If you are trying to rank on the top pages of search engines, did you know keywords alone are not enough? If you want the best SEO results, you need to take an all-around approach. Part of that involves knowing how to conduct regular maintenance on a website. 

Without maintenance, your site will be viewed as outdated and penalized. Below, we discuss why you need regular maintenance to improve website SEO. 

Improve Website SEO Speed

Website speed is a huge factor that determines your SEO score. In fact, Google even has its own page speed tool for measuring how fast your site loads. If you’re slow, then you just won’t get the page ranking you are looking for. 

Routine maintenance will help speed up your website. It clears unwanted code and removes unhealthy programs that are not working. 

Indirectly, it also impacts your bounce rate. This is a term used to measure how long people stay on your page, and it is also an SEO factor. If your page is slow and people go elsewhere, then it is going to hurt your chances drastically. 

Responsive

Your website needs to be responsive, or it will undoubtedly get penalized by major search engines. A responsive website shows up well on any device, with images and menus that are correctly aligned and easy to navigate. However, remaining responsive requires routine maintenance. 

Website Security

Website security is crucial, not just to your SEO score but also to your survival. As criminals find better ways to infiltrate websites and steal data, it becomes imperative that you must stay on top of it. Outdated plugins, apps, and technologies are easy to access points, and they need to be updated. 

Not only will you find that search engines penalize unsafe sites, so do browsers and anti-virus software. This will be extremely offputting for anyone wanting to access your website. This makes small business website maintenance even more important, as every lead counts. 

Website Maintenance Checklist

There are a number of tasks you can undertake to keep your site regularly maintained. Weekly tasks should include backing up your website, performing any advised updates, and removing spam comments. You should then check for broken links, and see if all pages and forms are running correctly. 

Finally, make sure you are adding new content to the site weekly. Blogs are a great way to do this. It shows search engines that your page is in use. 

On a monthly basis, conduct a security scan and check the website speed, addressing any issues. Update any old blog content. You may also want to check your website statistics from the month before and see if any anomalies occurred. 

Tasks that need to be done less frequently, such as every six months, are fewer but take more time. They include renewing your website domain name, checking to see if you need to do a redesign of the site, and a general overall functionality and SEO test.

Make Website Maintenance Regular

In summary, to improve website SEO, maintenance is not something you do once and forget about it. It needs to be a regular part of your business running. Make sure it is instilled in everything you do. 

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