16 November 2009
The benefits of website maintenance are measurable and are being proven daily by successful websites. These days it's impossible to make a profit from your website if it doesn't constantly feature fresh content. If you own an online shop, you should be adding new products or featuring different products with promotions. If you have knowledge to share with the community, you should be writing periodic blog posts or e-mail newsletters. Every website is different and requires a different type of maintenance. However, all websites do have one thing in common - if they aren't updated with fresh content....they'll FAIL!

Now the tricky decision is whether you need to hire a full-time in-house webmaster, delegate the new duties to current employees, or outsource the maintenance work to an experienced web development company.

Issues with In-House Website Maintenance

Training and Employee Retention

If you choose one of the first two options, you will need to either train current employees, or be sure to hire a qualified website expert. Both of these options can be expensive, and time-consuming. Also, when employees eventually leave your company, the process starts over and you need to train new employees. You may think that maintaining a website is simple, but without knowledge of multiple coding languages, how to develop with support for all browsers and operating systems, and the proper design skills....simple updates can become very complex and cause delays.

Fluctuating Levels of Work

Once your employees get used to managing your website, will they be able to handle increases or decreases in the level of work required? What if the website crashes? Or your database gets hacked? Will your employees have the time and knowledge to quickly take care of these issues?

Hardware and Software Costs

Even if your systems are capable of testing and deploying new content to the website, do you have the software necessary to make these changes? Adobe CS4 alone costs $2,499, not to mention the time it takes to learn how to use these programs.

Staying Current with Trends and Technologies

This is by far the most important issue with in-house website maintenance. When employees are updating the website as a side project, they can't dedicate their time to learning all about the internet. When your website isn't treated as a high priority, the content and updates you publish won't be high quality either. When you outsource your website maintenance tasks to a web development company, you know they will be staying current with market trends and technologies. It's their job. It's their focus. And the work they produce leads to stronger results for your business.

Benefits of Outsourcing Website Maintenance

I can't speak for all web development companies since the service we offer is fairly unique, so I'll focus on our specific website maintenance package.

Experience, Experience, Experience

We stay current with all development, marketing, and maintenance trends and we try something new with every project. Our skillset is always growing with each website update we make. We can update your content, add inventory, edit photos, build e-mail campaigns, write content, develop videos, optimize your website, or even help you with your marketing!

Dramatically Lower your Costs

This may sound like enough work to justify a full-time job, but it isn't. The majority of our clients are small businesses and they only require a handful of hours each month. A task that may take 5 hours for an inexperienced worker to accomplish would only take us 30-60 minutes.

Plan for the Future

Our vision for each project we work on goes beyond the next deadline. We are always looking forward and with each update, we consider the short and long term effects. We are always available if you have any questions about your website and love speaking with our clients about their online strategy.

Most Importantly, Relax!

By putting your website in the hands of professionals, you won't have to worry about monitoring employees, dealing with technical difficulties, or even managing projects.

Conclusion

You need to update your website periodically

It is much more time and cost effective to outsource your maintenance tasks

People may visit your website once, but what is encouraging them to come back a second, third, and fourth time? Without content updates, a blog, or an e-mail newsletter, there is no reason for customers to come back to your site as far as they're concerned. How many opportunities are you missing out on by not taking your website seriously?