Scarborough, ME Website Maintenance Services

What is Involved in Maintaining Scarborough, ME Websites

We see web maintenance as a reactive support service where we provide your Scarborough business with the right web developer resources to fix just about any problem. There are many examples of website issues that might require service from Scarborough website maintenance firms, including:

• 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 information.
• Writing new blog content to help you stay fresh.
• Rearranging the navigation menu of your Scarborough website.
• Improving page speed to help you pass Google Core Web Vitals.
• Taking backups of your website's files and databases.
• Making your website look and feel better.
• Troubleshooting 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 Scarborough website support might look like. In fact, Scarborough web maintenance is really anything a web developer or digital marketer does to your website to change it in some manner.

Reactive Scarborough Website Support

The reason we consider website maintenance to be a reactive service is that most Scarborough website owners wouldn't want a web developer going into their website and changing things around without their knowledge. Our agency will be your web support team on standby for any questions you have. There are some website support services we can provide your Scarborough website in a proactive manner though.

View Scarborough Website Maintenance Pricing

Proactive Scarborough Website Support

For website owners in Scarborough 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 Scarborough Website Management Pricing

In addition to supporting Scarborough-area websites, our web maintenance company also offers Auburn, Portland, and York small businesses and large corporations help with their websites.

Who Needs Web Support in Scarborough, ME

There will come a time when every Scarborough website needs some sort of maintenance. The reason is simply that the internet is always changing. But don't worry, our Scarborough website support costs aren't too high, so you can afford it! Here are some common reasons why a website in Scarborough might require web maintenance services:

• When a hosting provider upgrades their servers, they may remove older versions of PHP that your Scarborough 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. You can't expect custom web functionality programmed in the past to work forever without any improvements.
• When an ecommerce platform or a content management system releases new versions, they eventually must deprecate the old versions so their teams can focus on maintaining the newer technologies. This recently happened to Magento 1.x ecommerce store owners who were forced to migrate to Magento 2.x, or an alternative ecommerce platform, because Magento 1.x had reached an “End of Life” status and would no longer be maintained or updated by Magento. Because of that, Magento 1.x ecommerce businesses in Scarborough were suddenly looking for an ecommerce developer to help migrate their website to a supported platform.
• Whenever a website owner falls victim to malware or some other form of malicious activity, the website needs to be cleaned of malware and reviewed for security exploits. 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 Scarborough website content when it's outdated or doesn't explain your organization, products, or services well enough for future visitors. Keeping your Scarborough website up to date is key to its success.

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. Plan your budget and schedules for website support and maintenance based on your Scarborough business's potential future needs.

How We Perform Scarborough, ME Web Support

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

Most web maintenance services start with an email from you, the owner of the Scarborough website. 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.

The process for Scarborough web maintenance services that come from phone or chat is similar. 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 Scarborough, ME Businesses

After the launch of a website, we're often asked for detailed examples of Scarborough web support requests. Here are several examples of Scarborough website support services we've been asked to perform in the past and would be more than happy to provide to you!

Simple Scarborough Website Tweaks

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

Scarborough Page Speed Improvements

If your Scarborough 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. This will help improve page load times, which are beneficial to user experience and search engine optimization.

Platform Upgrades / Security Patches

Keeping your Scarborough website's content management system updated is important if it's running on WordPress. Updates help improve security and functionality - and they're usually quick, so it might be a simple task.

Extension / Plugin Updates

It's important to update your Scarborough 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.

Google Search Console Fixes

Did Google Search Console tell you about a coverage problem? If so, we can review the coverage issues, fix the problems, and update you on the results. By making Google happy, you'll boost your search engine rankings throughout Scarborough and beyond!

Setup Structured Data

When you search Google organically, have you noticed reviews or prices in the search results? 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 Scarborough, and ecommerce product or some other common data type.

Add Open Graph Tags 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 Scarborough business.

Setup Google Tag Manager

Would you like to manage custom scripts more easily with Google Tag Manager? No problem at all! We'll happily install Google Tag Manager on your Scarborough website and 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 Scarborough website. This will help you understand where your conversions are coming from, such as a Google search or a Bing Ads campaign.

