Unless you are living under a rock, a digital presence is a given for any organization. To sustain such a digital presence, you would need a platform that is capable of addressing the current wants and needs of your customers and market, as well as evolve according to the unforeseeable future.
Building your website or application or project on Drupal empowers you to achieve exactly that. However, creating a website, web app, or e-commerce platform is just the halfway mark in your digital journey. For it to be a continuously active and functional entity, your Drupal project must be up-to-date.
So, it is crucial that you have a dedicated Drupal support and maintenance partner, who can ensure the consistent performance of your platform. Although the term performance might seem unidimensional, it is actually governed by multiple factors, which we unearth in this blog along with what your Drupal partner should offer.
Why should you care for a regular Drupal maintenance plan?
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‘Cybercrime is the greatest threat to every company in the world’ - IBM’s chairman, president, and CEO
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Security is an important aspect of performance. A compromised website or app is the last thing anyone desires; it could be revealed, changed, or destroyed. The perpetrators can hack users’ personal data, post unacceptable content, or scam them. To avoid such unpleasant consequences, your Drupal project demands appropriate supervision and immediate action in the event of such an occurrence. Albeit this in itself is a conclusive reason to resort to high-quality Drupal support and maintenance, there’s mo
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Customer satisfaction and retention depends on quick access to new features
Drupal is an active open source community with a global presence. Drupalers work on contributions around the clock to add and improve its core features. So, it is only natural that you would want to stay on top of these updates to improve customer experience and gain a competitive advantage.
Moreover, with Drupal 7 reaching the end of life in November 2023, you will need a service provider who can help you migrate to Drupal 9. In case migration is not on the cards for the moment, you will still need D7 support, post end of life. A Drupal vendor who offers long-term support should be your ideal choice.
However, it is about time to migrate to Drupal 9 as it is already undergoing continuous innovation and minor upgrades and versions are released frequently. A timely migration will empower you to provide customers with a compelling and fresh digital experience.
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Continuous SEO optimization is imperative for enhanced content visibility
Improving organic reach and optimizing content for SEO ranking is not a one-time job. With search engine algorithms evolving constantly, you need to keep the SEO optimization wheel well greased and constantly moving. Drupal offers a wide gamut of features and modules that can help with SEO optimization. But, at the same time, your website also requires ongoing Drupal SEO support to view tangible results.
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Survival of the Agile
For every entrepreneur, their business is a sapling that they would want to see grow each day. To reap such results, businesses need to adapt and scale up proactively. To embark on such a journey, you would need rapid content updates and enhanced features to quickly digest data and alter your offerings, according to user behavior. Even though technical expertise is not required for content updates, implementing new features and enhancements requires technical prowess.
With a full-fledged business comprising multiple departments, already on your plate, having another technical wing only adds to your burden. On the other hand, offloading your Drupal support and maintenance to a deft technology partner is definitely more practical, cost-effective, and time-saving. They will work on your Drupal project day-in and day-out, while you get to focus exclusively on your business goals.
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Unceremonious downtimes can damage your brand identity
Imagine this, you are about to make an essential purchase via an app and the website crashes for the next 15 mins just before completing the transaction. Would you trust the website or brand again to make a purchase?
Website maintenance, feature failure, server outage, etc., are unpleasant experiences, but avoidable. Here again, dedicated support and maintenance play a vital role in keeping up reliability. With resources working meticulously on your Drupal project, these sudden breakdowns can be avoided with preemptive action. This gives your business the authority to schedule downtime and you can even intimate your users beforehand via email or push notification.
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No love for websites slow as a snail
You surely do not want your users to go through such an experience on your app or website. With consistent code cleaning, bug fixes, and timely updates, speed optimization is a guaranteed result. An updated Drupal website also ensures accessibility, which benefits your users when they are in a low bandwidth area.
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Your website glitches need a stitch in time
A 404 error can arise from anywhere. And of course, having an interactive error page is engaging. But that’s not what your users are there for. Although 404 error pages don’t really hurt your SEO, if your users constantly end up on broken pages, this adds to a bad customer experience. Not just broken pages, a malfunctioning button, form, or hyperlink, everything hampers the browsing experience. So, a dedicated team can perform UAT to identify and weed out the glitches, just in time.
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Undo ‘accidental delete’ with site recovery
An ‘accidental delete’ is not a first-off instance. Your Drupal maintenance partner helps you with the backup process and this comes in handy in case of disaster recovery. It is just another facet of supporting the uninterrupted functioning of your business.
So, what do Drupal maintenance services and support include?
As a Drupal company that has been in this space for over two decades, we know the exact SLAs vary from provider to provider. However, we feel before you go ahead to find a partner, you should be aware of the standard services in this area:
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Security patch and core updates
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24/7 Monitoring
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Incident management
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Reducing technical debt
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Performance optimization
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Minor Enhancements & bug fixes
Srijan can restore your peace of mind
We believe these points conclusively prove that partnering with an experienced Drupal company will benefit you in every way possible. Our expansive suite of support and maintenance services is meant to handle the complex, integrated, and ongoing needs of your enterprises' Drupal properties. We believe in understanding your business and then identifying a customized plan for you. To build your strategic maintenance plan, take the first step.
