Best Practices

Website management—maintenance, performance and optimization

Are you exploring website management strategies and best practices for protecting digital investments? If so, you’ve come to the right place.

This article will focus on what you need to know about managing your website and explore key strategies for effective website maintenance, performance, and optimization.

What is Website Management?

Website management handles daily operations and updates to keep your site running smoothly. It includes website design, development, updates, security, and maintenance. When managing multiple sites, each counts as a separate site and requires a specific plan tailored to its unique needs. It also involves optimizing the website for performance and achieving specific goals, such as increasing traffic or conversions.

They ensure your website meets standards and can adapt to future challenges.

Why Website Management Matters

Daylight introduced website management services and monthly website maintenance after realizing that many of our clients invested money in digital experiences but neglected maintenance and ongoing optimization. This oversight often resulted in failing to capitalize on one of their critical assets.

These workflows ensure that websites remain effective, secure, and goal-aligned through comprehensive site maintenance. They also help avoid costly site crashes, improve user experience, and ensure your site stays current and growth-focused.

Some website management services even offer unlimited website edits as part of their monthly care plan, allowing unrestricted edit requests and ensuring your site is always up-to-date.

How Do I Manage My Website?

Implementing a website management initiative can be easy. You can scale your efforts based on your resources and organizational priorities. We’ve boiled it down to three workflows that complement your technical efforts.

  1. Monthly Website Maintenance
  2. Website Performance and Speed
  3. Website Optimization and Content

To further enhance your website management strategy, consider leveraging site support services specializing in Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress and Craft. These services offer a comprehensive solution for effectively implementing your website management initiatives.

Additionally, expert WordPress support can be invaluable for managing WordPress-related issues, ensuring smooth website operation, and alleviating business owners’ maintenance burden.

#1 Monthly Website Maintenance: Keeping Your Site Secure and Up-to-Date

Monthly website maintenance is crucial for any digital brand. Just like regular oil changes keep your car in top shape, updating your CMS is necessary for effective website operation.

Performing monthly website maintenance tasks is a simple yet effective way to uphold a secure, high-performing, up-to-date website that resonates with your audience and drives growth.

Monthly website care and maintenance include:

  • Updating the CMS to its latest version.
  • Applying security patches.
  • Fixing any bugs or issues that arise.
  • Updating the WordPress core.

Additionally, CMS maintenance services can include:

  • Optimizing the database.
  • Managing plugins or extensions.
  • Ensuring website content remains accurate and current.

Website maintenance for popular CMSs

Different CMSs have unique features and tools designed for various needs. WordPress, for example, is user-friendly and offers plugins to enhance SEO, security, and a site’s overall performance. WordPress sites require ongoing support, management, and security to ensure optimal performance and protection against threats.

Understanding what each CMS excels at and its limitations can help you leverage its capabilities to improve your site’s performance, make it more user-friendly, and achieve your internet goals more efficiently.

Let’s look at some popular CMSs and monthly site maintenance best practices.

WordPress CMS overview

WordPress is the leading CMS, powering around 40% of websites. It offers many features and is perfect for small and enterprise businesses. Thanks to its user-friendly interface, easy customization, and a vast selection of plugins and themes, this open-source platform enables users to build dynamic websites with little coding required.

WordPress support helps manage, maintain, and troubleshoot WordPress websites, providing proactive solutions to prevent downtime, mitigate security risks, and enhance website performance. WordPress website management 101: tips for effective WordPress site maintenance

Monthly WordPress maintenance services include updating the core, themes, and plugins to fix bugs, patch security vulnerabilities, and add features. Periodic site backups prevent data loss from hacking or technical issues.

To ensure smooth functioning, security, and performance, ongoing support and management are crucial for WordPress websites.

DATABASE OPTIMIZATION
Over time, databases can become clogged with unnecessary data, such as old post revisions and spam comments, slowing down your website. Plugins can help clean and optimize the database for better speed and efficiency.

