Your site is built, you’ve launched, job done right? Sorry, not so fast. Website maintenance is a complex and yet imperative task, and with so many other elements to your business, it’s understandably almost impossible to do yourself, even if it is within your skill set.
That’s where web maintenance plans come in. To put it simply, a web maintenance plan is like insurance for your website. If your website is your main way of gaining leads, or you’re running an online store, your site is essentially your livelihood. Like insuring your work vehicle or your produce, you need to insure your website.
Here’s how your business can benefit from a web maintenance plan:
- Never worry about backing up your work again
Losing your site’s content, and heaven forbid your entire database, can be nothing short of catastrophic for any web-based business. Backing up your work is crucial for the security of your content, but in reality, who has time to do this at the end of each work day? Most web maintenance plans will offer this as a key feature, with daily off-site remote back-up being one of the safest options for you. This one is an absolute winner in saving you time and the hassle of this tedious task. This alone is worth the cost of some low-level plans.
- Have an expert on-call
If a team of IT experts isn’t in your budget, a web maintenance plan might just fill the gap in terms of someone who can make emergency updates or changes to your site quickly. Most platforms will make you a priority as a maintenance customer and will include a certain amount of “fixes” within your package. So if something looks wrong or goes belly up, you can skip the whole $120 per hour bill for the services of a one-off external resource. Problems or “fixes” that require urgent attention may include: content changes, layout adjustments, trouble with adding blog entries, editing menu items, adding images or slideshows, fixing buttons, and more. For this point in particular, maintenance is about availability not necessarily the amount of work.
- 24/7 Security
Don’t be fooled into thinking your site is too small to attract a hacker. Rather, hackers see small, simple sites as easy conquests, and since they are virtual pests, there’s no telling what they will do to your site, and it’s content, now and in the future. Here’s an alarming stat for you, according to Forbes, last year 30 000 sites were hacked. Bottom line, you can’t afford to be a sitting duck. Choose a plan that at the very least offers protection from hackers and spammers and one that protects their own server with built-in safe guards for added peace of mind.
- Enhance your user experience & increase sales
When your website works seamlessly with live buttons and fast page loading, it sings “I’m a successful business – pick me!” Slow sites with buttons that don’t work and pages that fail to load or go anywhere send people running into the arms of your competitors. You may only have potential customers on your site for a short time, so make your first impression a great one. You can’t expect your customers (when they are so spoilt for choice) to accept an inferior product from the get-go. Enhance your user experience and turn potential clients into profits.
- Save money in the long run
Once you’ve built your website you need to maintain it, and, most importantly, it needs to be serviced regularly. If you fail to update, back-up and run a secure site you are leaving yourself unarmed and vulnerable to those pesky viruses and dreaded hackers who wreak havoc for fun. Like health insurance, insuring your website is vital for the health of your business, and in most cases it’s just as easy to sign up for.
Are you interested in a low-cost monthly web maintenance plan? Our plans start at just $60 per month which includes hosting, software updates, site monitoring, security, daily site back-up and so much more. See our support and maintenance plans here
