Website Management
Having a professional website brings an endless amount of benefits including sales and lead conversions.
Without a doubt, a website brings potential wealth to any entity that makes the investment with the right web development team.
But what happens after your web development team launches your new website?
Read on to learn more about managed website services and what you should expect on how to properly care for your new website.
What are Website Management Services?
Let’s start with the basics first – you find an available domain and you purchase it at a domain registrar like Godaddy or Google.
Next, you vet and hire a web developer to help you design a new website.
Your web developer should outline all of the proposed services from start to finish, and also what happens after they launch your new site.
If you are reading this post, there is a chance that you might not have received the proper direction on what to expect after your new website is up and running.
We believe in a continued partnership with all of our clients, and to this day we have had loyal clients from when we first started over a decade ago.
Simply put, website management services by a professional web development team will give you the longevity of your website lifecycle.
What is Included in Website Managed Services?
Although we can’t speak how other web development companies handle their web managed services, we can give you a general guideline on what should generally be included to maximize the life of your website.
Hosting
Hosting is what keeps your website online. There are a lot of companies online that provide hosting, and your web developer will either offer to have you pay them direct for hosting or they will have you set up a hosting plan that you manage. It is always better to have a web design company on a retainer or ongoing partner, because if something gets automatically updated and something conflicts your website can go down. If you are paying a hosting company for managed services, they can sometimes (but not always) help fix things.
Ongoing Updates
Websites require maintenance. Depending on how a developer builds a website, some websites require much more maintenance than others. An example for this would be if a WordPress web developer used a page builder or a templated theme, which requires much more maintenance than a web developer that builds a custom website without being reliant on smaller 3rd party plugin developers. Either way, ongoing maintenance is essential for the life cycle of a website, as well as the stress if your website is ranking and then it breaks after an update.
Content Changes & New Asset Uploads
We provide all of our clients with the option of letting us make new content changes or keeping us on standby for things that might be daunting. We build custom websites tailored to each of our clients, so generally the modular features of the site are super easy to use. We also provide training to our client’s internal staff regularly, so most of our enterprise and larger clients have a dedicated staff to make ongoing changes independently from us. If you are a smaller business or do not have the staff to help, you may want to check the box on this service when hiring a company for managed website services.
Web Security
Although this is a very real and necessary priority for the web hosting and data companies of the world, if you are paying a managed hosting company then you only need to worry about protecting your web admin login (use a 2-step Authy app) and making sure the website gets updated. This is especially important if you have 3rd party plugins as they can be vulnerable to exploits. A good managed hosting company will have tools in place if you do get hacked, like ongoing website backups and dedicated servers. A lower priced hosting company may sound appealing, but you are sharing resources with neighbors who may get hacked and spillover to your site. If you don’t hire managed web services partner opt for a quality managed hosting company.
Browser Rendering for New Devices
Technology changes fast – with the influx of gadgets and web consumption, there is no doubt that your website should looks great and optimally function on every new device that hits the market. While this is not detrimental to your site’s health, it can cause problems where actionable buttons are not rendering the way they should. A good managed hosting plan usually covers this, but you can easily hire an independent developer off of a site like Upwork. The downside to hiring an independent web developer is first finding one that is suitable for your website, then making sure they are qualified to help.
Analytics and Reporting
With our managed website services, our web design team collaborates with data analytics managers to ensure that websites are maximizing performance. By reviewing data and continually boosting conversion rate optimization, working with a Chicago managed website services company can help provide insights that can drive more web traffic and conversions. At first this would seem like a luxury item, but having a website online is just considered a brochure if no data or marketing channels are in place.
Advice from a Professional Web Development Company
When you find the right web developer partner, they will want to see you succeed. Like a personal trainer, an experienced web developer know what works and know what works really well. Sometimes just having an ongoing relationship with a web development company is worth the investment.
Website Maintenance Cost
Generally, website maintenance costs $29 to $5,000 per month.
The difference in cost is based on many factors, but the most obvious is the amount of support that is required, content changes that need to be made, and in some cases the amount of traffic that one site gets.
Unless you are never making changes to your website, then you are almost always going to win by choosing one dedicated company to manage your website for you.
If you haven’t hired a web development company yet then make sure you add another line item to your list of questions about the managed web services they offer.
For a general range on cost, you should consider a few things – paying contractors by the hour only when you need them can add up fast, so it is important to understand how your website was built.
On Upwork.com, an average range per hour for a WordPress developer is $15 – $28.
You can expect 3-5 hours per month for security and maintenance updates, and additional hours for content changes or technical support.
You may even want to consider hiring a website consultant to give you an idea on what to expect for future updates and content changes before making a decision on managed web services.
If you decide to pass on managed web services, then you’re going to need quality managed hosting.
A price range for a good managed hosting partner is going to be around $12 – $25 per month for a smaller site with lower traffic, and prices $50 and more for a mid-market websites and beyond.
The amount you pay for managed website services is important, but it shouldn’t be your ultimate deciding factor.
That’s because one agency might not be as efficient as another agency, and when your website goes down and you aren’t getting a response from your outsourced team then downtime can decrease your bottom line.
Have a question about managed website services?
Contact our Chicago web design team and we would be to help.