A website is a great resource for any organization that helps to acquire desired business outcomes & achievements. However, to keep a website updated with the latest web design trends, proper maintenance is necessary. Website maintenance makes the website more user-friendly and ensures that it runs with zero interruptions. In terms of a business point of view, a well-maintained and highly optimized website allows B2B online marketplaces or other organizations to boost its online presence and grab more customers which results in high revenue.
Technically, web maintenance includes performing backups, monitoring loading speeds, working on software updates, fixing bugs and glitches, etc. Since this is an ongoing method, choosing a website maintenance plan is a good option for small business owners as it’s cost-effective and takes less effort.
Unfortunately, many people still get confused while hiring web development services & estimating the budget.
Are you one of them?
No need to worry! In this blog, we will deeply discuss what exactly website maintenance is and how much it costs.
Let’s get started.
What Does Website Maintenance Exactly Mean?
Every website needs proper support, checkups, and updates. Avoiding maintenance plans can vastly affect your website performance & search engine ranking. That’s why continuous website maintenance is required. This is a process that helps you keep your website up-to-date, optimized, and functional. Proper site checks also help to address bugs, errors, and glitches easily.
There is an extensive list of maintenance tasks that must be done to keep a website updated and running. For your convenience, we have created a complete website maintenance checklist that will help you:
Weekly Maintenance:
- Check the loading speed of every page
- Run a backup & make sure the older version is fully stored
- Check updates for website plugins & software
- Evaluate that all forms are working properly
- Remove spam comments from posts & pages
- Check the pages to find broken links
- Look for 404 errors & fix them
- Write trendy blogs to boost SEO traffic & keep the community more engaged
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Monthly Maintenance
- Check the website loading speed
- Thoroughly review your website security scans & make sure that everything is in place
- Analyze and verify your site statistics from the older months
- Check your website blogs whether they are updated or not
Quarterly Maintenance
- Check the loading speed of every page
- Run a backup & make sure the older version is fully stored
- Check updates for website plugins & software
- Evaluate that all forms are working properly
- Remove spam comments from posts & pages
- Check the pages to find broken links
- Look for 404 errors & fix them
- Write trendy blogs to boost SEO traffic & keep the community more engaged
Monthly Maintenance
- Check the website loading speed
- Thoroughly review your website security scans & make sure that everything is in place
- Analyze and verify your site statistics from the older months
- Check your website blogs whether they are updated or not
Quarterly Maintenance
- Review your entire website structure & design
- Check your website graphics & images
- Review website SEO, meta titles & meta descriptions
- Check your website forms, popups & call to action buttons
- Test your website compatibility on several devices & browsers
- Review marketing & advertising campaigns to check if anything requires to be updated
- Restore an older version of your website to test that backup health
Yearly Maintenance
- Update all references to the present year
- Review every web page for content relevancy, accuracy, and grammar
- Ensure that the domain name of your website is renewed.
- Review all top-performing blogs posts & check if they need any updates
How Much Does It Cost To Maintain a Website?
There is no exact cost of web maintenance services. Whether you host a website or renew its domain, you have to pay a certain amount per month to keep your website running. Technically, there are too many factors that influence website maintenance plans. Some of them are mentioned below:
1. Website Domain Renewal – $10 to $129 Per Year
A domain name is highly required for any business website as it shows the address of the website when users search on Google. Once the domain name has been successfully registered, it can’t be altered again. The renewal cost of a website domain name usually ranges from $10 to $129 per year. Some web hosting providers also provide free registration with hosting plans that help you save extra money.
2. Web Hosting – $4 to $80 Per Month
Web hosting helps to release a website online and the overall cost of web hosting usually depends on your operating system, storage type, bandwidth, etc. Extra features & performance also affect the total cost of hosting a website. Take a look at the costs of different web hosting plans:
| Hosting Plans | Costs |
|---|---|
| Shared Web Hosting | $3.95 Per Month |
| VPS Web Hosting | $19.99 Per Month |
| Dedicated Web Hosting | $79.99 Per Month |
3. Website Content – $15 to $30 Per Hour
Content is crucial for marketing purposes. It significantly helps to gain more visitors from the search results. Updating high-quality SEO-optimized content for your website helps you stay on top of the search engine with your website. The average cost of website content creation ranges from $15 to $30 per hour.
4. Website Design Updates – $30 to $50 Per Hour
Design plays an important role in improving a website’s appearance. New design updates such as sales banners, blog posts, infographics, and product images help to boost website sales. Overall costs of website design updates range from $30 to $50 per hour. Always remember, A well-maintained and accurately structured website always raises the usability of the value of your online business.
