You have just had your website launch, so congratulate yourself on job well done because it was a lot of hard work!
Now, it’s finally time to relax and start doing business for real. Right?
… Yes, after your website launch, take a well-deserved break from the techy stuff… But not a sabbatical!
Because your website is like a relationship – it needs some continued care and attention to make sure it still gives you the good stuff, WordPress websites in particular.
After launch, you want to avoid that your website suddenly:
- Disappears overnight
- Stops performing as lovingly as it used to
- Redirects to some dubious adult site
Not great for your professional online image. And you may not notice until someone tells you. Like… months later.
Why would ever terrible things happen to your website?
Because a website that is not kept up to date will be vulnerable to hack-attacks, or certain functions may suddenly stop working (and maybe you don’t even notice), which may result in losing potential clients.
How do I avoid trouble after the website launch?
It’s easy!
Set your website as your homepage or one of the tabs in your browser that opens automatically
Why? Because you will be the first to know if your website is down and can fix it quickly (making sure you have a backup with your hosting and also a backup plugin that can store backups of your website locally is will make sure you sleep at night)
Make sure you have basic safety plugins installed
Like e.g. Firewall and Security Scanner WordFence and a backup plugin like UpdraftPlus.
Then, once every one or two weeks, log in to your website and:
Update your plugins
Why? It will keep your site safe and stable, resistant to hack-attacks.
Send a message to yourself via your contact form and test any newsletter signup forms
Why? If your contact form and signup box are not working, you lose clients. 99% of the time, visitors are not going to take the time to tell you that it’s not working.
Check that your links are working
Why? A broken link gives a bad impression, and make you lose potential clients. Google is also not fan of broken links, so if your page has many of them, it may affect your ranking.
Easy as that 🙂 It can take less than 5 minutes, and save you from losing your website.
Do you think only bigger sites with lots of traffic get hacked? Not true. Maintaining your website is not a lot of work, but it requires you to be consistent. Set a reminder in your calendar, or if you know you will be hopeless at it, hire someone to do it for you.
Would you like to receive regular website mainteance reminders?
I can add you to an automatic email series that tells you what to check and how to check it once a month. It’s free!
Got questions about any of this?
Feel free to ask them in my Facebook Group Web Design for Coaches.
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