Developing a new website for a business, large or small, can be a time consuming and occasionally fractious procedure. Quite rightly the process throws up difficult questions about exactly how to portray the company, create USPs and sell the business’s services. More importantly, hours of valuable executive time disappear in discussions about whether to have a hamburger navigation or good old-fashioned buttons – or whether the regularly updated content should be titled “news” or “latest”.

Little wonder that by the time it comes to discuss the finer points of SEO, hosting and maintenance, they do not necessarily get the detailed attention they deserve.

However, websites degrade over time – plug-ins fail, domain renewals are missed, SSL certificates expire and hackers either take websites down or leave time bombs in the form of malicious code. Nothing creates a bad impression quite like a website that just won’t load or behave properly, and unmonitored sites can be down for days before the fault is reported.

The simple matter of an SSL certificate expiring can lead to your website displaying alarming unsafe site warnings.

A missed £9.99 domain renewal will lead to your website disappearing, and rumours of your company’s demise spreading like wildfire!

What every client quite rightly expects is that their website always looks and performs like the day it was launched, and does so indefinitely. This can only happen if it is placed on an appropriate hosting platform, backed up and maintained regularly!

Maintenance is best compared to car maintenance. It is different to the process of uploading new content or updating existing content. Website maintenance involves monitoring websites for signs of trouble, taking regular back-ups, which in extremis, may be needed to restore a badly hacked site. It requires the updating of plug ins to keep the site running smoothly, and installing security patches to keep sites as secure as possible.

So, what does it all mean?

Hosting
This is the process of renting a server, or more likely server space, on which your web site lives – waiting to be identified and discovered through the magic of browsers and search engines.

SSL Certificate
Buying and renewing your SSL certificate displays the little padlock symbol and uses the hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTPS) which increases security of data transfer, by encryption. The certificates need to be renewed annually.

Plug-ins
Plug-ins are off the shelf bits of code used as add-ons by web developers to perform certain functions on a website. This might be the ability to populate a booking calendar, display a form, or run video. Plug-ins may require a monthly/annual subscription and updates to continue working.

Security patches and updates
These are updates to software and programs designed to address specific vulnerabilities as they are identified.

The patches are intended to maintain protection against hacking, malware and ransomware.

Domain names
Otherwise known as your web address. Typically, names are renewed annually – every two years or every five years.

It is vital that the renewal notices go to the right place and are acted on promptly. Failure to renew will lead to the website disappearing until it is renewed. Worse still, the web address could be snapped up by another business.

At Blacksmith our maintenance service covers all of the above processes.  We believe that businesses should recognise the value of the role that websites play, both in marketing and the day-to-day operation of basic business functions – compared to the relatively low cost of ensuring their smooth running and 24/7 availability.

To see what Blacksmith can do for you, get in touch today!