Website Maintenance

But what exactly does “maintaining” mean? Well, it can mean anything from updating your site’s content to changing outdated images or videos and making sure your site loads quickly on mobile devices and desktops.

To expound this further, we take the guesswork out of the equation. The tasks below are the important benchmarks to determine whether website maintenance is done correctly.

Your UX Matches Buyer’s Behavior Online

For many years, the sales funnel was a simple model to describe how consumers make decisions. The theory is that consumers go through a series of stages as they move from awareness to action.

For example, if we were selling a new type of dog food, we might say that our customers are in the awareness stage when they hear about our product for the first time. Once they’ve learned about it and decided they might be interested in buying, they move on to consideration.

Next, they may decide to buy—that’s action! And finally, if the product is booming and people like it, they may share their experience with friends or family members.

This model has been incredibly useful for decades because it’s easy to understand and helps companies think about how their marketing efforts will affect overall sales.

But now, there’s another factor influencing decision-making: consumer behavior.

The truth is that consumers don’t follow linear paths anymore. Instead, they bounce around between different sources of information until they find something that resonates with them (and then stay there).

It can be difficult for companies to predict where their customers will be at any given time. But we can look at it from a different perspective—through the buyer’s online behavior.

Three Main Theories Of Online Consumer Behavior

These theories can help you understand why people buy things, how much they’ll pay, and which factors influence their purchasing decisions. Please note that there are many theories of online consumer behavior. Still, these three, in particular, are most useful when examining the online consumer.

Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA)

The TRA assumes that people’s attitudes toward an object or event affect their behavioral intention to perform it. It proposes that three factors influence one’s attitude toward action:

-Attitude: how people feel about something

-Subjective norms: what they think other people want them to do

-Perceived behavioral control: how easy it is for them to do what they want to do

That means consumers are more likely to perform if they have a positive attitude toward something. For example, suppose your attitude about eating healthy food is positive. In that case, you will also be more likely to eat healthy food.

When designing UX with this theory in mind, a website’s form or button prompt needs to consider what message they’re sending through that design element:

-What social pressure (subjective norm) does it imply?

-How easy does it seem for the user to complete this task?

-Will this prompt increase engagement with our site or decrease it?

Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB)

The same three factors influence this theory as TRA. First, it divides users into groups based on their goals: pursuers, oppers, and non-pursuers. This knowledge allows designers to tailor each group’s experience to maximize engagement and conversion rates.

For example, suppose you’re a seeker. In that case, the web page should show you relevant content while providing easy ways to convert (such as buying products or signing up for email updates).

For an opper with a certain outcome (either selling something or finding out more about a specific topic), the website must grant you faster access to what you want without distractions.

And lastly, a non-pursuer—someone who isn’t interested at all. Your website will likely have irrelevant content or hidden features only accessible after subscribing to emails or joining related communities.

Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)

This theory helps predict how consumers will respond to new technology. It has five factors influencing the adoption of new technology:

1. Perceived usefulness: how useful the technology will be for completing tasks

2. Perceived ease of use: how easy the technology is to learn and understand

3. Perceived convenience: how well this new technology fits in with the user’s lifestyle and work habits

4. Social influence: whether other people have adopted this technology before and whether they have positive or negative feelings about it

5. Task value: whether or not this particular task is important enough to warrant a change from the current method

One of the most important aspects of TAM is its focus on visibility. By understanding how users perceive different elements of a website, you can optimize them for better accessibility and usability. In addition, it allows people with
disabilities or limited vision accessibility and anyone who wants an easy time using your website.

Your Website Uses Powerful CTAs

You’ve probably heard the saying: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” We’re not going to argue with that. But we will say that it’s a good idea to occasionally look at your CTA (Call to Action) and ensure it’s working in the best way possible.

Why? Because as you grow and change, so does your business, and your CTAs need to reflect that growth.

