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Web site maintenance

Just like the garden...

It's like car insurance: everyone needs it, but no-one likes to pay for it.

But doing without website maintenance is a false economy. From the moment it is created, your website is starting to date. Whoever designs it, this fact remains true. There is no substitute for personal attention on a regular basis - your website is more like your garden or your car than you might think.

There are basically two ways to deal with this problem, once you've accepted that you have to maintain your site if you want it to keep working. One involves doing the work yourself, the other involves getting thewebtailor to do it for you.

Doing it yourself

In the long run, especially if you have a big site, or one that relates to changing content (such as an e-commerce site with products that you will need to update or replace) then there is no doubt that a do it yourself approach will save you money.

The downside is that it might cost you more to begin with to get a site built that is easy for you to update yourself, and, of course, you need to commit regular slots of your own time to the site, pruning the dead links and keeping everything looking fresh (we said it was just like your garden, didn't we?).

If you're thinking of developing a website, ask your designer to discuss the question of maintenance with you before they begin work. If you intend to manage the upkeep yourself, it will help if your designer can use style sheet technology to control the site's layout, nad maybe provide you with document templates for use in adding new content. Or consider having a site built around scripts which enable you to add content on-line using your web browser. It's more expensive than a static site, but it might save you time in the long run.

If you want more information about building websites you can maintain yourself, ask thewebtailor about "low maintenance" web design.

Portfolio

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• No Sweat!
  This 'web community' site is built using PHP and MySQL, making use of an open source package called PHP-Nuke. This enables interactive modules like discussion forums, on-line polls and surveys, calendars, and even e-commerce sections to be slotted in or out of a site. The site's users can register, then add, modify or delete postings, which are fully searchable. The site involves no maintenance costs since all the content can be modified or deleted by the No Sweat! administrators.
• MotorMovers
  A meta-site for used car dealers and private car sales in the Leicestershire area. The owners of the MotorMovers site had built their own static site, but realised they had reached a limit - thewebtailor produced a dynamic, database-driven site with much higher capacity, more flexibility, and tailored searches. Individual dealers can now have accounts to add and remove their own vehicles.
• PCS Department of Health branch
  This Public and Commercial Services union branch wanted an open access site that all their members could participate in, but also with a section of 'official' branch documents. Both sections needed to be totally under the control of the branch officers, and require no knowledge of html to update. Using a plain text database, the site allows any member of the branch to register and take part in discussions, and current official notices are displayed on the home page. No maintenance from thewebtailor is required.

Getting us to do it for you

The easier way out is to pay someone else, like thewebtailor, to carry out the maintenance on your site for you. We can agree a maintenance contract, which will specify how much time you want spent on your site each week or each month, how the new content will be added, and what control you will keep over the content. Just like our design, maintenance contracts can be tailored to your precise requirements.

Charges

Like web design, maintenance from thewebtailor is charged at a flat rate of £35 per hour. This helps to keep your budgeting simple and means that you know exactly what your getting for your money. Clients who have maintenance contracts can increase or decrease the amount of maintenance they pay for, at any time. There are no lock-ins to our contracts.

The basic site maintenance contract is set at one hour per month, charged at £35 per month. We expect to be able to make minor changes to several pages, or a complete rewrite of a couple of pages, in that time. In addition, we will provide you with a 'stats and update' report every month, keeping you informed about who is using your website, what links on your site have suffered linkrot, how well your host is working for you, and other essential information a busy website owner needs but can't waste time checking for themselves. You can even sign up just for the monthly reports, if you plan to do all your own site maintenance.

Because thewebtailor build all our sites using cascading style sheets, we can also make major changes to the 'look and feel' of the site (if you feel like redecorating, say) without having to change each individual page.

More extensive sites, or those which require updating more frequently, may need a higher value maintenance contract. Contact us and we can discuss your requirements.

If you have a site already, and you'd like thewebtailor to help you maintain it, get in touch now. Depending on the structure of the site, we can give you an estimate of how much maintenance we think you should budget for. At the same time, we'll throw in a free site survey - to help you spot any potential problems with the site.

Portfolio

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• Thermal Exchange Ltd
  Thermal Exchange had a website, but it was letting them down. It was slow, inconsistent and no longer reflected their business. What's worse, they were being overcharged for the privilege. thewebtailor found them a new host, and rebuilt the site to reflect the changing nature of their business. Using html 4.0, server-side includes and css throughout, new pages can be added to the site very easily, or the whole presentation changed when the urge for 'spring cleaning' takes hold.
• Southwark Muslim Women's Association
  The SMWA website had been started in spare time by a member of staff. Realising they needed a more professional approach, they contacted thewebtailor to create a site which required minimal updating and maintenance, and which could be extended later as money became available. We simplified the site structure, cleaned up the pages using style sheets and server-side includes, and we are now working with SMWA towards developing new, interactive services for their site.
• Contact Print Services
  Contact Print Services had been on the web for about eighteen months when they contacted thewebtailor. Their original site, built by a member of staff using Microsoft FrontPage, was provoking negative comments - it was slow to load, it wasn't showing up in search engines, and it wasn't compatible with all available browsers. We started from scratch, and built a site that dealt with all these problems, and added in a few new features, such as the databae of second-hand equipment, which the client maintains themselves, and a mailing list facility.

www.thewebtailor.co.uk -> maintenance