41. Let’s Pay Less: Do I Need to Pay for Website Maintenance?

Stephanie 0:00

Let's face it, running a website can be complicated and intimidating. That's why so many people pay for ongoing website support and maintenance. But is this the right business expense for you? Let's chat about it.

Stephanie 0:16

Hey there, teacher business owner, it's time to give your bank account a break and pause that ad campaign. I'm your host, Stephanie Royer, and going to show you how to pay less for traffic.

Stephanie 0:27

Welcome back to the podcast. It's the last Saturday of the month, which means it's time for another installment of the Let's Pay Less series. If you're new to the podcast, this is when we take a closer look at popular expenses in the online business world and decide if they're worth the hype. Even though this is a separate series from the rest of the podcast, I try to have the Let's Pay Less topic for the month correlate to the rest of the episodes from the month in some way. When it came time for Monetization March, I had to think about the best topic for the Let's Pay Less episode this month. So I started thinking about the process of adding display ads and how that might create another layer of complexity to the back end of your website. And then that thought led me down the path of thinking about how a website can evolve and get more complicated as it grows. And this is when people might turn to a website maintenance expert. And as we'll talk about in this episode, that is not a small expense. And so if you're wondering if it's something you should be paying for, I thought it would be great to kind of go through what it is, how much it costs, and you know what pros and cons there are when it comes to website maintenance.

Stephanie 1:41

So when I talk about website support and maintenance, I'm referring to a monthly or annual package that you purchase to have someone keep an eye on your website for you. There is usually a list of tasks that they'll take care of within that fee. Typical website maintenance tasks might include performing daily backups, updating plugins, monitoring for and then assisting with website connectivity issues, and then they usually support your overall website security. On top of that, many service providers who help with website maintenance also provide the option to add on other small website adjustments that might pop up here and there. So these could be things like adjusting your menus, adding opt in forms, making small changes to your home page, and so on. When it comes to cost, there can be a wide range for website maintenance, but for those within the teacher business space, typical cost ranges from $50 to $70 per month, and there's usually a discount for paying annually. If you opt for packages that include additional website maintenance tasks that could cost upwards of $200 to $300 per month, depending on how many tasks that you foresee you'll need help with.

Stephanie 2:59

So let's talk about some of the pros of website maintenance. So if you hired someone to design and build your website and then you paid to keep them on for your maintenance and support, you already have someone in your corner who knows the ins and outs of your website. And it can be really helpful to have another set of eyes watching your website, especially when they're already familiar with all of the plugins and other features behind the scenes of your website. Another pro of website maintenance is that it can take some of the guesswork out of owning internet real estate, because let's face it, most of us are accidental CEOs. We didn't plan on creating and running a website on top of everything else that goes into running a business. There are so many things that can go wrong with a website, and when something happens, it can feel like a foreign language to try and diagnose and fix the problem. Paying for website maintenance can give you some peace of mind and allow you to spend some of that brain power on other important CEO tasks.

Stephanie 4:02

Now it's time to think about some of the cons of paying for website maintenance. The first is obviously the cost. As a blogger, I have quite a few monthly costs for running my website, and none of them come close to $50 to $60. For some people, $50 is just a drop in the bucket. For others, the cost is more substantial, but the peace of mind is 100% worth the cost, so they do go ahead and pay that. But then there are business owners that are just getting started, and $50 is a huge chunk of their monthly TPT income. This really isn't a small business expense. It is a hefty investment. The next con is that you're reliant on the schedule of someone else. Unless you're willing to pay a large agency for your website maintenance, which often comes with a higher price tag, you will likely not have access to 24/7 responsiveness from your website maintenance provider. Now, it's important to note that I'm not saying we should expect 24/7 responsiveness from our service providers, because I know I'm not on call to my clients 24/7. I just wanted to point out that many website maintenance providers, if you go on their websites, they advertise 24/7 monitoring of your website. This doesn't mean that they're available to fix things 24/7, it just means that they have plugins and tools that watch for issues around the clock. When a website visitor or you discover an issue with your website, there is likely going to be downtime as you wait for help from your website support person. The other drawback I've noticed with website maintenance packages is that many of the services listed are things that you can do yourself through plugins or through your website host. One example of this would be daily backups. If you have a good web hosting service, they likely create daily backups of your website included in the cost of your hosting. Now it is true that your host could be vulnerable to hacking, and you should create off site backups on your hard drive, and that is usually what you're paying a website support person to do, but there are ways to do that automatically yourself. Yes, it does take some time to set up, but I just wanted to mention that this is an option. In fact, at the end of the day, many of the issues that your website will encounter, and your website maintenance person will raise the red flag about, those issues will often need to involve your website host to actually fix the issue. I don't know about your host, but mine has 24/7 support chat. I feel very supported by my website host, and I'm confident that my website is protected and easy to keep updated without paying for an additional service. But that's just my experience. As I mentioned before you might be in a place with your business, that the peace of mind of having a second set of eyes on your website is completely worth it. I just thought it was important to mention that paying for website maintenance doesn't have to be a non negotiable. There are supports available through things that you are likely already paying for.

Stephanie 7:19

So let's sum up this discussion with an analogy. If I were to travel to Disney World, I would be completely lost, because I'm born and raised on the West Coast. I'm a Disneyland kind of gal. The sheer size of Disney World is completely overwhelming to me. I think one of the reasons for this is I don't know what I don't know. I've never been there before, so I don't know all of the tasks I would need to take care of before my trip in order to make the most of our vacation. I don't know if my family would prefer the rides at Animal Kingdom or Epcot, and I definitely don't know how lightning passes work anymore, and because of this, I would likely turn to one of the many travel planners who could help me make dining reservations we need, give me tips for making the most of our time in the parks, and so on. The reason I would do this without question, is because I know I'm not a Disney World expert, and also because this service is usually free. On the other hand, if that support came with a hefty price tag, I might be hesitant to use that service, because I'm already paying a lot for the vacation. I might be more likely to put in the legwork to watch YouTube videos, talk to my friends who have been there, and maybe even piece together an itinerary as I glean all of this knowledge. After all, the trip would likely be booked well in advance, so I would have a little bit of time to do this. The reason I'm sharing this is because it reminds me of website maintenance. You have time to learn about your website. It's not going to implode immediately after you create it. Just by having a host and setting up your website, you have built in security and support from day one that you're already paying for. From there, you can take the time to learn things as you go, if you want to save that money. Going back to the Disney World analogy, there might be times in my life when I would be willing to pay for someone to plan my trip for me, just like you might be at a point in your business journey when you just want someone to keep an eye on your website for you, because, as I've said before, you don't know what you don't know, and you likely don't have time to figure it all out. At the end of the day, only you know your business budget, your comfort level with your website maintenance, and the time that you have to worry about your website. And so this is a decision that only you can make, but I hope this episode has given you some food for thought about this particular business expense.

Stephanie 9:54

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