Website Maintenance: What You Don’t Know Could Hurt Your Website
As someone who has spearheaded website projects large and small for many years I have been through different phases of web development and website trends. A few years ago, I saw a huge shift in the amount of sites that went from being managed by developers to being managed by content writers with the help of Content Management Platforms and tools like WordPress. Giving content writers the ability to publish their own content is a great gift! But, with all this power in the hands of content developers is easy to forget that websites still need maintenance. In fact, content managed websites need even more than your old school static websites because of the technology that allows you to make those content changes.
What Kind of Website Maintenance Can I Expect to Have to Make on a Content Managed Website?
This really depends on a few factors: budget, size of site, level of site customization, and on what platform the site was built. I think that clients for the most part fall into two categories. The first category is what I would call Proactive Clients. These are companies that want to always remain up to date with the latest technology and updates to ensure that they always have the newest fixes, added functionality, and stay out in front of network compatibility changes that could impair the website’s functionality or worse, bring it down entirely. And second there are Reactive Clients. These clients are the type that may notice something odd in the administrative system or see an alert for an update and call to have it addressed.
Benefits of Taking a Proactive Approach to Website Maintenance
Staying out in front of web updates to platforms and plugins while being an investment upfront could eliminate needless downtime and/or troubleshooting when a major change occurs. Like people, computers can get sick. There are ways to prevent that from happening, it is called a maintenance contract. Once you see “symptoms” most times it is too late… and the result could mean costly procedures to get things in tip top shape again. In the end, a web maintenance contract will save you money. Maybe not right away but almost certainly down the road.
Can I Perform My Own Web Maintenance or Should I Consider a Website Maintenance Contract?
That depends on the level of website customization, the admin platform, and what your credentials are. Most of my clients cannot maintain their own sites without the help of a developer (even those that have IT departments). It is important to think about and discuss this with your web or marketing team before you try to do anything on your own. In other words don’t play doctor, consult one first.
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