Website Maintenance Packages

Now that you understand the value of website maintenance, it’s time to figure out how much of the website maintenance you actually need.  Much like any other purchases you make for your business, the rates and prices should not be the only basis or the primary basis for the final choice.  Ultimately, the website’s needs are to be considered and it all depends on what type of website it is, its volume of traffic, and the kind of users or visitors it caters to.

A site analysis should be the first order of businesses when choosing from website maintenance packages.  Ask the service provider if they can give you this service for free to determine how much work needs to be done on how frequent it should be done.  If the site analysis comes with the package, then that’s a good place to start.

A site analysis report should include the website’s loading time, SEO optimization rating, file sizes and a few suggestions on how to improve the website further to meet the demands of its visitors and its market.

Website maintenance packages vary by frequency of the service per month.  As mentioned earlier, the website maintenance package you choose will depend on how often you require updates.

Most small businesses have websites that have a maximum of 3 to 5 pages, with only a few images, videos, information and a contact page.  These types of sites require no more than 3 to 4 updates per month. 

There are website that have multiple pages but do not have a large amount of text content. It rarely needs updating but often requires additional activity just to keep the site active and interesting such as a blog page.  This is still considered within the range of a simple website that requires a website maintenance package that gives services between 3 to 6 times per month.

Most websites that need website maintenance packages that offer daily updates and maintenance or a minimum of 10 updates per month are websites that incur heavy traffic and has call to action buttons, comment sections and plug ins, forms or order pages as well as carts. These types of webpages are usually in the field of online retail.

Website maintenance packages allow website owners to personalize the service depending on the need and the budget.  

Web Maintenance - A TO DO List For the Designated Web Master

Web maintenance is an ongoing activity that is necessary in website management.  These are tasks that ensure the website does its job of keeping you visible online (ranking high on SERPs) and that all plugins, forms and images appear and function properly. The following is an enumeration of what tasks are involved with web maintenance.  Remember that the list is very fundamental, and is just a portion of what web maintenance service providers do.

1.       Monitor the website daily. This is time consuming but necessary. Check your website for broken links, plugins, widgets, completed forms and potential hacking.

2.       Update blogs and edit them when you can.  Write at least an article per week to keep it interesting. Monitor, reply, approve and delete comments, the activity from the comments help site visibility and generate traffic. This better done daily and best not to go a whole week without updating.

3.       Review how your site is doing statistically.  You may use tools like Google Analytics to help you make improvements on your site. Do this every three months or per season, especially if your products and service is seasonal.

4.       Review your local search visibility in search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.  If you are a local business, it is much more important to rank higher in local searches.

5.       Check the browser compatibility of your website.  Browsers are constantly revamped and updated ones in a while and every now and then new ones are launched, so you have to keep up with the changes for the sake of your viewers and potential clients.

6.       Review your site for consistency, especially regarding content. Pages that advertise promotions and discounts and those that have date references need to be checked.

7.       Check your copyright and licenses as well as domain name registrations need to be checked yearly and at a timely manner. 

8.       Email accounts linked to the website must also be monitored, inactive ones need to be deleted and the website updated along with the changes.

Some of these tasks such as daily monitoring and blogging take most of the time of the designated web master. Some are better outsourced but that does not mean you are brought out of the loop.  Allocating the job to web maintenance services just means your job gets simpler so you can focus on what you do best.