In the complex and evolving world of SEO, maintaining a strong online presence involves the management and optimization of several moving parts.
Not only do you have to be constantly aware of the aesthetic appearance of your website by conducting technical tasks like image minification, implementing 301 redirects, and canonicalization, but ensuring that it is technically optimized and well-maintained is another responsibility on your to-do list.
Google, as we know, likes to move the proverbial goalposts as part of its continually progressive ranking algorithm, and site owners’ ideas of what technical SEO best practices are could change at any moment.
Yet looking more broadly, the issue of website maintenance and upkeep extends beyond SEO, rankings and traffic. The platform that your website sits on may undergo an update which, for some reason, could break your site. A plugin that you have installed may suddenly update and require reconfiguration. Unbeknownst to you, your site may encounter a bug which affects users’ ability to scroll or click on elements, thus possibly affecting your click-through rate (CTR) and conversions.
These are just some of the reasons why constant website maintenance is vital.
It’s not just about ensuring that your site is informative, visually appealing, and user-friendly, but also about maintaining peak performance in the face of ever changing search engine algorithms and emerging cyber threats.
The importance of site health for SEO
Search engine algorithms are constantly evolving, with Google regularly announcing intricate updates to its PageRank algorithm. Changes during 2024 included the core and spam updates in March, which essentially weakened the ranking abilities of third-party content, not closely managed by website owners and produced for the sole purpose of ranking.
As part of the core update, ‘unhelpful’ or ‘spammy’ content would be reduced by roughly 40%. A further 7-day rollout of spam updates in June 2024 soon followed.
Neglecting website maintenance leaves your site more prone to falling behind as search engines prioritize sites that offer the best user experience, content, and site speed. Google considers ‘site health’ (the overall security, stability, and technical integrity of a site) as part of its PageRank algorithm too.
The above illustration loosely portrays the Google PageRank algorithm and how it works – essentially, the underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other domains. PageRank, throughout the ever-expanding World Wide Web (WWW), measures webpage relevance by the number of links pointing to that site.
As you can see, webpage ‘B’ is receiving the most amount of referring links, and is therefore seen as more authoritative. However, it’s important to realize that in reality, Google considers numerous other ranking factors when determining page and domain authority (DA), not all of them are explicitly related to links.
Issues like broken links, 404 “not found” errors, slow page loading speeds, security vulnerabilities, duplicate pages, robots.txt optimization, XML sitemap configuration, SSL and TLS certification, and website architecture (among others) can all negatively impact site health and, by extension, SEO performance, rankings, and traffic.
What’s more, future core algorithm updates are hard to predict, meaning that web developers and technical SEO experts are constantly on their toes. These updates could invariably change not just how pages perform in search, but also the technical SEO strategies that have been adopted. They could prove to be ineffective a few months down the line.
By proactively maintaining your website, with monitoring tools that provide the necessary information to manage your flagged issues, you ensure that it continues to meet the latest search engine standards and provides visitors with a positive, high-quality experience.
Ensuring high-quality technical performance
Underneath any website is a complex, expansive repository of code, plugins, integrations, links, and more that must be kept up-to-date and patched to function properly and safely.
Outdated core system software, unpatched vulnerabilities, incompatible third-party tools, and unsecured server connections – among others – can contribute to a wide range of technical site issues that can directly or indirectly harm your organic website traffic and rankings.
These include (but are not limited to):
- Website vulnerabilities: A vital part of site maintenance is keeping the system and software updated with the latest security patches. Unpatched security flaws or failing to obtain a valid SSL/TLS certificate can leave your site, database, and critical business information, prone to theft, hacking and other malicious activities. If you encounter such activity, search engines could penalize you by delisting or removing your site, not to mention the possible reputational and financial damage you could suffer as a result. Maintaining robust security measures, with proactive vulnerability assessments, patch management and cyber incident response solutions, is vital.
- Broken links: Broken internal and external links aren’t just frustrating to users, but they can signal to users that your site isn’t well maintained. Regularly checking for and fixing these issues preserves link equity and ensures a much smoother user experience.
- HTTP status code errors: Running search engine crawlers can uncover pages that are generating HTTP status code errors, from 404 “not found” errors to server-side 5xx errors. A common obstacle for many site owners is properly implementing 301 redirects for pages, and overlooking this could be affecting Google’s ability to crawl and index them properly. Regularly auditing pages, and following best practices when redirecting, will be vital to ensure users get access to the correct resources they need.
- Slow page speeds: Search engines see fast loading speeds as part of a positive user experience, as users get access to the most important pages and elements with minimal delay. Slow speeds, conversely, can negatively impact user experience (UX), frustrating users and raising page bounce rates. Optimizing images, minifying JavaScript and CSS files, and assessing pages through Core Web Vitals will need to become an ongoing process.
- Content issues: While more of an on-page SEO strategy than an explicitly technical one, it’s important to remember that Google values authenticity, expertise and experience in content. Content that doesn’t meet this criteria is negatively affected in the rankings. This is why regularly reviewing, refreshing, and enhancing your site content in line with Google’s recommendations is best for both your site health and your visitors.
Enhancing UX and engagement
UX is an essential part of SEO success nowadays, with search engines valuing websites that provide visitors with an engaging and seamless experience. Regular maintenance is integral to ensuring your site continuously offers a rewarding and fulfilling experience for your visitors.
With most website traffic now coming from mobile devices, ensuring mobile responsiveness is vital. Test your website to confirm how it looks and responds on a variety of mobile devices to ensure that anybody with a smartphone can access and use it as intended.
Another factor to consider is accessibility when it comes to your site, which also positively impacts SEO. By adding such elements as relevant alt text and filenames to images (so search engines can index them and that people with visual impairments can understand what is on the page), implementing breadcrumb navigation and establishing a logical site and URL structure, you can broaden your site appeal across your audience base.
This illustrates just how regular site maintenance is not just an SEO essential but also – and arguably more importantly – integral to giving your potential customers a great first glimpse into your business.
[Case Study] Handling multiple site audits
The return on investment (ROI) of website maintenance
Digital marketing is a constantly changing discipline, with new search engine trends, technologies, and algorithms updating all the time. Staying on top of all of these external factors is resource-intensive at the best of times, but with a proactive website maintenance strategy in tow, you’ll be able to capitalize on new opportunities and position your site for long-term SEO success.
Staying on top of security threat updates and mitigation strategies can pave the way for deploying additional measures to keep your site, data, and assets safe. Doing so will enable you to keep your site in a safe and stable position.
The key is not to view website maintenance as an additional cost, but rather, a meaningful and worthwhile investment in your site. The long-term benefits of added resilience, stability, and improved website UX and SEO will far outshine any upfront costs associated with upgrading your stack.
Today’s competitive digital marketing space calls for site owners to be proactive and methodical when keeping on top of their assets. Don’t let your site suffer by neglecting vital site maintenance steps that can keep your traffic and rankings intact and destined to grow.