Billings, MT Website Maintenance Services

What is Involved in Maintaining Billings, MT Websites

We view web maintenance to be a reactive support service that provides your Billings 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 Billings website support firms, including:

• Upgrading your website platform to the latest version.
• Installing app or plugin updates to improve security and functionality.
• Adding new web pages as you release new products or services.
• Freshen up your blog with new content.
• Rearranging your Billings website's navigation menu.
• Improve your page speed to pass Google Core Web Vitals.
• Take backups of your website's files and databases.
• Changing the look and feel of your website.
• Troubleshooting 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 Billings web maintenance services. In fact, Billings website maintenance is really anything a web developer or digital marketer does to your website to change it in some manner.

Reactive Billings Website Support

The reason we consider web support to be a reactive service is that most Billings website owners wouldn't want a web developer going into their website and changing things around without their knowledge. You can count on our agency to keep your Billings website running smoothly. However, we can provide some proactive web maintenance services for your Billings website.

View Billings Website Maintenance Pricing

Proactive Billings Website Support

We're happy to help website owners in Billings who need proactive website upkeep! We can take care of platform upgrades, app/extension updates, website backups, performance monitoring, and broken link monitoring as part of our proactive website management service.

View Billings Website Management Pricing

In addition to supporting Billings-area websites, our website maintenance agency also offers Bozeman, Evergreen, Helena, and Missoula small businesses and large corporations help with their websites.

Who Needs Website Support in Billings, MT

At some point in time, every Billings website will require some form of web maintenance. The reason is simply that the internet is always changing. Not to worry though, our Billings 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 Billings might require website maintenance services:

• When a hosting company upgrades their servers, they may remove older versions of PHP that your Billings website was originally developed to support. 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 from the past to work forever.
• In order to focus on maintaining the newer version of an ecommerce platform or content management system, they eventually have to deprecate the previous releases. 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". As a result, Magento 1.x ecommerce businesses in Billings 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 can be a time-consuming activity, and often happens because the website owner wasn't being mindful of the first two web support examples, listed above.
• When the content on your Billings 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 website support is critical to ensuring your Billings 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. It is important to understand the future needs of your Billings business when planning budgets and schedules for website maintenance and support.

How We Perform Billings, MT 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 Billings business after the tasks have been completed.

Most web support services start with an email from you, the owner of the Billings 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.

For requests that originate from phone or live chat, a similar process to handling your Billings website support services unfolds. 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 Billings, MT Businesses

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

Simple Billings Website Changes

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

Billings Website Speed Improvements

We can analyze your Billings website for hosting issues, caching issues, unoptimized images, console errors, broken links, poor queries, and more if it's slow. It'll help improve page load times, which will make users and search engines happy.

Platform Upgrades / Security Updates

It's important to keep your Billings 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.

Plugin / Extension Updates

If your Billings 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

Did you get a report from Google Search Console telling you about a coverage issue? If so, we can review the coverage issues, fix the problems, and update you on the results. Make Google happy, and you'll rank higher throughout Billings and beyond!

Add Structured Data

Do you ever see product prices or reviews in Google organic search results? This is structured data, which is a standardized way to describe the content on a webpage, whether it's a local Billings business, or an ecommerce product.

Add Open Graph to 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.

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 Billings website and even give you a crash course in using Google Tag Manager.

Implement Conversion Tracking

If you are interested in understanding the benefit of an online advertising campaign for your Billings 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 Optimization

Do you have a Billings 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!

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 Billings business!

Review Error Log Files

Have you noticed large error_log files on your hosting account? We can help diagnose the issue and update programming code or repair platform issues to prevent recurring error messages.

Integrate reCaptcha on Contact Forms

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

Implement a Caching Plugin

Interested in installing a caching plugin for your Billings website, but don't know how to set it up? 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

Is your Billings website being bombarded with fake orders, contact submissions or live chats from a specific network? We can help setup IP restrictions to prevent malicious traffic from interacting with your website.

Create Website Backups

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

Create a Testing Website

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

Create A/B Testing Rules

Are you a fan of making Billings 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

Are you launching a new website or removing pages from your website? You should create 301 redirects for your Billings website. We've seen businesses in and around Billings 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 Billings website? If your Billings 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 Billings, MT Websites

We have a diverse team of web designers and web developers, for Billings 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 Billings websites tends to service only the following platforms:

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

As a web maintenance agency, we used to maintain and support Joomla and Magento websites for Billings-area businesses. However, we chose not to use those platforms so our website maintenance experts could focus on training and support within the more popular platforms.

Questions to Ask Billings, MT Web Support Agencies

Before signing up for any Billings web maintenance package, it is important to ask the Billings 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 Montana 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 is the turnaround time for Billings web maintenance requests?
• Are you outsourcing your Billings web maintenance services?
• How much does Billings website maintenance cost?
• Are there minimum deductions or minimum billable expenses for Billings website updates?
• At what times of the day are you working and able to take our maintenance requests?
• When there are new updates on my platform, will you let me know?

If you ask these questions to a Billings 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.

Billings, MT Website Support Plans and Tips

We are often asked for a web maintenance plan by larger companies in and around Billings looking to establish routines and procedures within their IT department. We are happy to help your Billings business develop a website 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 Billings web support 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.
• Restore a website backup to make sure the data is enough for full recovery. Also, make sure your backups are stored remotely.
• Check out competitor sites (even those outside of Billings) to see if you're missing out on any competitive advantages they have over you.
• Take a look at your website's security to make sure nothing's been compromised.
• Ensure that structured data, open graph, and social links are all working.
• 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.

Here is a list of semi-annual Billings website support 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.
• Check if your SSL certificate will be expiring in the near future.
• Verify your website backup schedule is working properly, and you have remote backups outside of Billings.
• If you have an automated image optimization service, verify it is working properly.
• See if there are any console errors on the website.

Check out this list of monthly Billings web maintenance tasks to consider:

• Look for broken links on your website, which hurts SEO and user experience.
• Make sure your website isn't having performance issues after recent updates.
• See if there's anything wrong being reported within Google Search Console.
• 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 Web Maintenance Service in Billings, MT

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