Starting a website is great. It is a fantastic way to share an interest, a passion, information, or even a business with others. As your commitment to your website grows, so too does the value grow.

Your website becomes filled with more and more information and content, it becomes more authoritative, it starts attracting more visitors, and it can quite often become a profit making venture. Generally, the more effort you put into your website in terms of content, design, and promotion, the more successful you will be at meeting any goals that you may have had when you first started building your site.

Now as the success of your website continues to grow, it becomes more and more important to take care of many of the mundane, but essential, elements of maintaining a website on the internet.

At this stage your small “hobby” type website might be better thought of as an asset, and assets in any business need to be maintained, both in planning and practice.

So all the individual components that make your web “asset” perform properly are now fundamental in how your website “business” operates. For example you may have visitors who rely on the information you provide, you may have a membership who require the access that was promised, you may have customers who have a purchase history that needs to be referenced, or you simply may have contact details that need to be communicated.

There are many behind-the-scenes routines that need to be carried out in order for your website to run smoothly, securely, and consistently. There may be scripts running that need to be maintained, plug-ins that require updating, databases that require optimizing, core WordPress updates that need to be carried out (or whatever other CMS you may be using), and a regular back-up regime needs to be in place and followed.

These routines ensure that your website “asset” is secure for both you and your visitors. It provides a consistency in what it was designed for (eg. membership, information, lead generation, customer service, selling of digital or physical goods etc) and it performs in an expected way. And that all the digital “nut and bolts” working in the background, are subjected to a regular back-up process so that in the event of a catastrophic failure (server malfunction, outside hacking, etc) your site can very easily be restored.

Keep a lookout! … Your asset continues, your business continues, and your income flow continues…

Of course it takes a significant effort to provide the content to grow your website, but hopefully I have conveyed the significance and importance of taking care of ALL of the various elements of your web asset. The time it takes to monitor and maintain the various machinations of your website can soon become overwhelming.

Now let’s imagine that your success and drive continue, and that one web asset turns into two, and that turns into four, and that in turn becomes eight. Eventually you may have upwards of twenty or more, functioning and successful web assets that have become part of your web “business”.

The need for constant monitoring, regular maintenance, updating, upgrading, and backing up, not only becomes vitally important, but it also becomes near impossible.

At this point you require some sort of automation when it comes to all these components and necessities.

Throughout these pages we will endeavor to visit, critique, and recommend some of the various solutions out there (of which there are many).