Let’s talk about hosting first. Typically, when you sign up for a maintenance package with someone, your website is hosted on their servers. In my experience, clients who have little wiggle room in the budget turn down maintenance plans, opt for the DIY route and choose a discounted hosting package instead.
Here’s the problem. Discounted hosting may be cheap, but it makes your site run super duper slow.
So imagine this: we finish your custom project and you’ve got a beautiful new website that’s built for high performance and speed. . . only for it to run at a snail’s pace once it’s been migrated to your hosting. Visitors are bouncing because your homepage takes way too long to load. So that boost in sales you were hoping to see from your new site? Sabotaged by slow hosting.
Now here’s my two cents on the tech maintenance side of things. Deep breath. Fixing a broken website costs more money (like, a lot more) than bringing an expert on board to maintain and monitor your site.
If you’re on a tight budget, what will happen in a worst-case scenario? Where will the money be coming from then to fix the problem? This is your business’s website we’re talking about, so it would definitely need to be fixed somehow!
It’s way better for your business – and your wallet – to take a proactive approach to your website. When you have somebody looking after your site, they’re there to stop problems before they have a chance to snowball. Keeping everything running smoothly is the best way to protect your customer experience, profit margins and your brand reputation.
The bottom line: waiting until a major problem happens and then scrambling to fix it fast (AKA the reactive approach), costs more money, takes more time, and your reputation takes a hit.
Stepping off my podium now.