According to Leighton Interactive, the average click-through rate of CTAs is 4.23% across all industries. This indicates that for every 100 site visitors, only four people click through to the CTA to look at the product you’re trying to promote. The first step in redesigning your CTAs is identifying current strengths and weaknesses. By doing this, you can plan whether you need to generate new sections or pages based on user needs and CTA functions.

Another thing, if your CTA was written ten years ago, it will not operate well in this day and age. So you must check your website to see if the CTAs match the latest algorithm.

Redesigning Your CTA

Below are some common barriers to action and how to address them in your CTA.

Mixing up Action Words

You might confuse readers if you used “Get Started” as a CTA for one section of your content and then suddenly switched it to “Start Now.” They might think they need to do something different than they expected.

So how do you know which words are action words? It depends on what kind of action you want the reader to take. If you’re trying to get them to sign up for something (a newsletter, a contest entry), use verbs like “join” or “enter.” If you’re trying to get them to buy something, try using verbs like “buy” or “order.”

Making Customers Hunt for the CTA Button

Jumping on the CTA bandwagon can be a great way to boost your website’s conversion rate. However, your CTA buttons should be unobtrusive and easy to find without detracting from the overall aesthetics of your website. You may also consider using call-to-action overlays or pop-ups that don’t require clicks. It will keep users informed about what you have available without interrupting their browsing experience.

Using Objective or Unemotional Terms

Your customers are human beings who need to hear from you in a way that respects their humanity. When you sound like a robot or an emotionless machine, it can make your customers feel like they’re talking to a computer. That’s not the experience you want them to have with your brand.

The Website Has Effective Copy

Search engines have been changing their algorithms to detect better and rank content relevant to a user’s query. This means that if you want your website to rank well, it needs to be written to appeal to those searches. The best way to do this is by creating an informative and relevant copy, which will help you get more traffic and convert more visitors into customers.

More than half of people doing an online search look at the top three results on Google’s first page. They often click on one of these links to get their desired information. The good news is that it’s not hard to keep up with this trend.

Tips For Effective Website Copywriting

You need to know a few things about effective copywriting.

Write Catchy Titles and Headlines

The first thing a potential customer will see when they come across a website post is the title and headline of your page. Your goal is to make them click on it, so you must ensure they’re engaging and unique.

Use Clear Grammar and Effective Sentence Structure

The best way to do this is by using short, simple sentences with subject-verb-object construction. It helps search engines understand what you’re saying more easily.

You should also avoid passive voice as a sentence structure, making it much harder for search engines to understand the content of your copy.

Keep Your Content Brief and Concise

Online readers have short attention spans, so don’t try to cram too much information into one place. Instead, break things up into sections, and use subheadings to help readers find what they need quickly. Bullet points can help break up the text as well.

Don't Forget About Aesthetics

Just because you’re writing for the web doesn’t mean your content can’t be beautiful! Make sure it’s well-formatted and visually appealing so readers will want to stick around for more than just a few seconds after landing on one of your pages. Include attractive images, graphics, and diagrams to illustrate your topic better.

Remember, writing great content optimized for search engines will help you get more traffic. But writing great content optimized for reading and sharing will help your company generate leads, gain customers, and build brand awareness. Give it a great balance, and you’ll undoubtedly go a long way.

Updates Shouldn't Disrupt Design

Every business website should have a great design. It reflects the company and helps the website turn site visitors into customers.

But updating your website design can be difficult if you don’t know what you’re doing. And if done incorrectly, you could end up with a broken website design, which nobody wants to experience.

Study shows that 42% of people would leave a website because of poor functionality. It doesn’t matter how good-looking or well-written your website is. If it doesn’t work as expected, then it’s going to be abandoned by your readers.

So how do you make sure that doesn’t happen? You can do a few things to ensure your website updates go smoothly and don’t disrupt existing designs or functionality.

Here's what you should know:

Tips For Website Updates

Check Your CMS for Any Changes

Suppose your website is built on a content management system (CMS). In that case, you might want to check for any updates made by developers, as these could affect how you edit your content.

This can be done by using an online tool like Google Search Console or checking out what changes were made to your website’s repository.

