Boulder Website Maintenance Services

What is Involved in Maintaining Boulder, CO Websites

We view website maintenance to be a reactive support service that provides your Boulder business with the appropriate web developer resources to solve nearly any website problem. There are many examples of website issues that might require service from Boulder web support companies, including:

• Upgrading your website platform to the latest version.
• Installing app or plugin updates to improve security and functionality.
• Adding new pages whenever you release something new.
• Freshen up your blog with new content.
• Rearranging the navigation menu of your Boulder website.
• Making your page faster to pass Google Core Web Vitals.
• Take backups of your website's files and databases.
• Making your website look and feel better.
• Fixing Google Search Console coverage issues.
• Improving technical SEO by adding structured data, open graph tags, etc.
• Investigating the cause and providing a solution to any other website issue.

The previously mentioned services are just a glimpse of what we view as possible Boulder web maintenance services. In fact, Boulder web maintenance is really anything a web developer or digital marketer does to your website to change it in some manner.

Reactive Boulder Website Support

Most Boulder 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. When you choose to have our firm maintain your Boulder website, we'll be your web support team on standby for any request. However, we can offer some proactive Boulder website support services.

View Boulder Website Maintenance Pricing

Proactive Boulder Website Support

Interested in a proactive website management service for some of your website upkeep? We're happy to help! As part of our proactive website management service, our team can take care of platform upgrades, app / extension updates, website backups, performance monitoring, and broken link monitoring.

View Boulder Website Management Pricing

If you live in Boulder, you probably love the Colorado Buffaloes basketball team. Go Colorado Buffaloes! In addition to supporting Boulder-area websites, our web maintenance firm also offers Arvada, Aurora, Castle Rock, Centennial, Colorado Springs, Denver, Fort Collins, Grand Junction, Greeley, Highlands Ranch, Lakewood, Longmont, Loveland, Montrose, Pueblo, Thornton, and Westminster small businesses and large corporations help with their websites.

Who Needs Web Support in Boulder, CO

At some point in time, every Boulder website will require some form of website support. The reason is simply that the internet is always changing. Not to worry though, our Boulder web maintenance cost isn't expensive so it should be affordable for you to maintain your website! Here are some common reasons why a website in Boulder might require web maintenance services:

• Hosting companies sometimes upgrade their servers, removing PHP versions that were used by your Boulder website. That means you'll have to refactor your app or upgrade to a newer framework that supports the latest PHP release. You can't expect custom web functionality programmed in the past to work forever without any improvements.
• 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". Because of that, Magento 1.x ecommerce businesses in Boulder were suddenly looking for an ecommerce developer to help migrate their website to a supported platform.
• An owner of a Boulder 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 can be a time-consuming activity, and often happens because the website owner wasn't being mindful of the first two website maintenance examples, listed above.
• When the content on your Boulder website, which explains your organization, products, or services becomes outdated and needs to be refreshed to help ensure future visitors receive accurate information about your operation. This type of web support is critical to ensuring your Boulder website is benefiting you.

As you can see, there are many reasons a website may require maintenance above and beyond the obvious reasons of just wanting to update something on the website. When planning budgets and schedules for website support and support, consider your Boulder business's potential future needs.

How We Perform Boulder, CO Web Maintenance

We have an experienced website maintenance team who puts forth great effort to understand your maintenance needs, schedule your work in a timely fashion, and follow up with your Boulder business after the tasks have been completed.

Most web support services start with an email from you, the owner of the Boulder website. That email is routed into our ticket system and automatically assigned to the project manager on your account. From there, anyone on our team can work on the ticket without delay, leading to faster turnaround time and simplified internal communication.

Phone or live chat requests follow a similar process to Boulder website support. A support request is entered into our ticket system by the person in the conversation with you, so the work order can be routed to the right web developer.

Example Web Maintenance Service List for Boulder, CO Businesses

We are often asked for detailed examples of Boulder web maintenance requests that might come up after the launch of a website. Here are several examples of Boulder website maintenance services we've been asked to perform in the past and would be more than happy to provide to you!

Simple Boulder Website Changes

A simple change to your Boulder website might include updating a paragraph on a page, swapping out an image, or adding a new page. Keeping content fresh for search engines and visitors is just normal, routine web support.

Boulder Website Speed Improvements

If your Boulder website isn't running as fast as it once was, we can review your website for hosting issues, caching issues, unoptimized images, console errors, broken links, poor queries, and much more. User experience and SEO will both benefit from better page load times.

Platform Upgrades / Security Updates

Keeping your Boulder website's content management system updated is important if it's running on WordPress. The updates improve security and functionality - sometimes they're quick, so it's an easy win!

Plugin / Extension Updates

If your Boulder website has functionality developed and maintained by a third-party, it is important to update those plugins and extensions to include the latest changes by the developers. This is similar to the idea of updating the CMS platform since it helps patch security and functionality issues.

Google Search Console Fixes

Has Google Search Console told you there's a coverage problem? If so, we'll look at the coverage issues, fix them, and update you on the status. This will help your search engine rankings, throughout Boulder and beyond, by making Google happy!

Implement Structured Data

When you search Google organically, have you noticed reviews or prices in the search results? This is structured data, which is a standardized way of describing content on the web, whether it's a local business in Boulder or an ecommerce product.

Implement Open Graph on Your Website

Adding Open Graph Tags to your website will help search engines better understand your page content and improve the appearance of your website in social media platforms when people share links of your Boulder business.

Setup Google Tag Manager

Are you interested in adding Google Tag Manager to your website to help you manage custom scripts more easily? Not a problem! We can add Google Tag Manager to your Boulder website and even teach you how to use it.

