Rochester, MN Website Maintenance Services

What is Involved in Maintaining Rochester, MN Websites

Web maintenance is a reactive support service that connects you with the right web developer to fix nearly any website issue. There are many examples of website issues that might require service from Rochester website support firms, including:

• Upgrading your website platform to the latest version.
• Keeping apps and plugins updated for better security and functionality.
• Adding new web pages as you release new information.
• Staying fresh with new blog content.
• Rearranging your Rochester site's navigation menu.
• Making your page faster to pass Google Core Web Vitals.
• Taking backups of your website's files and databases.
• Changing the look and feel of your website.
• Troubleshooting Google Search Console coverage issues.
• Enhancing technical SEO with structured data, open graph tags, etc.
• Investigating the cause and providing a solution to any other website issue.

These are just a few of the Rochester web maintenance services we offer. In fact, Rochester website maintenance is really anything a web developer or digital marketer does to your website to change it in some manner.

Reactive Rochester Website Support

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

View Rochester Website Maintenance Pricing

Proactive Rochester Website Support

We're happy to help website owners in Rochester who need proactive website upkeep! There are several website 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 Rochester Website Management Pricing

In addition to supporting Rochester-area websites, our web support company also offers Bloomington, Duluth, Minneapolis, Plymouth, St. Paul, and Woodbury small businesses and large corporations help with their websites.

Who Needs Web Maintenance in Rochester, MN

Every Rochester website will need some web maintenance at some point. The reason is simply that the internet is always changing. Not to worry though, our Rochester website maintenance cost isn't expensive so it should be affordable for you to maintain your website! There are a few reasons why a website in Rochester might need maintenance:

• When a hosting provider upgrades their servers, they may remove older versions of PHP that your Rochester website was originally developed to support. This means you have to refactor your app or upgrade to a newer framework that supports the new 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. 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. As a result, Magento 1.x ecommerce businesses in Rochester were looking for ecommerce developers to help migrate their websites.
• 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 web support examples.
• When the content on your Rochester 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. Maintaining your Rochester website is key to making sure it's working for 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. It is important to understand the future needs of your Rochester business when planning budgets and schedules for website maintenance and support.

How We Perform Rochester, MN Website Support

Our professional web maintenance team puts in a lot of effort to understand your needs, schedule your work on time, and follow up with your Rochester business after the work is done.

Most website maintenance services start with an email from you, the owner of the Rochester website. That email is routed into our ticket system and automatically assigned to the project manager on your account. We can then work on the ticket without delay, which leads to faster turnaround and easier internal communication.

The process for Rochester web support services that come from phone or chat is similar. We route the support request to the most appropriate web developer on our team based on the nature of the work needed on your website.

Example Website Support Service List for Rochester, MN Businesses

We're often asked for examples of Rochester web maintenance requests after a website launches. Here are several examples of Rochester web maintenance services we've been asked to perform in the past and would be more than happy to provide to you!

Simple Rochester Website Changes

Changes to your Rochester website could be as simple as updating a paragraph, swapping images, or adding a new page. This is just normal, routine website maintenance to keep content fresh for both search engines and visitors.

Rochester Site Performance Improvements

Let us check your Rochester 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 Patches

It's important to keep your Rochester website updated if it runs on a CMS like WordPress. Updates help improve security and functionality - and they're usually quick, so it might be a simple task.

Extension / Plugin Updates

If your Rochester 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. It's similar to updating the CMS platform since it helps patch security and functionality issues.

Google Search Console Fixes

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 Rochester and beyond!

Add 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 to describe the content on a webpage, whether it's a local Rochester business, or an ecommerce product.

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 Rochester website and even teach you how to use it.

Implement Conversion Tracking

If you are interested in understanding the benefit of an online advertising campaign for your Rochester 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 Rochester website that's slow because of large images? 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!

Setup Live Chat

Is your website ready for live chat? If you'd like us to recommend the best live chat system for your Rochester business, install the tracking code, and customize the design for your branding, we can do it!

Review Error Logs for Issues

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.

Integrate reCaptcha on Contact Forms

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

Install a Caching Plugin

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

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.

Run Website & Database Backups

Do you want to create a backup of your Rochester website? Backups can be performed one-time, or scheduled at specific intervals, and stored locally or offsite.

Create a Development Website

It is often recommended that you setup a development or staging website before proceeding with a major upgrade or extension installation. Whenever you need help with creating and managing your development site, just let us know!

Create A/B Testing Rules

Would you like to make changes to your Rochester website based on statistical data? We can help you run A/B testing to help you decide which design or content layouts are best.

Add 301 Redirects

Are you launching a new website or removing pages from your website? You will want to create 301 redirects for your Rochester website to prevent broken pages from hurting your SEO. Having broken pages will cost your Rochester business a lot of organic traffic if they aren't fixed with 301 redirects. We are happy to help you resolve broken pages through the creation of 301 redirects within .htaccess files, nginx templates, and CMS plugins.

Provide Website Training

Do you need help learning how to make changes to your Rochester website? If your Rochester 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 Rochester, MN Websites

For Rochester businesses, we have a team of web designers and web developers who have experience with multiple platforms. 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 web support agency for Rochester websites tends to service only the following platforms:

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

In the past, we provided website maintenance and support for Joomla and Magento platforms of Rochester businesses. However, we chose not to use those platforms so our website support experts could focus on training and support within the more popular platforms.

Questions to Ask Rochester, MN Web Maintenance Agencies

If you're thinking about signing up for any Rochester website maintenance package, make sure you ask the company how their services work. This will help you get a better idea of the experience you will have with their premium Minnesota website support services before you submit payment and provide website access. Let's go over some simple questions to ask:

• Can you tell me how you handle website security? Do you run website security scans for clients?
• When can I expect an average Rochester web maintenance request to be completed?
• Is your Rochester website maintenance outsourced?
• How much might it cost to maintain an average Rochester website?
• Are there any minimum deductions or minimum billable expenses for Rochester website updates?
• What are your normal hours of operation?
• When there are new updates on my platform, will you let me know?

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

Rochester, MN Website Support Plans and Tips

Larger companies in and around Rochester often ask us for a web maintenance plan. We are happy to help your Rochester business develop a web maintenance 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 Rochester website maintenance tasks to review:

• Message your web hosting firm to see if they have upgraded servers you can switch your website to for faster page speeds.
• Check if your website platform is releasing a major upgrade in the near future which will require a major overhaul of your website.
• Try restoring a website backup to make sure the data is good enough for a full recovery. Also, make sure your backups are stored somewhere else besides Rochester.
• Take a look at the websites of your competitors (even those outside Rochester) to see if you're missing out on anything.
• Ensure your website is secure by performing a full security review.
• Verify structured data, open graph, and social links are all working properly.
• Remove any unnecessary 3rd party tracking, live chat, or heat map scripts that may have been installed in the past.
• Take down any unnecessary development or staging sites.

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

• 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.
• Check that your hosting account isn't about to expire and you can access it.
• Ensure you have access to your DNS in case you need to change anything.
• Check if your SSL certificate will be expiring in the near future.
• Make sure you have remote backups outside Rochester 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.

Read through this list of monthly Rochester website support tasks to review:

• Look for broken links on your website, which hurts SEO and user experience.
• 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 Rochester, MN

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