Medicine Hat, AB Website Maintenance Services

What is Involved in Maintaining Medicine Hat, AB Websites

We see web maintenance as a reactive support service where we provide your Medicine Hat business with the right web developer resources to fix just about any problem. These are some examples of website issues that Medicine Hat website maintenance firms might fix:

• Making sure your website's platform is up to date.
• Installing app or plugin updates to improve security and functionality.
• Adding new web pages as you release new products or services.
• Writing new blog content to help you stay fresh.
• Rearranging your Medicine Hat site's navigation menu.
• Making your page faster to pass Google Core Web Vitals.
• Take backups of your website's files and databases.
• Modifying the look and feel of your website's design.
• Fixing Google Search Console coverage issues.
• Enhancing technical SEO with structured data, open graph tags, etc.
• Providing solutions to other website problems.

Those services are just a taste of what Medicine Hat website support might look like. In fact, Medicine Hat web maintenance is basically anything a web developer or digital marketer does to your website.

Reactive Medicine Hat Website Support

Most Medicine Hat website owners wouldn't want a web developer messing around with their site without their permission. That's why we consider website maintenance a reactive service. You can count on our agency to keep your Medicine Hat website running smoothly. However, we can provide some proactive website support services for your Medicine Hat website.

View Medicine Hat Website Maintenance Pricing

Proactive Medicine Hat Website Support

For website owners in Medicine Hat interested in a proactive management service for some of their website upkeep requirements, we are happy to accommodate! There are several web maintenance services, including platform upgrades, app / extension updates, website backups, performance monitoring, and broken link monitoring, that our website maintainers can handle in a proactive manner.

View Medicine Hat Website Management Pricing

In addition to supporting Medicine Hat-area websites, our web maintenance company also offers Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Lethbridge, and Grande Prairie small businesses and large corporations help with their websites.

Who Needs Web Support in Medicine Hat, AB

There will come a time when every Medicine Hat website needs some sort of maintenance. It's just that the internet changes all the time. But don't worry, our Medicine Hat website support costs aren't too high, so you can afford it! Here are some common reasons why a website in Medicine Hat might require web maintenance services:

• When a hosting company upgrades their servers, they may remove older versions of PHP that your Medicine Hat website was originally developed to support. When this happens, you need to refactor your application or upgrade to a newer framework that supports the newer PHP version. There's no way you can expect custom web functionality to work forever.
• Content management systems or ecommerce platforms eventually deprecate old versions so their teams can focus on the new ones. Magento 1.x store owners recently had to migrate to Magento 2.x, or an alternative ecommerce platform, because Magento 1.x was no longer maintained by Magento after it reached "End of Life". Medicine Hat-area ecommerce businesses running Magento 1.x found themselves looking for an ecommerce developer to help migrate their store.
• An owner of a Medicine Hat website who has been infected by malware or some other kind of malicious activity needs to check the site for exploits and clean it up. This is time-consuming, and often happens when the website owner isn't paying attention to the first two website maintenance examples.
• You need to refresh your Medicine Hat website content when it's outdated or doesn't explain your organization, products, or services well enough for future visitors. Keeping your Medicine Hat website up to date is key to its success.

Above and beyond just updating something, there are plenty of reasons why a website might need maintenance. It is important to understand the future needs of your Medicine Hat business when planning budgets and schedules for website maintenance and support.

How We Perform Medicine Hat, AB Web Support

It's our job to understand your website support needs, schedule your work in a timely fashion, and follow up with your Medicine Hat business after the work is done.

Most Medicine Hat web maintenance services start with an email from the website owner. Your email gets routed into our ticket system and automatically assigned to your project manager. From there, anyone on our team can work on the ticket without delay, leading to faster turnaround time and simplified internal communication.

For requests that originate from phone or live chat, a similar process to handling your Medicine Hat web maintenance services unfolds. The support request is entered into our ticket system by the person in the conversation with you, which allows the work order to be routed to the most appropriate web developer on our team.

Example Website Maintenance Service List for Medicine Hat, AB Businesses

After the launch of a website, we're often asked for detailed examples of Medicine Hat web support requests. We've performed these Medicine Hat website support services in the past, and would be happy to do it for you too!

Simple Medicine Hat Website Tweaks

A simple change to your Medicine Hat website might include updating a paragraph on a page, swapping out an image, or adding a new page. These are just normal, routine web maintenance tasks to keep content fresh for both search engines and visitors.

Medicine Hat Page Speed Improvements

Let us check your Medicine Hat website for hosting, caching, image optimization, console errors, broken links, poor database queries, and other potential problems that might be impacting your page speed. User experience and SEO will both benefit from better page load times.

