Entering the world of Drupal web development can feel like diving into the unknown for many business owners. Once they've figured it out with the help of a developer or a Drupal development agency, the business runs smoothly for a little while.
However, building and optimizing a website is like buying a new house—it's functional at first, but things break down and need repairing and regular care in time.
Since spring is just over the corner, what better moment to start cleaning, improving, optimizing, and refreshing your website? Whether you do it in-house or hire an agency that offers Drupal maintenance services, it will work wonders and could actually double your potential market value.
But first, it's essential to understand why a regular maintenance plan is critical, how to tell when you need Drupal Maintenance, and what does Drupal maintenance include. This article will answer these questions.
Why you should stick to a regular Drupal maintenance plan
If you've already entered the world of digital marketing, you know that the journey towards attracting and retaining customers doesn't end with web development and deployment. Change is a permanent constant in life, and businesses have to adapt to this ever-changing dynamic.
Security
A few years ago, website maintenance was optional. Building a static website that you could leave unattended for the entire year was perfectly normal.
Today, as the digital landscape has expanded and become more prone to security vulnerabilities, Drupal support is imperative for maintaining a healthy security posture.
Although Drupal is known for being the most secure CMS, this only applies if your Drupal website is regularly optimized with security updates and patches. The Drupal community and Drupal security team continuously build security patches, fixes, and upgrades, and Drupal users need to be in the loop about these updates. In other words, keeping up with the news and module updates in Drupal security is vital in order to avoid breaches.
Constant Drupal core module updates can boost website protection and secure it against cyberattacks and threats.
Fixing errors
To ensure that your website performs well and meets the needs for speed and agility that the modern digital user demands, fixing bugs and errors is a top priority.
These malfunctions may happen for multiple reasons—rushed coding and deployment, inadequate testing, or miscommunication. They may affect your site's performance and loading speed or even alter your Drupal website’s functionality.
And since users don't want to spend more than four seconds waiting for websites to load, not paying attention to repairing bugs could cost you customers.
This price is too big to pay, and it's worth considering Drupal maintenance services as part of your website strategies.
Keep your content fresh with new features
Another reason why Drupal maintenance matters is related to scalability. Drupal websites can grow together with your business goals. Constant feature and module updates allow Drupal users a high level of customizing capabilities that helps businesses keep up with the changing needs of the customer.
With Drupal 8, integration is much more affordable, so if you haven't migrated yet, you might want to contact a Drupal agency to help you decide whether an upgrade is the right choice for your business.
The user behavior has dramatically shifted in the last year, which is why content optimization, new features, and enhancements allow brands to stay fresh and align to this changing environment.
SEO optimization
Ranking high on Google and other search engines is crucial for your website to stay relevant. An excellent Drupal maintenance team has SEO experts that provide Drupal SEO audits and optimization.
“Good SEO work only gets better over time. It’s only search engine tricks that need to keep changing when the ranking algorithms change.” – Jill Whalen
How to tell when you need Drupal maintenance
If you're not yet convinced that you need Drupal support and maintenance services for your website, here are some indicators that you can't postpone it any longer without hurting your business:
- Your website is slow, and you have received complaints about its loading speed.
- Your web traffic has dropped considerably.
- You experience more security breaches.
- Your content and design are outdated.
- Links, buttons, or forms are not working.
These are some of the red flags of poorly maintained websites. If you recognize these warning signs as part of your website, it's definitely time to start planning your maintenance strategy.
What do Drupal maintenance services and support include?
A useful maintenance model covers:
- Security and module updates
- Third-party integration support
- Regression testing
- Bug diagnosing, fixing, and testing
- Hosting infrastructure maintenance
- Hack, malware, down recovery
Partner with the right Drupal maintenance and support agency
When thinking about hiring a Drupal maintenance team, you need to consider your needs. At Optasy, we cover a wide range of website maintenance requirements and can create a customized maintenance and support plan to support your website's specific needs.
How does this sound to you? Have you made up your mind whether it is worth investing in Drupal maintenance services or not?
If yes, then contact a reliable, dedicated support partner like Optasy and see how our Drupal maintenance services and Magento development maintenance support services can keep your website up and running.
Photo credit: geralt on Pixabay.
