculous like, "Pardon our dust! Our new site will go up in a few days, so be sure to check back!" NEVER do this.

Just as newspapers are committed to making sure they publish on time no matter what, just as theater companies are committed to the philosophy of the "show must go on" no matter what, you should be committed to always keeping your website operational.

Taking your website down for several days during a transition, or ceasing to keep a website updated while you wait for a new site to be redesigned or launched, is unprofessional and will make you look very bad to many visitors and potential supporters as well as affecting your ranking in the search engines.

Visitor feedback

Keep in mind what your target audience wants out of the site. Give all web users ongoing opportunities to provide feedback and suggestions for the site. This can range from putting a feedback form on your site to asking your friends, "What do you think of my website?"

The feedback given to you by your visitors will help to keep your content fresh and provide you with ideas for growing your website. All too often webmasters forget their audience. They get so absorbed by their own ideas that they turn their websites into a personal thing, and the people they are trying to reach are ignored. In time this can ruin a website.

Fresh content and design ideas

It is imperative that you keep your website content fresh and always growing. Check out sites for organizations similar to your own for content and design ideas. Find successful sites by way of referrals and the search engines. Look at how these sites are designed and use this research to develop your own website.

Stories and newsletters

Add stories, RSS feeds and articles from newsletters and online article sites like ezinearticles.com that have been published since your site was launched, or information from publications that have come out since the website launch. This will keep your content up-to-date.

Track results

Track the responses that result from the visitors who visit your website. Particularly the feedback that they may offer. Website traffic analysis will help you plan more strategically for future posts and online activities. Not to mention the insight it will provide for search engine optimization.

And remember that responding to e-mail from the website is a vital part of how to maintain a website.

Website Traffic and Maintenance

Website Traffic Generation Planning and Methodologies

There are both principles and rules of traffic generation; principles have to do with your approach to the task and the rules are the practical nuts and bolts of driving traffic. You need to have an understanding of the larger picture before you can successfully put the practical techniques into action.

Website Traffic Analysis for Beginners

Who is visiting your website and what do they do when they get there? Understanding your website's log files can help clear up the mystery.

Understanding Web Logs

General web statistics give pertinent information about website visitors. Webmasters analyzing these statistics have a better understanding of who their website visitors are and how they perceive the website.

Internet Marketing, Tracking Your Results

When people start tracking their marketing it is all too common that the wrong results are being monitored. Just because your website gets more visitors doesn't mean that you get more money.

Free Website Traffic

From all of my personal testing, classified advertising is still one of the most effective free website traffic and lead generators. Even better than that, it is a completely free website traffic source which just requires a little bit of your time!

7 Methods the Pros Use to Increase Website Traffic

It is no accident that the highest value businesses on the Web are not necessarily the ones with the highest annual profits, but rather the ones with the most website traffic. This is because consistent website traffic presents unlimited opportunities for conversion into profits.

Tips On Basic Website Improvements

Small changes to a website can often result in big changes in your ROI (return on investment). Check out how the following examples can make a big difference in your traffic, clicks and sales.

7 Different Traffic Generating Methods

If there is one thing that every website needs, it's consistent traffic and at times, it is necessary for us to continue to get more and more traffic along the way.

Link popularity check is one of the best ways to quantifiably and independently measure your website's online awareness and overall visibility. Simply put, link popularity refers to the total number of links or "votes" that a search engine has found for your website.

15 Fixes For A Failing Website

If your website's not performing, here's what you can do to improve search engine rankings, engage visitors and convert more sales.

Give Your Site a 10-Point Legal Check-Up

Online businesses are now highly regulated, and there's substantial liability if your site's not legally compliant. In addition, your customers are becoming more Internet savvy, and a site that's not legally compliant is not going to be trusted.

The Top 10 Tools for Monitoring the Success of Your Website

One of the most important aspects of running a website is monitoring the site and its progress. By monitoring your website you will be able to see how it is performing and how it can be improved.