Test Your Old Site's Performance

It will give you a baseline of how many people are visiting and what they’re doing there. You can then use this data to determine what areas of improvement are most important for your new site.

Always Back Up Before Starting Any Updates

You never know what might happen, and it’s always good to have a copy of your previous version in case something goes wrong. Depending on your preference, you can do this by using FTP or Dropbox.

Make Sure the Update Is Minimalistic

Don’t add too many new features or modifications to the existing ones, and keep it as simple as possible. It will help keep the design intact without overwhelming visitors.

Test the Update Before You Go Live

If there are any glitches or problems, fix them before you put it live. It will minimize any potential damage caused by the update.

Keep an Eye on the Overall Page Speed

Updates that take longer to load or render may negatively impact your website’s ranking in search engines and cause lost traffic. Make sure everything is running before you hit ‘publish.’

Website updates are important but risky tasks at the same time. But following the steps mentioned above, you can update your site without compromising on the website’s visual appeal.

Remember to keep calling your web designer when updating a new layout. There might be some issues in terms of flow or navigation that need to be addressed immediately.

You Know How To Address Hosting Provider Upgrades

Hosting provider upgrades are common, but they can be a big headache for companies that rely on an online presence. But how does the process work?

The first thing to understand is that a hosting provider is not the same as a web host. A hosting provider is an organization that provides space on its servers for websites. On the other hand, a web host is an external company that hosts and manages those web spaces. Hosting providers often offer packages that include services such as domain registration, website-building tools, security solutions, customer support options, and more. These services can be convenient for small businesses that don’t want to spend money on multiple vendors for each of these functions separately.

How Upgrades Affect Your Website

When a company’s hosting provider runs an upgrade, they are essentially swapping out one set of servers for another. It can have several consequences for the website hosted on those servers.

The most likely consequence is that the website will experience some outages. It could be due to a matter with the new servers, or it could be because of an issue with the site itself. Either way, the company will need to address this issue as quickly as possible to prevent customers from abandoning the ship.

A study discovered that aside from data loss (34%) and financial loss (31%), customer satisfaction gets the biggest impact.

Another potential consequence is that the site’s performance might start to deteriorate. It could be due to various reasons, such as increased traffic loadings or decreased performance from pages and files, leading to software issues such as:

-Website slowdown or freezing

-Issues with login or registration processes

-Missing or incorrect content

-Latency problems

-Issues with email delivery

-Errors when accessing the site via a mobile device

To keep things running smoothly and ensure that customers aren’t left frustrated, you need to take action as soon as they detect any problem and be prepared by having a backup plan to recover quickly. Also, monitor your website closely during this time to act fast if there are any issues with speed or stability.

Paying attention to upgrades your hosting provider goes through is important for two reasons. First, it allows you to protect customer loyalty by addressing any issues immediately. Second, it helps ensure that your website continues to perform at its best.

Your Website is SEO Friendly

Conduct an on-page audit when you start with SEO (search engine optimization). It will help identify what needs repair and improvement and which keywords are targeted incorrectly. Once you understand your current situation well, implement corrective measures by rewriting outdated content or optimizing images for better search engine visibility. You can also add new pages focusing on specific topics or targeting relevant keywords.

There are a few things you can do to help your website rank higher in search engine results pages, including:

-Comply with the latest SEO practices

-Use keywords and other key phrases

-Place links from high-traffic pages on your site

-Create compelling content

-Implement social media marketing strategies

-Make sure your website is mobile friendly

Once these tasks are complete, test the changes by conducting another search engine analysis to ensure that all improvements were made visible online! Finally, continue monitoring results regularly so that any necessary adjustments can be made promptly.

Final Thoughts on Implementing Website Maintenance

Implementing a website maintenance plan can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Working with professionals ensures that your website maintenance is done correctly and efficiently.

LOJO Marketing offers a variety of website maintenance packages that are tailored to meet the specific needs of your business. Our packages include regular updates, security scans, and performance optimization to ensure your website is always running at its best.