My good friend Mark asked me for a quote to run his marketing website, I thought at first "Well it's simple, you just have to upgrade the sketch, update the articles and reshuffle the gallery" – Then I found out, the website was created in a broken system, cumbersome code and content whose level raises my doubts about the quality of the website construction company that made the current website for him.
So according to my worldview, the research I did on Mark and Bunz's site'market soup; What does quality website management actually include and does the answer lie in the knowledge of the website builder?
Professional website maintenance - not what you thought
I spent many days reviewing Mark's site, the code looked clumsy and primitive, the tags looked like they came out ofWebsite building guide of HTML in 2001 and promoting, shall we say - "Full keyword compression". Then came enlightenment "If the site was built correctly, it would be easier to maintain it".
While writing him a quote and going over the multitude of options before him, I decided to write for you – The public browsing the guide / the following article which summarizes for you how much professional website maintenance costs and why website management is only a small part of the equation.
So what is professional website maintenance?
Like Mark, many clients approach me with a request for a quote, but do not clearly specify what their requirements are. In order for you to also request a quote from the website builder or a professional website construction company with a detailed description of your requirements, we have divided the maintenance stages into paragraphs.
In order to understand, we divided the maintenance into 5 main topics
Writing content for websites
The main part of the work in website maintenance includes content for the website. Content is anything defined as text, whether it is creating website items, products, a service page, a text page, or an article. The exact definition is "content". – The content for the website can be created using artificial intelligence (such as ChatGPT, Google AI, etc"b) or by a professional specializing in content writing. Writing the content for the website was a central part of the website maintenance process because the surfers on your website read, navigate and browse it; And like this article, there are many pages on your website that require professional content writing – Whether it is by artificial intelligence or by a content writer, it is important that the content be marketing, comprehensive and in the various parts of the site also informative in order to maximize marketing, promotion and converting surfers into customers.
Content design for websites
In contrast toWeb design services, graphics as part of content design for websites does not pertain to the overall website design, but to images and parts that include design areas within the current structure of the website. For example: in this article, images were chosen for the upper part of the website, and for the content areas within the article, therefore this service is defined as content design for websites. For the purpose of designing the graphics for the site's content, the maintenance manager or the website construction company will be required to do this using artificial intelligence (as has been the practice in recent years), selecting images from image databases or using a professional designer specializing in Photoshop. Today, you can also design custom photos on sites like Envato or choose photos and videos from sites like ShutterStock.
For example: we were recently contacted by a client who wanted to build a website to display his products (clothing with personal embroidery), we advised him that it is possible to display the images on presenters (models) using artificial intelligence, thus saving the issue of professional photographs to display the products.
Website programming
The website code is by far the most expensive part to maintain. The professionals required to maintain the code range from Senior programmers in the fields of professional programming to FullStack programmers who include knowledge of server-side and client-side programming. The website code can be maintained in different ways, the part from updating versions to the management system, fixing faults, adding functionality or changing the visual structure of the website. The price of a programmer usually goes up between 350-600 NIS"h per working hour depends on his professionalism and experience, on the geographical location where he is (programmers from"usually cheaper than Israeli programmers) and in the professional package of the hour bank that you purchase (if you purchase the hour bank in advance, the package of the working hour will reduce the cost of the programmer).
Managed web hosting
In recent years we have witnessed a trend of discounting website hosting services. Web hosting has become more available and of higher quality since the entry of providers such as Google and Amazon into the world market; and promotes online services through cloud storage available to the entire population at low costs. This trend has steered the website hosting service to focus on management, support and handling of server availability by a professional website hosting company. When requesting a quote for storage services, make sure that the choice of company focuses on the need of the website – For example: an image site will require less storage volume and more traffic, while a catalog site will require more available server space. Also, part of the issue of storage costs depends on the location of the servers where the website is located, when it is customary to choose the location of the servers according to the target audience browsing the website.
Information security for websites
The challenging part of information security for websites remains the responsibility of the programmer and the hosting company together, but usually a professional website building company that builds the website provides this during the initial construction phase and next to the monthly storage paid for. Website security is mainly valid for websites that keep customer databases, including E-Commerce websites, booking websites and websites where the contact forms are connected to a CRM system.
Website maintenance begins with proper construction
So following our hectic opening, how can website maintenance be easier for the website administrator? Well, a central thing about website management starts with the content management system with which the website builder decides to establish the visual interface. On the website of many customers, a content management system called WordPress based on open source is chosen. Contrary to the popular opinion that this is a convenient system, the system is not intuitive and required various plug-in updates in order to work properly. Although we are biased towards premium systems, we note that if the customer chooses Whoopix model content management system The website and the management system will be updated at all times and will not require manual maintenance of plugins; that require updating and maintenance in terms of programming or in terms of knowledge of system operation.
After choosing the system, the second part of the correct construction of the site moves to the issue of code integrity – If you want the maintenance of the website to be clean and convenient, it is customary to test the code using integrity tools such as W3C or website speed testing tools such as Google Pagespeed Insights. A high score in these tools and the website code will allow you regular maintenance by a professional without too much work on cleanliness in each round of tests.
Website management: price, characteristics and the professional
So after realizing that a proper construction of the website can save us unnecessary work and large expenses, we will review what are the main characteristics that must be examined by the professional in order to receive a price quote for website management:
- Website management mix:In order to understand what is required of the site manager, we will choose the right management mix. Programmer hours, designer hours and content writer hours are included in the current mix and often a professional such as a consultant will also be required (similar to the Shvartz consulting firm & Co – which accompanies our clients' projects). |
- Webmaster quality:It is common to think that price is the only characteristic in choosing a professional, but it can be noticed that a more skilled professional will perform the work in fewer hours. Therefore, usually a programmer with over 5 years of experience can save us hundreds of shekels by doing the work in a tenth of the time. |
- Website management price:A fair price is the key word in the selection Website construction company to manage your website. A company with a name and reputation can set standards but also give competitive prices and create a perfect combination between quality and cost. |
Added value in professional website management
If we look at building a website as an online mirror for the brand language, we will show our surfers the raw value of our company's products or services. From this point of view, the added value in professional website management can be defined as a service "white glove" (or in English White Glove) which reduce the content management to small intervals of quality content that includes a metaphor for artistic painting or non-generic text of spectacular content precisely into the consciousness of the average website surfer.
Nowadays, it is common to think that the average content created by artificial intelligence provides a sufficiently professional response to surfers, but we were different from quality writing provided by an experienced and skilled writer, and from our experience, we also make sure that each of our articles is written by a professional content writer – Like the current article, which was written entirely by a professional.
The impact of website management on website promotion
In the complex world we live in, every feature plays an important part in promoting your website on Google (SEO). Like the webmaster, the system he works in must also be optimized for website promotion in search engines. A stable, independent content management system; with professional tools for website promotion and monitoring; You will allow the site manager to promote the site faster, with fewer external tools and more vital characteristics to be identified in search engines.
In conclusion, professional website management is no small matter, if you have read this far, we wish you every success with your choice of provider and we will not object if you also ask us for an offer