SECURITY MONITORING
Over time, databases can become clogged with unnecessary data, such as old post revisions and spam comments, slowing down your website. Plugins can help clean and optimize the database for better speed and efficiency.

REGULAR UX AUDITS
To keep your WordPress site competitive and user-friendly, regularly audit your site’s UX, including loading speeds, mobile responsiveness, and navigation.

Following these guidelines ensures your WordPress site runs smoothly, stays secure, and continues to attract and engage visitors.

Craft CMS Overview

Craft CMS is a platform favored for its flexibility and scalability. It provides advanced customization options for complex websites or projects with unique needs. Additionally, it features strong security, making it perfect for organizations focused on data protection and cybersecurity compliance.

Craft CMS graphic

Best Practices for Monthly Craft Maintenance

Craft website maintenance services are crucial, as they often release platform updates to boost functionality, fix security flaws, and enhance performance. 

Perform these tasks to ensure your Craft website is secure and up-to-date:

BACKUP STRATEGY
To protect against issues, ensure you have a complete backup of the website’s files, and use Craft’s built-in tools and plugins to make backing up easier.

SECURITY MEASURES
Regularly check your site for vulnerabilities and use a solid firewall to prevent attacks. Employ complex passwords, update them regularly, and manage user permissions to limit access based on roles.

PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION
Craft offers caching methods to reduce page load times. Image optimization is key; use tools that compress images without losing quality to speed up your site without compromising visuals.

REGULAR CONTENT AUDITS
Review your content to ensure it matches your marketing strategies and brand messaging. Update or archive old content to improve navigation and SEO.

PLUGIN MANAGEMENT
Choose plugins wisely to add functionality to your Craft site. Stick to reliable sources and check compatibility with your current Craft version. Keep plugins updated to avoid security and compatibility issues.

#2 Enhancing UX: Website Performance and Speed 

A fast website keeps users happy, lowers bounce rates, and boosts revenue. Expert website support is pivotal in optimizing the site’s performance and speed by handling technical issues, updates, and security.

Performance Impacts on Search and User Engagement

 A fast website meets users’ expectations and matches what search engines want, which is to show top-quality results. Google ranks slow-loading sites lower, making them less visible. Fewer people visiting the site can mean less engagement and lower earnings.

Also, a well-working site keeps users around; if a site doesn’t respond, people get annoyed and leave for a competitor.

Link Between Performance and Conversion Rates

Even a one-second delay in site speed can significantly impact conversions. Investing in technologies like AMPs, PWAs, and server improvements can enhance site performance, user engagement, and conversion rates.

Speed Optimization: The How-to Boost Website Performance

Following web development best practices is a great place to boost site performance. Below are key strategies and techniques for optimizing site speed:

OPTIMIZE IMAGES
Compress high-resolution images and use WebP format to boost loading speeds without sacrificing quality.

LEVERAGE BROWSER CACHING
Enable caching on visitors’ browsers and site pages, speeding up reloads for repeat visits.

MINIMIZE HTTP REQUESTS
Reduce page load components like images, scripts, and CSS files by combining files and minimizing scripts.

USE A CDN
Distribute content with CDNs to lower load times by serving data from a server near the user.

ENABLE COMPRESSION
Compressing site files before sending them to browsers reduces transfer times.

OPTIMIZE CSS AND JAVASCRIPT
Streamline your code. Combine images with CSS sprites and externalize JavaScript and CSS for better caching.

IMPROVE SERVER RESPONSE TIME
Boost response times by managing traffic loads, optimizing resources, choosing efficient hosting, and considering serverless solutions.

USE LAZY LOADING
Implement lazy loading to delay loading non-essential resources, saving bandwidth and speeding up initial loads.

How do I test for speed and fix critical issues?  

