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Having a website requires a lot of time, thought, and resources in the initial planning and implementation, but creating it is only half the battle. Once you've actually put the site online, the real challenge lies in maintaining and updating it. Keeping your site fresh encourages people to return. Poor maintenance is a sure way of losing visitors, perhaps permanently.
Updating a site entails changing the content. This may be as simple as checking links to other sites to make sure they are current, or as complex as adding new capability. The resources and cost of keeping a website current and operational depend on the size and complexity of the site and how often it needs to be updated.
Remember, adding new content doesn't necessarily mean scrapping the old. Adding new features and content compliments the existing site and adds enhanced functionality.
Maintaining your website can be a laborious and tedious endeavor indeed.
However, keeping your site fresh and up-to-date with new content is an imperative measure to
keep your audience interested.
To counter your site content getting stale, Bigtime offers site maintenance services for all website owners.
These services are offered irrespective of your decision to host your site with us.
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Come up with a strategy
How do you come up with an effective maintenance strategy? Start by deciding how often you need or want to update your site and how extensive those updates will be. For example, a news publisher will likely update information on a daily basis, in some cases, even hourly. A retailer may update its site whenever there is new merchandise and for special sales and promotions
Next, pay attention to what your users are doing and saying. How many people are visiting your site and where are they going? If you host your site with us, there are ways of tracking which pages of your site are being frequented. These statistics can supply you with detailed and timely reports as to who is on your website, where they come from, which pages they access, and a lot more.
Use their feedback and usage history to assist you in your strategy.
Implementing your strategy
Once you have a good idea of your intentions and requirements of your site, its time to put it into action.
All you do is supply your request and updated information to BigTime, and we'll do the rest. All information
supplied should be done in a digital format, i.e. via email. This will help reduce your costs by allowing me to copy
and paste this new information rather than having to retype it. If it is a graphical enhancement (i.e a new photo)
then it is preferred that you provide that in either a .jpg (uncompressed preferred) or .gif form, however other formats
are accepted. If you can not provide it in this format, you can also mail the photo to us. If you need it returned please be sure to include a note
stating that. Your photos will not be discarded unless you explicitly tell me to do so. If they are not returned they will be kept in a file here.
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You have several options regarding your cost structure for site maintenance, and your choice
is somewhat contingent on how often you think your content will change.
Maintenance for a small site may take as little as two to three hours a month. On a large site, maintenance may be a full-time job. Be sure to incorporate the costs of maintenance into your budget during the planning phase so it doesn't take you by surprise. All designs created by BigTime allow for unlimited expansion with ease, so if you're planning a large, ambitious site or want to gradually add more content and functionality to it, this will save you a lot of time and hassle later on.
Starting with a well-designed site is the most effective way to prevent resource-intensive updates and maintenance.
Your choices in site maintenance consist of the following:
- Paying per hour fees
BigTime's normal hourly coding fee is $50 per hour (community based and not-for-profits receive a discounted rate). This fee is generally 35% less than industry standard.
We can provide these lower rates because we are a small company with lower overhead.
If you expect to let your site sit for long periods without much change, this may be a good
solution for you. You will submit your request for updates directly to BigTime and the work will be done and billed
at the actual amount of hours required to implement these changes.
- Pre-Paid package of hours
Bigtime offers discounted rates for pre-paid packages of hours in 10 hour blocks.
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Costs of the packages are as follows:
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Packages |
Hours |
Cost |
Savings |
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1 |
10 |
$400 |
$100 or 20% |
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2 |
20 |
$750 |
$250 or 25% |
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3 |
30 |
$1050 |
$450 or 30% |
Each additional package receives an additional 5% off
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You can purchase as many blocks as you think you need to achieve the maximum
amount of discount. BigTime will inform you when your hours are close to being used.
At that time you are free to purchase another block, or move to the hourly fee.
Pre-Paid packages are valid for 1 year from the date of purchase. Unused hours do not roll over.
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Community based and NPO's hourly rates begin at $40
If you would like more information on this service and the feasibility within your own domain,
please contact us.
Some content on this page is provided by:
http://www.learnthenet.com/
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