Ever wonder what will happen if your hospitality website breaks down, or heaven forbid, is hacked.
What are you going to do?
Call a website developer and get them to get it back online – for a whooping BIG fee, no doubt!
And what if the backup hasn’t been working correctly – this needs to be checked regularly (do you even know if your have a backup system in place?)
No current backup and you’ll have to re-build the website or at least redo the last lot of changes you made – that just leads to headaches and heartaches!!
Many people forget that their website is just like any software, it requires maintenance to keep functioning at its peak performance.
Think of it like your car, you wouldn’t drive your car very long if you didn’t look after its maintenance, would you? Well, the same is true of your website.
We have said it before and will say it again – your website is your hardest working employee and should always be presenting your business at its finest 24/7/365.
This precious tool needs to be looked after though.
It’s no longer a “Set and Forget” resource
Remember the early stages of the internet – you got a website built back in 2000 and it lasted years with minimal intervention. This is no longer case.
Why?
Because technology is changing rapidly including booking and reservation systems, eCommerce, mobile devices, Google algorithms and how the end user (your perspective customer) uses the internet.
So, don’t be fooled into thinking a website is built and then you can leave it for another 5 years. A successful hospitality website is a continual work in progress.
That’s why we love WordPress, it is easy to make changes and scale to your hospitality business needs.
But, you do need to maintain your website and if you don’t have website maintenance carried out monthly, you may actually be throwing money out the window.
This is simply because most hospitality business owners are too busy running their restaurant, hotel, bar, winery etc. They forget to check their website to see how it’s functioning.
So when visitors go to a website and find the reservation button, wine shop not working, or the website displaying incorrectly, they won’t stick around. These missed website issues or downtime lose you potential bookings and revenue.
The benefits of maintenance
Many business owners don’t realise the benefits of website maintenance.
Website performance including load time, downtime and uptime, is all dependent on the software and plugins functioning as they should.
Website scalability, fresh content, analytics monitoring and design changes, are all dependent on you having someone making sure all updates to the website are undertaken in a smooth and error-free fashion.
Dangers of ‘Do It Yourself’ maintenance
Maintaining a website yourself could cost you more than you may think. If you just update from your WordPress admin dashboard, you wouldn’t have a record of what work has been undertaken.
Now, don’t get me wrong as we are strong supporters of managing content additions in-house. So, if you want to change a menu item, add new imagery or a new wine product to your eCommerce (online shop) – then you need to have this ability to do this yourself. Don’t let any website developer ever tell you otherwise!
There is a happy medium.
We are not talking about updating content here, we are talking website maintenance.
If an update to a plugin created an issue a couple weeks later, it would be difficult to know what changed and how you should revert back without restoring a very old backup (and possibly losing content changes, sales orders, contact entries, you name it).
It really does cost more to fix than to maintain
Inexperience and neglect can damage the look and functionality of your hospitality website.
When that happens, you have a choice to make.
- You try and fix it yourself, in which case you may do further damage.
- You can then pay the (sometimes hefty) price for someone experienced to fix it.
Just like your car, it costs more to fix it than it does to maintain it properly. Regular oil changes help keep your car running properly – regular site maintenance helps keeps your web site running properly.
WordPress Care Plans
That’s where a website maintenance package comes in handy (or as we call them – WordPress Care Plans).
A solid Care Plan should cover:
- Regular website backups
- Updating plugins and themes
- Testing for any issues after updates
- Database optimisation
- Regular performance and security scans
- Speedy assistance if things do go awry
TIP
Now before you start down the road of a new website build, ask the website developer – Do you offer Website Maintenance Plans?
If they answer no, Run Away Fast!
Would you try to fight that court battle without a lawyer? Then why try to maintain your own website if you’re not a web professional? By securing an experienced web professional to update and maintain your site properly you are actually saving potential lost sales and visitors.
Any yes, we of course offer WordPress Care Plans as we want to ensure our tourism, hospitality and wine clients have their best foot forward 24/7/365.
Until next time…..