Regularly monitoring website performance is vital because updates, new content, or web hosting changes can impact it. It’s ideal to perform tests and updates monthly, but more frequent testing is beneficial for frequently updated sites or global enterprise websites.

Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights show the site’s loading speed and suggest improvements. Conducting routine audits helps spot issues early, enabling adjustments before they significantly affect user experience or SEO.

#3 Boosting Traffic and Conversions: Website Search Optimization and Organic Content 

Optimizing a website for search is about more than just adding content. It’s about organizing and tweaking content to suit your priority audiences.

However, creating content should not be random—there’s an art to it.

If you want to boost visibility on search engines, creating a keyword strategy, mastering keywords, and creating content that meets the audience’s needs are essential. Furthermore, taking your SEO to the next level requires consideration of additional strategies.

Website Search Optimization Strategies

Website owners need comprehensive strategies and tools to boost site visibility and user engagement to excel in SEO. 

Consider these strategies for your SEO toolkit:

KEYWORD STRATEGY & RESEARCH
Use tools like Google Keyword Planner to find and target relevant keywords. Integrate these keywords into your content, titles, meta descriptions, and URLs.

CONTENT CREATION & MARKETING
Quality content draws visitors and reduces bounce rates. Mix content like blog posts, videos, infographics, and podcasts to keep your audience engaged.

TECHNICAL SEO
Maintain your website’s health by conducting regular audits with tools like Google Search Console. Address broken links, errors in robots.txt files, and duplicate content to improve search rankings.

MOBILE OPTIMIZATION
With mobile traffic now dominant, ensure your site is responsive, has fast load times, and has mobile-friendly navigation.

LINK BUILDING
Earn backlinks from reputable sites to increase your site’s authority and rankings. Focus on relationship building, guest blogging, and creating shareable content.

LOCAL SEO
For businesses with a physical location or regional audience, ensure accurate listings on Google My Business and other directories. Update listings regularly and encourage customer reviews to boost trust and visibility.

PERFORMANCE TRACKING & ANALYTICS
Track SEO with tools like Google Analytics. Monitor traffic, keyword rankings, and other KPIs to refine your strategy for better results.

Organic Content as an SEO Tool

Leveraging organic content is a strategic approach that combines valuable content creation with SEO goals. Organic content naturally attracts search engine attention without paid promotion. 

Here are some ways to boost your content’s impact:

REGULAR CONTENT UPDATES
Google prefers fresh content. A blog is perfect for introducing new topics, answering questions, and engaging your audience.

UX OPTIMIZATION
Make your content accessible and interactive. Improve site navigation, reduce load times, and enhance visual appeal to boost rankings and user engagement.

INCORPORATING MULTIMEDIA ELEMENTS
Images, videos, and infographics make content more engaging and shareable, improve readability, and rank in image and video searches, driving more traffic.

LONG-FORM CONTENT CREATION
Detailed content shows your expertise and is preferred by search engines for depth. Such content often gets more backlinks and shares, increasing its value.

USER-GENERATED CONTENT (UGC)
Encourage reviews, comments, and community posts to enrich your content and foster a brand community. UGC increases the site’s content variety and strength.

Evaluating and Improving Content Effectiveness

Use analytics to see how different content types perform across channels. Focus on metrics like page views, time on page, bounce rate, and conversion rate to measure content impact. This data helps identify what content resonates with your audience and where to improve.

Additionally, ensure you implement the following strategies to optimize your content toward your organizational and website goals:

ITERATIVE IMPROVEMENT
Use analytics to improve content that looks promising. 

SEARCH ENGINE RANKING ANALYSIS
Track search rankings and the keywords they rank for. Find keyword opportunities and fill gaps in your strategy. Tailor your content to target these keywords better and boost your search visibility.

COMPETITOR BENCHMARKING
Audit competitors’ content and identify successful trends and tactics. Benchmarking offers valuable insights and helps you stay competitive.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
Collect feedback to understand what users think about your content. This feedback provides new ideas and guidance for future content.

