New Website Support & Aftercare

Difficult To Update Your Website?

Just had a website developed and find that it is hard or time consuming gto update it yourself, or to have your developer do it?

Yes.....   Unfortunately, there are more than a few horror stories similar to yours, where businesses find it hard to get support after the site is completed. Not only that but they have been let down when it comes to the usability of the site as the website company did not listen to the requirements of the business.

This is one of the most basic things that any developer should pay strict attention to.

It is just the same as say, building a new house....   the house builder will constatly be asking you questions to determine your requirements. Same with websites.

If you find that your developer is not doing this, there may be a problem immediately.

Often the developer will create the website, then  will take care of its maintenance after that. If this includes the addition of basic elements, like new articles or images, or menus etc, then you will find yourself the subject of one of these horror stories.

Bottom line is that you should have a website, where YOU should be able to do all (or most) of this type of maintenance yourself, with the developer being responsible for only the more technical configurations or maintenance.

Demand this from the outset.

Is The Speed Of Your Website Appropriate And Acceptable?

Note here, that I did not say is the speed super fast!.

Of course, all websites should be as fast as possible....... but there are various limits and practicalities. And it all comes down to costs.

The key criterion here is that your website should be at least acceptable fast at all times, and there are a variety of ways to acheive this.

Some sites NEED to be super-fast, like:

• eCommerce sites
• Graphics intensive sites
• Very interactive sites, where there is a constant transfer of information from the user to the site and back to the user (like survey sites etc)
• and of course, there are many other examples.

Other sites DONT NEED to be super-fast (but still need to be acceptably fast), like:

• Brocheure sites, where the user simply scans information
• Blog sites, a predominately information site again
• and many other examples where the user simply flis through pages to find something out.

The speed ofthe site is determined by many factors, too many to detail in this article.

However, one element in particular will contribute to the speed, and this is the location of the hosting of the site, that is, the physical location of the server on which the site is housed.

Again, there are many options, but in a nutshell, the main ones are:

• VPS hosting on a server based in Australia (generally the fastest and most expensive)

• Shared hosting on a server based in Australia (generally the next fastest and second most expensive)
• VPS hosting on a server based in the USA (hard to exactly determine speed, but at least as good as shared hosting in Australia, and generally just as expensive)
• Shared hosting on a server based in the USA (hard to exactly determine speed, but generally quite acceptable, and generally the least expensive)

The last option shared hosting in the USA, probably represents upwards of 80% of the website hosting for Australian websites.

I discuss this element of hosting location with all my clients, and demonstrate the various options. My client then makes the final decision on where the site should be hosted, taking all their requiremsnts into consideration.

And Finally -- Aftercare

One of my key performance indicators (by which I measure my own work), is whether my clients can support their own sites at the point of go-live.

To this end:

• I deliver training documentation secifically tailored to my client, and their specific website
• I conduct on-going training sessions during the development process.
• I do this by getting together with my client at least weekly (either face-to-face, or on-line), discussing te progress, making changes on the fly, and more importantly, getting my client to make some changes while I direct them. This provides for an on-going transfer of skills.
• Additionally, I provide a full 3 months of site administration support afte go-live, at no cost to my client.
• during this period, any changes requested by my client are made by the client while under my direction., in other words, I "look over their shoulder" while they are making the changes. This is similar to the process mentioned aboove.
• Again, this provides a good skills transfer, in a non-pressure environment.

Committment

Do yourself a favour: before you decide to choose a web design company give me a call. Not only will you have great support after the site is completed, you will also have piece of mind that you are not stuck with a company that makes you wait days or even weeks to make changes to the site.

So when you are selecting a web site designer be sure and ask them what after service they offer.

Do not get stuck with a website you cannot update yourself or be waiting days for your current company to get back to you!

If you require more information please call me on 0413 113 1440413 113 144, or click on this like to use my contact page on this site to send me a note.