Platform Upgrades / Security Updates

If your Medicine Hat website is running on a content management system, like WordPress, it is important to keep the platform updated. The updates improve security and functionality - sometimes they're quick, so it's an easy win!

Extension / Plugin Updates

It's important to update your Medicine Hat website's plugins and extensions to reflect the latest changes by the developers. The idea is similar to updating the CMS platform since it fixes security and functionality problems.

Fixing Search Console Issues

Did you get a report from Google Search Console telling you about a coverage issue? If so, we'll look at the coverage issues, fix them, and update you on the status. Make Google happy, and you'll rank higher throughout Medicine Hat and beyond!

Add Structured Data

Have you ever noticed information like reviews or product prices in the listing of a Google organic search result? This is brought to you by structured data, which is a standardized way of describing the content on the web page, whether it be of a local business in Medicine Hat, and ecommerce product or some other common data type.

Add Open Graph Tags on Your Website

By adding Open Graph Tags to your website, digital platforms can better understand the content of your page, which improves its appearance on social media.

Add Google Tag Manager

Interested in using Google Tag Manager for managing custom scripts? Not a problem! We can add Google Tag Manager to your Medicine Hat website and even teach you how to use it.

Setup Conversion Tracking

Tracking conversions is important if you want to understand the benefits of online advertising for your Medicine Hat website. It'll help you understand where your conversions come from, like direct traffic, referral links, organic search, or paid ads.

Image Compression (Optimization)

Are large images slowing down your Medicine Hat website? That won't be a problem! All your images can be compressed by our tools, and we can even setup recurring compression for newly added images!

Add Live Chat

Do you want to try live chat on your website? We can make recommendations on the best live chat systems for your business requirements, install the tracking code, and configure the design to match the branding of your Medicine Hat business!

Review Error Log Files

Are your error_log files big? To stop recurring error messages, we can diagnose the problem and update programming code.

Reduce Spam with reCaptcha

If spambots are attacking your Medicine Hat website, we can setup a checkbox or invisible reCaptcha to help minimize unwanted submissions on your forms.

Implement a Caching Plugin

Looking to install a caching plugin on your Medicine Hat website, but not sure how to configure it? We can help you figure out which caching plugins to install and configure on your website!

Send Website Emails Over SMTP

If you want to improve email deliverability, we can set up your contact form and website platform to send emails via SMTP instead of PHP mail.

Restrict IP Addresses

Have you been getting fake orders, contact submissions, or live chats from a particular network? Our team can help set up IP restrictions so your website doesn't get hit with as much malicious traffic.

Backup Your Website Files

Do you want to create a backup of your Medicine Hat website? We can help you create one-time or scheduled backups that store locally or at an offsite location.

Create a Development Website

When you're doing a major upgrade or extension installation, you should set up a development or staging site first. Whenever you need help with creating and managing your development site, just let us know!

Create A/B Testing Rules

Do you prefer to make design changes based on statistical data regarding how users interact with your Medicine Hat web page? A/B testing can help you decide between two or more design layouts based on the data collected.

Add 301 Redirects

Have you launched a new website or removed pages? You will want to create 301 redirects for your Medicine Hat website to prevent broken pages from hurting your SEO. Having broken pages will cost your Medicine Hat business a lot of organic traffic if they aren't fixed with 301 redirects. We can help you create 301 redirects within .htaccess files, nginx templates, and CMS platforms.

Offer Website Training

Want to learn how to make simple edits to your Medicine Hat website? Let us know what training you need if your Medicine Hat site was built on a platform we work with, like WordPress or Shopify!

The Platforms We Maintain for Medicine Hat, AB Websites

With years of experience developing websites for Medicine Hat businesses (and those in other areas of the country), our web designers and web developers have been immersed in multiple platforms. Nevertheless, mastering a handful of platforms is better than trying to be an expert on everything. Therefore, we tend to only maintain Medicine Hat websites on these platforms:

• Medicine Hat WordPress Website Maintenance
• Medicine Hat WooCommerce Web Support
• Medicine Hat Shopify Website Support

As a web maintenance agency, we used to maintain and support Joomla and Magento websites for Medicine Hat-area businesses. However, we chose to move away from those platforms to allow our website maintenance experts to focus more heavily on training and support within the other systems.

Questions to Ask Medicine Hat, AB Web Support Agencies

Ask the Medicine Hat web maintenance company some questions about their services before you sign up for a package. By doing this, you'll be able to better understand your future experience with their premium Alberta web support services before you submit payment or provide website access. Here are some simple questions to ask:

• How do you handle website security? Do you run security scans of customer websites?
• What is the turnaround time for Medicine Hat website support requests?
• Do you outsource your Medicine Hat web maintenance services?
• How much might it cost to maintain an average Medicine Hat website?
• Are there any minimum deductions or minimum billable expenses for Medicine Hat website updates?
• At what times of the day are you working and able to take our maintenance requests?
• Will you keep me informed about new updates within my platform?

