Austin, TX Website Maintenance Services

What is Involved in Maintaining Austin, TX Websites

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

• Making sure your website's platform is up to date.
• Keeping apps and plugins updated for better security and functionality.
• Adding new web pages as you release new products or services.
• Freshen up your blog with new content.
• Rearranging your Austin site's navigation menu.
• Making your page faster to 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.
• Improving technical SEO by adding structured data, open graph tags, etc.
• Providing a solution to any other website problem.

Those services are just a taste of what Austin website support might look like. In fact, Austin web maintenance is really anything a web developer or digital marketer does to your website to change it in some manner.

Reactive Austin Website Support

Most Austin website owners wouldn't want a web developer messing around with their site without their permission. That's why we consider web maintenance a reactive service. You can count on our company to keep your Austin website running smoothly. There are some web support services we can provide your Austin website in a proactive manner though.

View Austin Website Maintenance Pricing

Proactive Austin Website Support

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

If you live in Austin, you probably love the Texas Longhorns basketball team. Go Texas Longhorns! In addition to supporting Austin-area websites, our web maintenance firm also offers Amarillo, Arlington, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Dallas, El Paso, Fort Worth, Frisco, Garland, Grand Prairie, Houston, Irving, Laredo, Lubbock, McKinney, Mesquite, Pasadena, Plano, and San Antonio small businesses and large corporations help with their websites.

Who Needs Web Support in Austin, TX

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

• When a hosting company upgrades their servers, they may remove older versions of PHP that your Austin 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. 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. Because of that, Magento 1.x ecommerce businesses in Austin 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 can be a time-consuming activity, and often happens because the website owner wasn't being mindful of the first two web maintenance examples, listed above.
• To ensure future visitors to your Austin website receive accurate information about your organization, products, or services, your Austin website content needs to be refreshed. Keeping your Austin 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 Austin business's potential future needs.

How We Perform Austin, TX Web Maintenance

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

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

For requests that originate from phone or live chat, a similar process to handling your Austin 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 Austin, TX Businesses

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

Simple Austin Website Tweaks

Changes to your Austin website could be as simple as updating a paragraph, swapping images, or adding a new page. These are just normal, routine website support tasks to keep content fresh for both search engines and visitors.

Austin Website Speed Improvements

Let us check your Austin 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

Keeping your Austin 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.

Plugin / Extension Updates

It's important to update plugins and extensions on your Austin website if they were developed and maintained by a third-party. 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'll look at the coverage issues, fix them, and update you on the status. Make Google happy, and you'll rank higher throughout Austin and beyond!

Setup 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 Austin business, or an ecommerce product.

Add Open Graph Tags on Your Website

When people share links of your Austin business on social media, your website will look better if you add Open Graph Tags. These tags help define an image, title, and description for your each page on your website.

Add Google Tag Manager

Are you interested in adding Google Tag Manager to your website to help you manage custom scripts more easily? No problem at all! We'll happily install Google Tag Manager on your Austin 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 Austin website, it is important to setup conversion tracking. Then you'll know where your conversions come from, whether it be direct traffic, organic search, or paid ads.

Image Compression (Optimization)

Are large images slowing down your Austin website? Not 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 Austin 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.

Reduce Spam with reCaptcha

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

Implement a Caching Plugin

Looking to install a caching plugin on your Austin 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

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 Malicious IP Addresses

Is your Austin website being bombarded with fake orders, contact submissions or live chats from a specific network? If you want to protect your website from malicious traffic, we can help by implementing IP restrictions.

Create Website Backups

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

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. 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 Austin 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 Austin website. We've seen businesses in and around Austin 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 Austin website? If your Austin 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 Austin, TX Websites

With years of experience developing websites for Austin 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 Austin websites on these platforms:

• Austin WordPress Web Maintenance
• Austin WooCommerce Web Maintenance
• Austin Shopify Website Maintenance

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

Questions to Ask Austin, TX Website Support Companies

Ask the Austin website maintenance 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 Texas website support services before you submit payment and provide website access. Here are some simple questions to ask:

• Can you tell me how you handle website security? Do you run website security scans for clients?
• What is the turnaround time for Austin web maintenance requests?
• Are you outsourcing your Austin web maintenance services?
• How much might it cost to maintain an average Austin website?
• Are there any minimum deductions or minimum billable expenses for Austin 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 Austin website services company, you'll gain a better understanding of the future relationship, the security of your website, and the turnaround time for important maintenance requests.

Austin, TX Web Support Plans and Tips

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

Check out this list of annual Austin 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 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.
• Take a look at the websites of your competitors (even those outside Austin) 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.
• 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.

Here is a list of semi-annual Austin web support tasks to consider:

• Make sure you have access to your domain name and it's not about to expire. When you have to renew your domain name, this will come in handy.
• 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.
• Make sure you have remote backups outside Austin and that your website backup schedule is working.
• If you have an automated image optimization service, verify it is working properly.
• Check if the website is throwing any console errors.

Check out this list of monthly Austin website support tasks to consider:

• 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 are any coverage issues in Google Search Console.
• Update some of your service pages or blog articles to keep your website fresh.
• Check if there are available platform or extension updates.

The Cost of Web Maintenance Service in Austin, TX

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