5. Tech Support – $40 to $60 Per Hour
Investing in tech support can significantly improve customer satisfaction. A skilled technical support team equipped with effective service desk software ensures seamless assistance. Key features often include email ticketing, live chat, community forums, and phone support, making it a crucial component of online business success.Apart from that, these maintenance plans also depend on website categories. Here is a complete overview of the overall website maintenance pricing:
| Category of Website | Maintenance Cost |
|---|---|
| Personal Websites | $5 to 25 per month |
| Professional Blogs | $25 to 75 per month |
| Small & medium scale business websites | $35 to 500 per month |
| Entertainment or multimedia websites | $300 to 2,500 per month |
| eCommerce websites | $750 to 5,000 per month |
| Corporate websites | $200 to 4,500 per month |
Benefits of Website Maintenance
Any website, whether it’s eCommerce website or gaming, needs a continual maintenance solution to keep up with ever-changing market demands. With a website maintenance plan, companies can easily stay ahead of their competitors. Some of the crucial benefits of website maintenance for small businesses include:
1. Improves Website Security Measures:
A fully outdated & unoptimized website may leave your online business to security breaches. So, a proper maintenance service is required for improving the privacy and reliability of your business website. A highly secure website not only protects your business reputation but also helps to maintain a good relationship with your potential customers.
2. Boosts User Experience:
Continuous maintenance makes a good impression on your website visitors. A website with well-optimized UI, updated content, and advanced features effectively meets all your visitor’s needs and provides a smooth user experience. Apart from that, well-maintained sites also help you grab more customers’ attention, boost sales, and enhance your online presence.
4. Enhances Customer Acquisition & Retention:
Hiring a dedicated website maintenance company significantly helps you track your website speed and fix website performance issues. If users get negative experiences on your website, it will directly affect your website traffic. Maintaining the overall performance of your website helps to enhance positive customer experience and boost customer acquisition & retention rates with ease.
5. Monitors Website 24/7:
No one guarantees that your site will be active all the time. Sometimes it’s very inevitable to avoid server-side or client-side errors and as a result, you can lose your potential customers & sales. That’s why you should hire a dedicated team who will help you with 24/7 website monitoring and take necessary actions to fix if any error arises.
Things To Consider Before Hiring a Website Maintenance Company
Before you hire website support and maintenance services, you have to outline your project needs clearly. This is because the complexity and scale of your entire project may impact what type of maintenance team you hire.
When it comes to hiring website maintenance services, there are two options mainly available. Either you choose a web design company or hire freelancers. It’s recommended you choose a company as they are more reliable and trusted than individuals. However, while selecting a company, you must check the below criteria:
- Check their social media activities and online presence
- Verify their previous work experience by checking clients’ feedback & reviews
- Check their technological experience and skills
- Analyze the projects they are working on currently
- Evaluate their project timelines and progress reports
- Check and review their website maintenance plans thoroughly
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Final Words
Whether you hire website maintenance and support services from a company or create an in-house maintenance team, making a proper website maintenance cost estimation helps to keep your entire website optimized and up-to-date is a very good practice.
Carrying out all maintenance tasks can be challenging for you if you do not have an appropriate outline. The above-mentioned web maintenance pricing plans & tips will help you make the right decision with ease. Want to know more about website maintenance? Talk to our experts today.
FAQ’s
What is the best way to maintain a website?
There are 8 recommended ways to maintain a website that you must be aware of:
- Security updates
- Plugin & theme updates
- Content updates
- Disaster recovery & backup
- Performance optimization monitoring
- Security scanning
- User management
- Accessibility testing
How much do you pay to maintain a website?
The overall cost of website maintenance usually ranges from $400 to $50,000 per year. This cost mainly depends on domain name changes, hosting renewal, SSL certificate, etc. Moreover, this cost also depends on the website category and size.
What is included in a website maintenance package?
On a monthly basis, the website maintenance package includes
- Vulnerabilities scanning
- Security and software updates
- Basic repairs and fixes
- Browser compatibility testing
- Site speed checking
- SEO and analytics
How much does a website designer cost?
The average cost of designing a website usually starts from $1500 and it goes up to $15,000+. On the other hand, skilled web design experts charge $50 to $70 per hour. Technically, the web design cost usually depends on a number of factors including number of web pages, design complexity levels, type of website, features and functionalities, designer’s charges, geographical locations, etc.
How much does web development cost?
Total cost of developing a dynamic website starts from $2,000 and it goes up to $10,000. In terms of website complexity levels, hosting & domain charges, maintenance and updates, web development platforms, developer’s charges, the website making cost highly varies. Experts suggest you clearly define your project goals and properly estimate the budget to avoid unwanted expenses.
How much should I charge to build a website?
The cost of making a stunning website ranges from $1000 to $5000. Technically, there is no exact cost of website development as it completely depends on a number of factors such as website features and functionalities, technology stacks, website design complexity levels, number of webpages, size of the development team, developer’s hourly rates, geographical locations, etc.
How much should I charge to build a website?
The cost of making a visually appealing website starts from $1000 and it typically goes up to $2000 based on complexity levels. According to the experts, the total cost of custom website development varies depending on several factors like website features & functionalities, project scope, total number of webpages,choice technology stacks, size of the web development team, developer’s hourly rates, etc.
How to price website development?
The price of custom website development involves a number of considerations. Let’s have a look at the key factors to consider for website development pricing:
Project scope & complexity levels
Design requirements
Website functionality
Choice of technology stacks
Website maintenance & support
Anand Mahajan
Shivraj Dhaygude