Website Repairs - Why they can be deadly when ignored
Ever had a customer or website user call in to say “I can’t access your website – it’s broken”. Well, you immediately get your web designer to investigate the problem, and by late evening it’s fixed…but at what cost? An entire day’s potential sales has been wasted. Your web design service may have been at fault – but more likely the blame lies squarely with you.
Web designing isn’t a “perfect science”. Breaks happen, but failing to repair them quickly can cause your business more harm than the actual breaks themselves. Read on to learn why you need to give website repairs your top priority, or risk facing deadly consequences.
The need for website repairs is a fact of life
If you call and ask any website designing agency to build you a website that never “breaks”, chances are that they’ll hang up the phone before you can say “please”. Websites need repairing, just as fridge or central heating/cooling system occasionally does. But the difference between those systems and your website is, that your broken website can be deadly if you don’t repair it – fast.
Your website design team shouldn’t be waiting for an irate customer to call, before a website repair is executed. If that’s what’s currently happening, you need to change that policy immediately. Here’s why:
- A website that isn’t patched and updated frequently by your web designing agency, may contain old or outdated plugins and add-ons. When visitors to your site, some of whom might be prospective customers, try to access the site using a more updated version of those plug-ins on their devices – they’ll fail Now what?
Well, if your web designing team isn’t aware of those issues, you could be losing out on a lot of revenue. Meanwhile, those disgruntled visitors are now happily spending money at your competitors’ site – uninterrupted and without a break
- A website that breaks frequently, could be masking a deeper issue. There may be malware and malicious code interfering with the site. If your web design agency doesn’t repair the site quickly, the harmful code could quickly engulf other aspects of your online presence – your blog, your social media sites…and much more.
Just as you rush to your mechanic when you detect a “strange noise” from underneath your car, you need to immediately have your website designer repair the affected components. Otherwise, your online business could eventually grind to a complete halt, and it would cost you a lot to fix
- A website in disrepair is like a house with a caved-in roof, broken windowpanes and an over-grown lawn. No house hunter will ever want to buy THAT If your web site design has flaws and defects, chances are that your visitors will notice. Pretty soon, they’ll be all over social media telling their friends, family members and contacts to stay away from your site.
If you don’t get your website designing team to proactively look for, find and repair design deficiencies, your brand could perpetually be destroyed. It’s easy for a bricks-and-mortar business to do damage control. But on the net sphere, once your site is tagged as “Needs Repair – constantly” – your business could be in deep trouble.
Finally, when your website isn’t repaired, search engines like Google tend to take note. If you have outdated software, broken links or suspicious code embedded in your website code, you’ll be blacklisted. You will be paying for web design services for months – if not longer – to get your site back in Google’s good books.
Prevention is better than a cure
Instead of being reactive about website repairs, it’s always best of you have a proactive strategy in place. What that entails is having your web designing services provider regularly conduct maintenance checks to uncover any deficiencies. These may include browser updates, software refreshes and repairs to broken widgets and add-ons.
Work with your web designer to immediately escalate major repair requirements to you, so that you – as the business owner or web administrator – can quickly take corrective action. Repairing minor website defects at your leisure isn’t a huge deal. The challenge for your web design team is determining what’s “minor” and what’s “major”.
Because of the consequences that even “minor” repairs could unleash on your business, it’s always best to fix any issues as soon as they are discovered – earlier if possible with preventative maintenance.