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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 Maintenance Activities and Updates

• Simple text edits such as updates to published event schedules (e.g. training schedules, seminars, conference appearances)
• Implementation of search engine optimization
• 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 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• Archiving content as it becomes old or outdated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

Periodic Website Improvements

• 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

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. You can always start small and increase 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.