Image Compression (Optimization)

Are large images slowing down your Scarborough website? 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!

Integrate a 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 Scarborough business!

Review Error Log Files

Have you noticed large error_log files on your hosting account? If you're getting recurring error messages, we can update programming code or fix platform issues.

Reduce Spam with reCaptcha

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

Install a Caching Plugin

Looking to install a caching plugin on your Scarborough website, but not sure how to configure it? We can help recommend caching plugins, or just install and configure them for you!

Send Website Emails Over SMTP

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.

IP Address Restrictions

Is your Scarborough website being bombarded with fake orders, contact submissions or live chats from a specific network? Our team can help set up IP restrictions so your website doesn't get hit with as much malicious traffic.

Create Website Backups

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

Create a Development Website

Before you do a major update or extension installation, it's a good idea to setup a development or staging site. Whenever you need help with creating and managing your development site, just let us know!

Create A/B Testing Rules

Are you a fan of making Scarborough web design changes based on statistical data? We can help you run A/B testing to help you decide which design or content layouts are best.

Create 301 Redirects

Have you launched a new website or removed pages? You should create 301 redirects for your Scarborough website. Businesses in and around Scarborough have lost a lot of organic traffic because of broken pages. It is a very common mistake when launching new websites, removing content pages, or disabling product pages. We can help you create 301 redirects within .htaccess files, nginx templates, and CMS platforms.

Offer Website Training

Do you need help learning how to make changes to your Scarborough website? If your Scarborough 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 Scarborough, ME Websites

With years of experience developing websites for Scarborough businesses (and those in other areas of the country), our web designers and web developers have been immersed in multiple platforms. That said, it is better to become a master of a handful of platforms rather than try to specialize in them all. Therefore, we tend to only maintain Scarborough websites on these platforms:

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

In the past, we provided website maintenance and support for Joomla and Magento platforms of Scarborough businesses. The reason we moved away from those platforms was to let our web maintenance experts focus more on training and support.

Questions to Ask Scarborough, ME Web Maintenance Companies

Ask the Scarborough web support company some questions about their services before you sign up for a package. This will help you get a better idea of the experience you will have with their expert Maine web maintenance services before you submit payment and provide website access. Here are some simple questions to ask:

• How do you handle website security? Do you run security scans of customer websites?
• When can I expect an average Scarborough website maintenance request to be completed?
• Do you outsource your Scarborough web support services?
• What are your Scarborough website support costs?
• Do you have minimum deductions or minimum billable expenses for Scarborough website updates?
• What are your normal hours of operation?
• How will I know about new updates to my platform?

If you ask these questions to a Scarborough website services firm, you'll gain a better understanding of the future relationship, the security of your website, and the turnaround time for important maintenance requests.

Scarborough, ME Web Maintenance Plans and Tips

Companies in and around Scarborough often ask us for a website maintenance plan to establish routines and procedures. We are happy to help your Scarborough 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.

Check out this list of annual Scarborough website support tasks to review:

• Ask your web hosting company if they have newer servers you can migrate to.
• Check if your website platform is releasing a major upgrade in the near future which will require a major overhaul of your website.
• 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 Scarborough.
• Look at competitor websites (even those outside of Scarborough) to see if you are missing out on new functionality for your own customers.
• Perform a full security review of your website to ensure nothing has been compromised or left vulnerable.
• Verify structured data, open graph, and social links are all working properly.
• Check if any 3rd party tracking, live chat, or heat map scripts are installed but no longer necessary.
• Take down any unnecessary development or staging sites.

Read through this list of semi-annual Scarborough web maintenance 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.
• Ensure you have access to your DNS in case you need to change anything.
• Find out if your SSL certificate will expire soon.
• Verify your website backup schedule is working properly, and you have remote backups outside of Scarborough.
• Make sure you're running an image optimization service.
• Check if the website is throwing any console errors.

Read through this list of monthly Scarborough website maintenance 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.
• Check Google Search Console for any coverage issues.
• Provide some kind of update to your content to keep your website fresh.
• See if there are any updates for your website platform or extensions.

The Cost of Web Support Service in Scarborough, ME

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