Determine Your Website Maintenance Needs
When charged with budgeting for and managing your website maintenance, it might seem like the design and development process was a breeze! Depending upon the website's size and complexity you may need programmers, designers, HTML specialists, and project managers to help you keep your content current.
Whether you've already assembled an internal web team or are exploring outsourced website maintenance services, this article will help you determine the resources and service hours needed for the various updates required to keep your content fresh and relevant.
A good place to start is determining the frequency and nature of updates and improvements you'll want by week and month. To help you identify these, we've created a list of common website maintenance tasks. The list is separated into two broad categories, regular support/updates and periodic improvements. These activities range from simple text edits to more complex updates such as designing an entirely new section or adding new functionality to your website. Assume that items in the "regular support activities and updates" list are regularly occurring and not optional while tasks in the "periodic improvements" list might be less frequent but often deployed over a longer term and still a necessary aspect of your website maintenance strategy.
Regular Website Support Activities and Updates
- Simple text edits such as updates to published event schedules (e.g. training schedules, seminars, conference appearances)
- Addition of content such as client testimonials, case studies/success stories, press releases and news stories
- Design and creation of sales announcements/promotions
- Creation and testing of forms for sales lead generation, white paper downloads, customer support, client surveys and feedback
- Conversion of file formats, for example: Word Doc to PDF
- Design of buttons, banner ads, Flash and/or repurposing of images which were originally designed for print
- Design and creation of client newsletters
- Provisioning and monitoring for website link integrity checking
- Archiving content as it becomes old or outdated
- Auditing website for browser compatibility
- Obtaining Technical Consulting such as: preparation and assistance with moving to a new hosting service; server administration and maintenance; technical liaison to ISP/hosting service
- Implementation of search engine optimization
Periodic Website Improvements
(The suggestions below are general examples, but may be tailored to individual needs. Please note that, depending on scale, scope, and delivery timeframe requirements, some website improvements may most efficiently be performed under a separate project development contract.)
- Redesigning pages or sections to improve look and feel
- Creation of entirely new pages or sections
- Conducting usability assessments
- Website accessibility retrofit
- Reorganizing site structure for ease of future website maintenance
- Adding new functionality such as a local search function
- Developing custom tools such as a store or dealer locator
- Creation of administrative tools for self maintenance (e.g. press releases, newsletters, intranet phone books, FAQ)
Inventory Website Pages
Next, perform an inventory of your total number of actively updated website pages. The chart below provides a general guideline for Collaborint Website Maintenance Service hours typically required, to provide the activities listed above, for comprehensive upkeep of websites of various sizes:
| Number of pages | Suggested Hours |
|---|---|
| 1 - 50 pages: | 5 hours/month to 10 hours/month |
| 50 - 100 pages: | 5 hours/week to 10 hours/week |
| more than 100 pages: | 10 hours/week to 40 hours/week |
In summary, maintaining your website is important for a wide variety of reasons. What might not be so obvious is determining what activities are regularly required for upkeep and how much time and effort comprehensive website maintenance will take. We hope this document helps in that regard. If you are still unsure of your needs, please contact us to arrange a consultation. Remember that when you sign up for Collaborint's website maintenance services, you can always start small and increase the contracted maintenance hours as required. This means you pay for the amount of service that's just right for your needs while receiving comprehensive, reliable and focused expertise.
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San Francisco, California firm offers Website Management including: Website Maintenance and Web Design and Development Services.
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