Applying these strategies ensures your organic content stays dynamic and meets the audience’s changing preferences and the latest market trends.

Getting Started:
In-House vs. Agency Partner

Deciding between in-house website maintenance or using an agency involves considering several factors. You should weigh the pros and cons of each option based on your needs, budget, and strategic goals.

Advantages




LONG-TERM COST EFFICIENCY
In-house management can be more economical, especially for organizations needing constant updates.

Challenges


SCALABILITY ISSUES
Expanding an in-house team to meet project demands can be difficult.



Partnering with a
Development or Tech Agency

Using an agency can bring several benefits. By outsourcing your website’s technical side to professionals, you can focus on your core operations while optimizing your online presence.

Advantages


EXPERTISE AND SPECIALIZATION
Agencies bring specialized skills from working on various areas across the project lifecycle


FLEXIBILITY AND SCALABILITY
Agencies offer flexibility and scalability, letting you adjust based on priorities without long-term staff commitments.


COST-EFFECTIVE FOR PROJECTS
For one-off projects or updates, working with an agency can be more economical than working with a full-time in-house team.


Challenges


LESS CONTROL
Outsourcing can reduce direct control and complicate communication and coordination.



Whatever your choice—whether in-house, agency site management services, or a hybrid approach (using in-house resources for core activities and outsourcing specialized tasks)—be sure to have a plan in place for effective website maintenance, performance, and optimization to ensure it remains effective, secure, and goal-aligned.

Website Management FAQs

What is included in website management services?

Website management services typically include content and CMS updates, website maintenance and support, performance optimization, and security monitoring. Some agencies, like Daylight, offer additional design and UX optimization services.

How much does website management cost?

The cost of website management services can vary depending on the services included. Daylight’s website management services can range from $1,000 to $25,000 monthly

What are the benefits of outsourcing website management?

Outsourcing website management can have several advantages, including cost savings, access to specialized expertise, and freeing up time for other essential tasks. Working with Daylight lets you tap into our knowledge and experience to ensure your website remains effective and secure.

What are website maintenance services?

Website maintenance services are ongoing tasks and updates to keep the website and CMS running smoothly, securely, and up-to-date. These can include regular backups, software updates, security checks, and content updates. Daylight’s website maintenance services also provide comprehensive support.

Why is it important to maintain a website regularly?

Regular website maintenance ensures your site remains functional, secure, and up-to-date. Without proper maintenance, your site could experience broken links, outdated plugins or software, or even security vulnerabilities.

How often should I update my website?

Regular updates are essential for keeping your website secure and functioning correctly. We recommend you update your website at least once a month, but the frequency may vary depending on your specific needs and the complexity of your website. Our maintenance services ensure your website is always up-to-date.

What is the cost of website maintenance per month?

The cost of website maintenance can vary depending on the services included and the size and complexity of your website. With Daylight, you can choose from our different packages to find one that fits your needs and budget. Our monthly prices start at $760, and we offer customizable plans for larger or more complex websites. We also provide transparent pricing so you know what you are paying for.

Do WordPress and Craft websites need maintenance?

Yes, they need maintenance to function properly and securely. Even though both are popular platforms with regular updates and security measures, it is still important to maintain them regularly. This includes updating plugins, themes, and the WordPress and Craft core. Without proper maintenance, your site could be at risk for security breaches or technical issues that can impact user experience.

Who can fix my WordPress and Craft website?

Daylight’s team of experts includes experienced WordPress and Craft developers who can handle any issue or task related to WordPress and Craft websites. Whether it’s a simple bug fix or complex customization, our team has the skills and knowledge to get your website up and running smoothly.

Why is website optimization important?

Optimizing your website is crucial for driving search traffic, improving user experience, and increasing conversions. It can boost your search engine rankings and online visibility when done correctly. Daylight offers optimization services to ensure your website brings value to your business.

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