Many people set up a website, and believe that’s it, and it’s because of this notion that we have so many out-dated, boring, and bland websites out there, and no one is visiting them! Web development is a never ending job!
After setting up a website, it takes a few weeks after to really get things settled down. Little tweaks here and there, new additions, and new content. As a website develops, new ideas come into flow, and these ideas need to be implemented and tested. Some work, some don’t.. And then you get this wickedly awesome idea to make a big change, and well, you can foresee where that is going. (Most of my personal web projects go like that).
Content, The Most important Factor of a Website
Updated content keeps your visitors coming back. For instance, you wouldn’t keep going back to a website when you’ve already seen everything, and they don’t have anything new and interesting. It would be stale. Therefore, a weekly updated website is a great way to keep people interested. Some websites need to be updated daily, some weekly, but it’s purely on the type of website, and the type of traffic and market.
Update or Die a Horrible Death…
If you don’t update a website, you’ll cause yourself a lot go unnecessary stress. Malware is usually the most common occurrence in outdated websites, and Google LOVES to throw up that lovely red malware warning page even after you’ve cleaned up the mess. The point is, UPDATE THE WEBSITE!
Updating the core is one thing, then you have plugins or modules. Wordfence takes the guessing out of whether or not you have pending updates on WordPress. Download and install this plugin, however, WordPress does not tell you if all your plugins are in fact up to date; you’ll have to manually check this in the plugin listing (I’m referring to the unattended plugins which developers have abandoned. There is no automated way to actually tell if all of your plugins are in fact up to date and compatible with your current version of WordPress). Drupal is a bit better with this, you can actually see the version in the module listing.
Track your Visitors
Google Analytics is by far one of the best web-traffic monitors out there. It’s open-source (free) and it’s like everything else Google, clean. I especially love the fact that I can see not only how many people visit, but also where they came from, how search engines find the website, and much MUCH more. Just go and sign up and throw the analytics code into your site and you’ll see the results. And to make it even better, there is a Google Analytic plugin for WordPress, making the data collection swift; this also has an added bonus of a visits counter on the Admin Dashboard.
Time to Make some Money!
Last but not least, time to make some money from your website. After you have realised that you actually have people coming to your website, why not make some money from it. Google ads is a great way to do this. All you need to do is sign up, create an ad and literally Copy-and-Paste the code into the website, and if it’s a WordPress website, then a Text/HTML Widget on the sidebar is a great place to drop it.
***
If you have any questions or comments, please send an email to [email protected]
Cheers.
