STEP 9 Website Maintenance
A website is never finished. There will always be new links to add, text to change, updates etc.
Check To Ensure Your Site Is Now Online After Uploading
If it doesn’t appear, don’t panic.
Your computer may be behind a firewall, or the uploading links given to you by your web host may have been entered incorrectly in the correct publishing fields of your website building program. Re-enter the links and check for your site online again.
The problem may be at the web host end – they may not have properly assigned your access to the site.
If you still have a problem, email or phone your web host for help. If you have picked a web host well, they will have 24hour support, by email, phone or a Chat Line.
Keep Your Web Site Content Fresh
Make sure that your content is up to date. A web site that states it’s deadline for an offer expires in 2004, for example, is a sure sign that this site is now unattended. If you don’t have any dates in your content, you could add a small note on one side, stating ‘This Site Updated 4th October, 2005’. Use this format, not numbers and slashes. 4/10/05 in the US means 10th April. In Australia, it means 4th Oct. Remember your site is world-wide and needs to accommodate everyone.
Resources for Fresh Content
Check for Broken Links
Visitors will be turned off your site very quickly if links on your site produce error messages.
The web is changing very fast, and you cannot be responsible for websites that you have listed on your site. But you are responsible for making sure your links all work, by deleting any that don’t.
Broken Link Checkers
Check to Ensure Images Are Displayed Properly
Use Alt Tags behind your images, in case the picture doesn’t load correctly. The Alt tag will display and the user still knows what the picture is about.
Add or Remove Components
If you have embarked on a program to improve your SEO, you will need to add new links.
Launching a new product will perhaps necessitate a new page, and changes to your shopping cart.
You may find a new affiliate product you wish to promote, or add flash to your site.
A marketing sales letter may need to be revised
Changing The Appearance
You may want to change colours, or other aspects of your site.
Check That Your Site Remains Online
This can be monitored 24hrs a day for you by Website Monitoring companies. They can issue a report with how much downtime your site has experienced in the last week. The only thing you can do if the downtime is greater than 1 or 2% (ie its uptime is 98 – 99%) is to contact your web host to find out why. If they cannot rectify the problem, consider changing your web host.
Free Monitoring Resources at SiteUpTime
Use Your Statistics
A lot of information can be recorded about your website visitors, to help with your marketing and advertising. These statistics can show their country, exactly which pages they visited, which keywords they used to get there and more
See Traffic Monitoring in Web Tools for free resources, if your web site hosting service doesn’t provide them.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics shows you how people found your site, how they explored it, and how you can enhance their visitor experience. Improve your website return on investment, increase conversions, and make more money on the web.
With over 80 reports, your free Google Analytics account will track visitors through your site, and will keep track of the performance of your marketing campaigns - whether they're AdWords campaigns, email campaigns, or any other advertising program. With this information, you'll know which keywords are really working, which ad text is the most effective, and where your visitors are dropping off during the conversion process. Don't be fooled by the fact that this functionality is available to you for free - Google Analytics is a full-featured, powerful analytics package.
Back Up Your Site
Making a back-up copy of your website inside your website building program is a good idea. You could also copy and paste the content, with links into a document and store that. If something goes wrong, you can rebuild your site fairly quickly.
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