Website maintenance query

[Alaque Simpson]

Hello

I am a little confused, is the cost of website development is more than the cost of website maintenance? It's tough guessing a price of website maintenance by the hourly plans offered by few sites.

Do we need so much of maintenance after the website is done?

[Patrysha]

Getting a website up is only the first step of marketing online.

A website in this day and age is never complete. You can't expect a site to just go up and stay stagnant and unchanging and still work.

New content must be added, testing and tweaking to increase response rates and conversions, working on building backlinks and other traffic generation and search engine optimization elements is another piece of the ongoing puzzle.

Plus there are security type things that must be done to keep the site up and running.

It should not be hard to guess the ongoing investment...the web company you choose will likely give you a retainer package estimate for ongoing maintenance and work so that you have a solid monthly fee that you'll know about going in. While it is hard to estimate from just looking at what is offered through their marketing, once you develop a relationship and get the ball rolling - you will be clear on the costs before committing to a design and maintenance package.

[Harold Mansfield]

Hello

I am a little confused, is the cost of website development is more than the cost of website maintenance? It's tough guessing a price of website maintenance by the hourly plans offered by few sites.

Do we need so much of maintenance after the website is done?

This is a very broad question because there are so many variables.

What kind of service are your getting?

Some companies offer ongoing SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and other services to help your website mature, place in the Search Engines, maybe even help run your Adwords advertising campaign....and as part of the deal they will change, and update your website for you.

In a case like this, you aren't really paying for maintenance, you are paying for other services after the fact that many times are contracted separately.

Some offer hosting. Although I don't recommend it, if the service provide is also hosting your website ( because you need to have it hosted somewhere) then there would be an ongoing fee associated with that as well.

Then it also depends on what type of site you are having built. Some software and platforms require frequent updates and security patches which , if you don't know how to do it, would require someone knowledgeable to do it for you.

It could also depend on your needs. If you need to update your content frequently, change relevant information, swap out products, and so on, then you may need someone on call to take care of that as well.

If none of these things apply, then you may want to consider opting out of any monthly maintenance in loo of paying the occasional hourly rate if you need something changed or updated.

Another option is to have your site built on a CMS (Content Management System) like Wordpress, that you can learn how to operate, and update yourself and only have to call on a pro for the more technical stuff.

There are a lot of reasons why, but also a lot of other options. It all depends on what you need, so it's hard to give a clear answer without knowing the details.

[billbenson]

In addition to whats been said above, most web sites rely on good placement on the search engines, especially Google. To rank well with Google is complicated, but one of the important factors is new fresh content. If search engine placement is important, try to add a new page every week. Every day would be better, but difficult to do.

You can do this by giving page copy to a company that is managing your site or as Eborg mentioned, having a CMS such as WordPress allows you to pretty easily do it yourself for free.

[jimr451]

One comment I have on maintenance - a lot of people decide to "do it themselves", and for some items, this may be ok.

However, my experience is that when my clients make their own updates, they lack the ability to keep fonts, styles, colors, etc. consistent, and site starts to degrade. Even with the "WYSIWYG" editors out there, it's easy to make a mess.

My analogy is to construction. Let's say you decide to "maintain" your office space yourself. You can do the vacuuming and dusting no problem. But what if you want to swap out the carpeting? Or need to bust out a wall to add some more space? Or install a new window? If you do these yourself, it'll show (unless you are proficient in that type of work). No, for those jobs, you hire a pro, who can get it done right.

You just have to determine where that line is. But if you are going to splurge for a nice design, it makes sense to keep it looking professional, imo.

-Jim

[Paper Shredder Clay]

It definitely depends on the site. I have some clients who rarely needs their site updated maybe a couple times in a year. If a site needs updating regularly a good developer will be able to make it so an employee can update it themselves.