Schenectady Website Maintenance Services

What is Involved in Maintaining Schenectady, NY Websites

We see web maintenance as a reactive support service where we provide your Schenectady 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 Schenectady website maintenance firms, including:

• Updating your website platform.
• Keeping apps and plugins updated for better security and functionality.
• Adding new web pages as you release new information.
• Freshen up your blog with new content.
• Rearranging the navigation menu of your Schenectady website.
• Making your page faster to pass Google Core Web Vitals.
• Backing up your website's files and databases.
• Making your website look and feel better.
• Fixing Google Search Console coverage issues.
• Enhancing technical SEO with structured data, open graph tags, etc.
• Providing solutions to other website problems.

The previously mentioned services are just a glimpse of what we view as possible Schenectady website support services. In fact, Schenectady web maintenance is basically anything a web developer or digital marketer does to your website.

Reactive Schenectady Website Support

The reason we consider website maintenance to be a reactive service is that most Schenectady 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 Schenectady website running smoothly. However, we can offer some proactive Schenectady website support services.

View Schenectady Website Maintenance Pricing

Proactive Schenectady Website Support

We're happy to help website owners in Schenectady who need proactive website upkeep! 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 Schenectady Website Management Pricing

In addition to supporting Schenectady-area websites, our web maintenance company also offers Albany, Brentwood, Bronx, Brookhaven, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Greece, Manhattan, New York City, Niagara Falls, Queens, Staten Island, Syracuse, White Plains, and Yonkers small businesses and large corporations help with their websites.

Who Needs Web Support in Schenectady, NY

There will come a time when every Schenectady website needs some sort of maintenance. The reason is simply that the internet is always changing. However, we don't charge a lot for Schenectady website support, so you'll be able to afford it! There are a few reasons why a website in Schenectady might need maintenance:

• When a hosting provider upgrades their servers, they may remove older versions of PHP that your Schenectady 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 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 had reached "End of Life" status and wouldn't be maintained or updated. Because of that, Magento 1.x ecommerce businesses in Schenectady were suddenly looking for an ecommerce developer to help migrate their website to a supported platform.
• An owner of a Schenectady 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 web maintenance examples.
• You need to refresh your Schenectady website content when it's outdated or doesn't explain your organization, products, or services well enough for future visitors. This type of website maintenance is critical to ensuring your Schenectady website is benefiting you.

Above and beyond just updating something, there are plenty of reasons why a website might need maintenance. Plan your budget and schedules for website support and maintenance based on your Schenectady business's potential future needs.

How We Perform Schenectady, NY Web Support

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

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

The process for Schenectady web maintenance services that come from phone or chat is similar. 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 Website Maintenance Service List for Schenectady, NY Businesses

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

Simple Schenectady Website Updates

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

Schenectady Website Speed Improvements

If your Schenectady 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 Updates / Security Fixes

Keeping your Schenectady 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!

Extension / Plugin Updates

It's important to update your Schenectady website's plugins and extensions to reflect 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.

Fixing Search Console Issues

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. Make Google happy, and you'll rank higher throughout Schenectady and beyond!

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 to describe the content on a webpage, whether it's a local Schenectady 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.

Implement Google Tag Manager

Would you like to manage custom scripts more easily with Google Tag Manager? That won't be a problem! We'll happily install Google Tag Manager on your Schenectady website and teach you how to use it.

Setup Conversion Tracking

If you are interested in understanding the benefit of an online advertising campaign for your Schenectady 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)

Are large images slowing down your Schenectady 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!

Integrate a Live Chat

Is your website ready for live chat? 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 Schenectady business!

Review Error Logs for Issues

Do you have a lot of error_log files on your hosting account? If you're getting recurring error messages, we can update programming code or fix platform issues.

Setup reCaptcha on Forms

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

Install a Caching Plugin

Are you interested in installing a caching plugin in your Schenectady website, but not sure how to properly configure the settings for best website performance? We can help you figure out which caching plugins to install and configure on your website!

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.

Restrict Malicious 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 Schenectady 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. 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 Schenectady web design changes based on statistical data? 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.

Add 301 Redirects

Have you launched a new website or removed pages? You should create 301 redirects for your Schenectady website. Having broken pages will cost your Schenectady 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.

Offer Website Training

Want to learn how to make simple edits to your Schenectady website? If your Schenectady 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 Schenectady, NY Websites

With years of experience developing websites for Schenectady 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. Because of that, we tend to service only these platforms for Schenectady websites:

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

We've managed Joomla and Magento platforms for Schenectady businesses in the past. The reason we moved away from those platforms was to let our web maintenance experts focus more on training and support.

Questions to Ask Schenectady, NY Web Maintenance Companies

Ask the Schenectady 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 New York web maintenance services before you submit payment and provide website access. You can ask these simple questions:

• Can you tell me how you handle website security? Do you run website security scans for clients?
• When can I expect an average Schenectady website maintenance request to be completed?
• Are you outsourcing your Schenectady web support services?
• What are your Schenectady website support costs?
• Are there any minimum deductions or minimum billable expenses for Schenectady website updates?
• Can you tell me what your normal business hours are?
• How will I know about new updates to my platform?

If you ask any Schenectady website services firm these questions before subscribing to their web 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.

Schenectady, NY Website Maintenance Plans and Tips

Companies in and around Schenectady often ask us for a web support plan to establish routines and procedures. We are happy to help your Schenectady business develop a website support plan to ensure all aspects of your website, hosting, and domain name are routinely checked to ensure optimum performance and uptime.

Read through this list of annual Schenectady web maintenance tasks to consider:

• 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.
• 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 Schenectady) 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.
• Make sure structured data, open graph, and social links are 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.

Read through this list of semi-annual Schenectady website 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.
• Ensure you have access to your hosting account and that it isn't expiring soon.
• Make sure you have access to your DNS.
• Find out if your SSL certificate will expire soon.
• Verify your website backup schedule is working properly, and you have remote backups outside of Schenectady.
• If you have an automated image optimization service, verify it is working properly.
• Make sure the website doesn't throw any console errors.

Read through this list of monthly Schenectady web 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.
• Keep your website fresh by updating your content within one of your service pages or blog articles.
• See if there are any updates for your website platform or extensions.

The Cost of Website Support Service in Schenectady, NY

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