Congratulations, you've just launched a website! As you embark on your new digital presence, there are a few things you should know – like, what's the difference between website hosting and website maintenance?
What is Website Hosting?
Website Hosting is what you pay to keep the website live on the internet. It's the process of renting or buying space on a server to house your website, content, HTML, and CSS so that it can be viewable online.
Website hosting can be provided through your website design and development agency or a third party; this is ultimately up to you, as you'll be responsible for the monthly or annual charge.
How are website maintenance and website hosting different?
A useful analogy here would be the following: assume you are paying for a parking spot downtown. Paying for a parking spot here does not make the parking garage responsible for your oil changes or obligate them to offer roadside assistance if something goes wrong with your vehicle.
Similarly, payment for website hosting does not carry responsibility for site maintenance.
What is Website Maintenance?
Much like buying a new car, your website will require regular maintenance and updates for your website to continue to run optimally and without major disruptions.
Imagine what would happen if you bought a new car and never gave it an oil change; this is very similar to how websites run. Each month major website platforms push updates to technology components such as the core your website is built on and the plugins or widgets you've used throughout it.
What happens if your website is not properly maintained? Great question! Here are just a few things we've seen go wrong
- Website load time will slow
A slow website can lead to users leaving due to load times and poor user experience. - Loss of Position in Search
It's critical in SEO to have a quick-performing website as Search Engines penalize slow-loading websites with reduced positions in search - Website forms not submitting
Contact forms are a critical portion of your web presence; not updating your website can cause items like this to break and not submit. Ensure you're testing these regularly to ensure they are working! - Errors throughout the website & components not working
Did we mention poor user experience? Nobody enjoys coming to a broken website. - Your website could be hacked or get malware
Not updating your website regularly means you're not using the latest security to ensure your website doesn't get open hackers and Malware. This can be a costly endeavour, so it's better to be safe than sorry!
CAYK's roots in website development and hosting date back to 1994, and with this, so does our experience and expertise. When it comes to website hosting and website maintenance, we have an array of different services to suit your budget.
CAYK Care Plans ensure on a month-to-month basis that your website is getting updated, your contact forms are being tested, and backups are being taken, and that's just the beginning. Contact us at (403) 456 – 0072 to learn more!
