You have a Website.. Now What?

Congratulations!! Your new website has been built, launched and you are open for online business and local search. But the journey is not over.. there are many other factors you have to consider to maintain and keep your website in optimal running condition.

Now depending on the type of website that was created, using word press or another platform will determine the course of how your new site is going to be maintained, updated and monitored.

Sites built with the word press platform generally need constant updates to not only the platform but also to plugins and other add-ons that were installed to make your site "functional". Word press is forever updating due to bugs, breaches and compatibility issues and the plugins that are supposed to be kept up to date are usually created by different developers. There are varying degrees of how involved a particular developer may update to keep up so to speak but usually devise their plugins to be updated through several versions of a word press update. In some cases developers may just stop "supporting" their work and unless you keep up with the versions of updates, you will often see incompatibility issues, broken site code, error codes generated, white pages, and interference with functionality of your site. It would be generally easy to fix some of these issues if you can pin point them quickly however if there were some sort of "security breach" or site hacking, it would involve more work to restore your site back to working condition including using back up restoration or more.

This is where having a dedicated web master to monitor and provided these updates would be important to busy business owners. But you can also go a step further and hire someone like me who not only keeps up with the updates, security and monitoring but also provide on-going search engine optimization. It is also important to point out that some plugins offer a free version with limited capabilities and an upgraded version that has many more features and functions but you would have to purchase a license. Hopefully the developer is offering lifetime license and automatic updates for one price. Yet the automatic updates on any plugin could be the reason for a disruption if not monitored closely.

As for plugins, there are many out there that offer a wide range and plethora of features and functions ranging from security, malware prevention, hacking and brute force prevention to lead generation forms, integration into social media, collection of money, newsletters, file upload and more. I tell clients to let me know what feature and function that they would like to see and I tell them...there is usually a "plugin created for that". It beats spending the thousands of dollars in developing a new one when there was a developer who already saw the need and built it for the masses of website owners. Again, there will most likely be the limited free version and an upgraded paid version. Unfortunately, I do have to "shop" around for the right plugin because there might be several plugins for a particular function and it requires me to "test" whether the plugin will "fit" or work on the particular site. It might not work correctly because of the template or other conflict with another plugin. This will take some time to find the right one that provides the functionality and works without issues. Yes, I definitely have a few favorites and go-tos that I feel are absolutely crucial on every website I build including a sitemap plugin, an SEO plugin, a google analytics plugin, database clean up plugin, security plug in, image compression plugin, code minify and cache leveraging plugins. I have more but it depends on the client site as to their needs and their customer needs. Once again I have favorites however there are instances where I have had to completely opt out of using a plugin because it has been deprecated or no longer supported by the developer. Then my search begins for a suitable replacement. Additionally, the insertion of Google Analytics and other site scripts will aid in the monitoring of traffic,indexing and offer up clues to areas of needed improvement for SEO that if a client hires for a monthly fee, then I am implementing any corrections to SEO based on the reports. Your website can be utilized as the center hub of your business and maintaining a healthy site with on-going updates and monitoring ensure that your site is visible and available at all times to your customers who access your site for information, filling out forms, contacting, research and to new clients who may have been brought to your site based on simple keyword search. If you feel you need monthly maintenance with SEO services, SOS Interactive Marketing offers this monthly option for as little as $175 per month based on the geo market, size of the site, business and goals of the business. Please reach out to me normajean@sosinteractive.com for additional information or a quote. I also offer free competitive insight of your site versus two of your top competitors.