Setup Conversion Tracking

If you are interested in understanding the benefit of an online advertising campaign for your Boulder website, it is important to setup conversion tracking. It'll help you understand where your conversions come from, like direct traffic, referral links, organic search, or paid ads.

Image Compression (Optimization)

Do you have a Boulder website that's slow because of large images? Not a problem! We can run all your images through our image compression tools and even setup recurring image compression for newly added images in the future!

Setup 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 Boulder business!

Resolve Errors in Log Files

Are your error_log files big? We can help diagnose the issue and update programming code or repair platform issues to prevent recurring error messages.

Reduce Spam with reCaptcha

To reduce unwanted submissions on your Boulder website, we can setup an invisible or checkbox reCaptcha.

Implement a Caching Plugin

Interested in installing a caching plugin for your Boulder website, but don't know how to set it up? We can help recommend caching plugins, or just install and configure them for you!

Setup SMTP Email

To help improve email deliverability, we can configure your contact form and website platform to send emails through an SMTP account instead of PHP mail.

Restrict IP Addresses

Is your Boulder website getting fake orders, contact submissions, or live chats? Our team can help set up IP restrictions so your website doesn't get hit with as much malicious traffic.

Create Website Backups

Would you like a backup of your Boulder website? Let us help you create one-time or scheduled backups that you can store locally or offsite.

Create a Staging Website

Before you do a major update or extension installation, it's a good idea to setup a development or staging site. If you'd like help creating and managing that development / staging site, just let us know!

Implement A/B Testing

Do you prefer to make design changes based on statistical data regarding how users interact with your Boulder web page? If so, we can help you implement A/B testing to gather data to help inform you of the best choice between two or more design layouts.

Create 301 Redirects

Are you launching a new website or removing pages from your website? You should create 301 redirects for your Boulder website. We've seen businesses in and around Boulder lose huge amounts of organic traffic due to widespread broken pages. We can help you create 301 redirects within .htaccess files, nginx templates, and CMS platforms.

Provide Website Training

Do you need help learning how to make changes to your Boulder website? If your Boulder site was developed in a platform we work within, such as WordPress or Shopify, we'll be happy to help!

The Platforms We Maintain for Boulder, CO Websites

We have a diverse team of web designers and web developers, for Boulder businesses, who have been immersed in multiple website platforms over the years. That said, it is better to become a master of a handful of platforms rather than try to specialize in them all. For that reason, our website support company for Boulder websites tends to service only the following platforms:

• Boulder WordPress Website Maintenance
• Boulder WooCommerce Web Support
• Boulder Shopify Website Support

As a web maintenance agency, we used to maintain and support Joomla and Magento websites for Boulder-area businesses. The reason we moved away from those platforms was to let our website maintenance experts focus more on training and support.

Questions to Ask Boulder, CO Web Support Agencies

Before signing up for any Boulder web maintenance package, it is important to ask the Boulder website maintenance company some questions about how their services work. This will help you get a better idea of the experience you will have with their expert Colorado website support services before you submit payment and provide website access. Let's go over some simple questions to ask:

• How do you handle website security? Do you run security scans of customer websites?
• What's the turnaround time for Boulder web maintenance?
• Are you outsourcing your Boulder web maintenance services?
• What are your Boulder website maintenance costs?
• Are there any minimum deductions or minimum billable expenses for Boulder website updates?
• At what times of the day are you working and able to take our maintenance requests?
• How will I know about new updates to my platform?

If you ask any Boulder website services firm these questions before subscribing to their website support 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.

Boulder, CO Web Maintenance Plans and Tips

We are often asked for a website maintenance plan by larger companies in and around Boulder looking to establish routines and procedures within their IT department. We are happy to help your Boulder business develop a web support plan to ensure all aspects of your website, hosting, and domain name are routinely checked to ensure optimum performance and uptime.

Here is a list of annual Boulder website support tasks to review:

• Ask your web hosting company if they have newer servers you can migrate to.
• Ask your web developer if your website has a major platform release coming up that will require a lot of work to install.
• Restore a website backup to make sure the data is enough for full recovery. Also, make sure your backups are stored remotely.
• Look at competitor websites (even those outside of Boulder) to see if you are missing out on new functionality for your own customers.
• Ensure your website is secure by performing a full security review.
• Ensure that structured data, open graph, and social links are all working.
• Check if any 3rd party tracking, live chat, or heat map scripts are installed but no longer necessary.
• Delete any development or staging websites you don't need.

Here is a list of semi-annual Boulder web maintenance tasks to consider:

• Ensure you have access to your domain name and that it isn't expiring soon. This will be helpful when you have to process a domain name renewal.
• Ensure you have access to your hosting account and that it isn't expiring soon.
• Ensure you have access to your DNS in case you need to change anything.
• Make sure your SSL certificate isn't expiring soon.
• Make sure you have remote backups outside Boulder and that your website backup schedule is working.
• Check if you have an automated image optimization service running.
• Make sure the website doesn't throw any console errors.

Read through this list of monthly Boulder web maintenance tasks to review:

• Ensure your website doesn't have any broken links, which affect user experience and SEO.
• Check your website for performance issues after recent updates or changes.
• Check Google Search Console for any coverage issues.
• Provide some kind of update to your content to keep your website fresh.
• Check if there are available platform or extension updates.

The Cost of Website Maintenance Service in Boulder, CO

The starting price for our Boulder 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 Boulder 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 Boulder, 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 Boulder 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 Boulder 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 Boulder to charge a much higher hourly rate, but not bill out for communication and organization. Likewise, there are website support companies in Boulder 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 Boulder 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.