In a previous article, I discussed Website Builders and Custom Websites, which focused on choosing which kind of website is best for your business, but I would be amiss if I didn’t spend some time on what is important to you after you have a website, which is performing website administration for yourself or procuring website administration services.
The unfortunate fact of owning a website is that, once you’ve set it up, you can’t just forget about it (a.k.a., ‘set and forget’). At a minimum, a website requires web-based administration on the backend. But also, as trends change and your business changes, your website will require changes.
A website as a living, breathing digital representative of your business.
Think about it this way: Sales is an ever-evolving part of any business. Sales representatives require continuous development as the market needs to change and your business changes. A website is no different because it too is a sales representative of your business. As the market needs to change, so does the development of the website. This is why the administration is important for a business.
Let’s get further into why website administration or getting a website administrator is necessary…
Website Awareness
How does your website get noticed in the first place? To be discovered online, a proper SEO strategy is crucial, but it’s also important to know that you won’t get it perfect the first time. There’s an 80% rule of marketing, where you can get to 80% of achievement, but the other 20% will be spent on reviewing, learning, and adjusting. So by using Google Analytics, you’ll start getting a visual understanding of what is working and what isn’t. From there, you will begin to adjust the copy or imagery on the website to lure more visitors.
Because of this, an administrator will need to stay current on updating the SEO plug-ins. Without the updates, you won’t know if the keywords, key phrases, or the general readability of the content on the website meet the SEO success criteria needed to gain awareness.
Website Engagement
A website is often the home base for your Content Marketing and Socal Media strategy. This means you’ll likely be using Social Media posts to direct people to the Content (i.e., blog posts) on your website.
Once a visitor arrives at your website, the ease of use and readability of the pages will keep them engaged. Your website’s theme, forms, and plugins will need to be updated consistently by an administrator to provide an optimal experience for your visitors.
Website Security
Security is probably the number one reason why website administration services exist. Because a website is a digital medium, it can be an invitation for hackers to enter and attack your network. A very common way that websites get hacked is with “Bots” (a software application that is programmed to attack a website and/or network). To ward off these attacks, all security aspects of the website need to be up to date.
Let’s not forget about the biggest mistake I have ever seen – not backing up a website. If your website gets hacked, your server goes down, or your website crashes, you will absolutely need a backup of the website. Without it, you might spend a lot of time and money fixing the website or rebuilding it from scratch. The latter is usually the case.
Website Administration Services
Beyond these reasons above, there is another good reason to have a website administrator or e-commerce website administrator, which is the level of experience in maintaining websites. I cannot tell you the number of times I have witnessed a company (or person) wanting to manage a website themselves in an attempt to save a buck. The effects of that sort of decision range from superficial design flaws over time all the way to a non-recoverable website.
What makes this most bothersome is that website designers and developers take pride in their work. This is proven by how often web designers put their “Built By” names on websites. Having their company name visible to website visitors is how they promote their work. With that goal in mind, there is really nothing better than creating a presentable website. However, there’s nothing worse than witnessing that same website slowly turning to garbage because the customer decided to manage it themselves.
All of these points make website administration services an important part of a marketing or technical team. Web-based administration for smaller websites comes as a rather low-cost service, while larger eCommerce sites might require a full-time administrator. A web administrator is a serious consideration because they are the ones who are going to make you look good and keep you safe.
Where to Get Web Administration Services
A simple search online can find you a multitude of sources for web administration services, but finding the right one for your company could prove to be a little more challenging. You will want to read the details of what’s truly being offered by the vendor. Are they just doing updates? If so, the truth is that you could possibly do that yourself with the right instructions. Are they doing updates and backups? Great, but make sure you’re given access to those backups because if you don’t access and cancel the relationship with the vendor, those backups will be gone forever.
The real winner is a website administration service that manages your whole website, including content and design changes. This way, you don’t need to have multiple web administrators with access to your website backend. More users can mean more portals hackers access, and trust me when I say “it happens,” I mean that hackers infiltrating a website has happened to me on more than one occasion, and it’s a real pain to get them out once they’re in. I would encourage anyone to download both the Activity Log and Limit Login Attempts plug-ins to their WordPress website and see how many bots and hackers are attempting to get into your website every day. You will be shocked!
We hope you found this article useful. If you are interested in finding a website administrator, please contact us.
About Kak Varley Marketing
Looking for a digital marketing consultant? Kak Varley Marketing provides digital marketing agency services to their clients helping them grow their online presence. If you need any digital marketing services or website management you have come to the right place. See our pricing below for website administration services.
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