If you ask any Medicine Hat website services agency these questions before subscribing to their website maintenance packages, you'll have a much better idea of the future relationship, the security of your website, and the expected turnaround time for important requests.

Medicine Hat, AB Web Support Plans and Tips

Companies in and around Medicine Hat often ask us for a website support plan to establish routines and procedures. Whether it's your website, hosting, or domain name, we'll make sure your Medicine Hat business has a web maintenance plan to ensure optimum performance.

Check out this list of annual Medicine Hat website maintenance tasks to review:

• Ask your web hosting company if they have newer servers you can migrate to.
• Check if your website platform has a new major release that will require an extensive website migration.
• Attempt to restore a website backup to ensure the data being stored is sufficient for full recovery. Also make sure you are storing backups in a remote location away from Medicine Hat.
• Take a look at the websites of your competitors (even those outside Medicine Hat) to see if you're missing out on anything.
• Ensure your website is secure by performing a full security review.
• Ensure that structured data, open graph, and social links are all working.
• Verify the necessity of any 3rd party tracking, live chat, or heat map scripts that are installed.
• Delete any development or staging websites you don't need.

Read through this list of semi-annual Medicine Hat web support tasks to review:

• Check that your domain name doesn't expire soon and that you have access to it. You'll appreciate this when it's time to renew your domain.
• Check your hosting account credentials and make sure it's not about to expire.
• Make sure you have access to your DNS.
• Check if your SSL certificate will be expiring in the near future.
• Make sure you have remote backups outside Medicine Hat and that your website backup schedule is working.
• If you have an automated image optimization service, verify it is working properly.
• See if there are any console errors on the website.

Here are a list of monthly Medicine Hat website support tasks to review:

• Check for broken links on your website, which negatively impact user experience and SEO.
• Check for website performance issues from recent updates or changes on the website.
• See if there's anything wrong being reported within Google Search Console.
• Update some of your service pages or blog articles to keep your website fresh.
• Take a look at your website platform and extensions for any available updates.

The Cost of Web Maintenance Service in Medicine Hat, AB

The starting price for our Medicine Hat website maintenance services is $119.50/hour, but we offer discounts for pre-purchased blocks of time that bring the rate as low as $99.95/hour. We also offer website management for Medicine Hat websites, starting at $50/month, if you'd like the peace of mind knowing a company is proactively upgrading your site.

To get started, if you are new to our web maintenance company, we'll need you to pre-purchase a block of time which includes a discount on our hourly rate. If you are an existing client in Medicine Hat, you are welcome to choose monthly billing at our higher hourly rate or continue to pre-purchase time and receive discounted hourly rates for your website updates.

If you pre-purchase a block of time for your Medicine Hat web maintenance services, you will be happy to know there are no contracts, there are no hidden fees, the time never expires, and there are no minimum deductions for small website update requests. Please keep in mind we rarely see tasks take less than 10 minutes, since the process of reviewing an email or taking a phone call, checking on whatever was asked, providing some form of feedback, and then logging the task usually takes at least 10 minutes of time. To keep you informed of the time usage on your pre-purchased block of web maintenance time, you will receive a monthly email update letting you know how much time remains on your account.

What is Considered Billable Time?

When talking with prospective Medicine Hat website maintenance clients, we are often asked what is considered billable time. You will find the answers to vary greatly within the website support industry. In some situations, you may find a website maintenance company in Medicine Hat to charge a much higher hourly rate, but not bill out for communication and organization. Likewise, there are website support companies in Medicine Hat who charge a more affordable hourly rate, but also bill out for most communication and organization. This is the approach we take. To help provide clarification, let's go over some examples of what we consider billable time when it comes to maintaining and supporting your Medicine Hat website.

Here are examples of what is considered billable time:

• Reading through lengthy emails to understand what is being requested.
• Preparing responses to lengthy or complex email messages.
• Helping you figure out your domain name or web hosting provider.
• Scheduling your website maintenance to be completed by the best team member.
• Talking with you on the phone about ideas or tasks you want to discuss.
• Reviewing completed work for quality control purposes.
• Providing you training on how to handle administrative tasks.
• Researching unique solutions to difficult questions you present our team.
• Providing more detailed time usage reports, beyond the automated monthly update email.
• Helping you figure out email client issues within Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail, etc.
• Almost any other task not specifically mentioned in the list below.

Here are examples of what is not considered billable time:

• Talking with you about personal matters, such as the weather, a recent vacation, or a sporting event.
• Responding to simple email messages that don't require research or lengthy feedback.
• Handling accounting-related tasks, such as invoice generation, payment confirmations, etc.

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