After lots of research, you have decided that for a business that’s growing, managing your website is not such a wise decision after all. Advantages such as scalability, flexibility, and reduced overhead costs have caught your eye, and outsourcing your website management is now a serious consideration.
What is left is figuring out the dilemma every business faces when outsourcing any service or part of its operations. This usually revolves around three things, the quantity of service, the quality of service, and the price of the service. If you manage to get these right, you set your website on the path to success. If you don’t, you have some worrying to do.
That begs the question, how much should you pay for your website management service? Like anyone else, you want to stretch the value of your dollar as far as possible while at the same time not making any compromise on quality.
Variety is Not As Bad As You Think
There’s no single answer to how much you are going to pay. The market is awash with thousands of website managers who offer various plans and packages at different rates and plans. And that’s a good thing.
Competition turns the tables in favor of you, the customer. A mild competition should make you happy. Intense competition, on the other hand, should make you even happier. This is because it makes it easier to choose a plan that is custom and tailored to your needs while at the same time, putting downward pressure on the cost.
Website maintenance packages vary greatly due to competition. You may get a plan that sells its packages weekly, monthly, or yearly. You may also get packages offered in three tiers, each already customized for your website. Though rare, you may get a fully customizable website package that enables you to pick-and-choose the services you require and get billed afterwards.
The most common website management package is one that offers services in already customized tiers or plans which you pay for every month or year through a subscription. Many of the packages resemble the example we are giving below.
What’s Included In A Basic Website Maintenance Package?
The basic website management package is the lowest tier in website management. A common misconception is that this package is only meant for smaller businesses with smaller websites, but there’s more to it than meets the eye.
This package is also used by established businesses that are trying out the service for the first time or as a backup to already established websites that run mini websites.
The plan includes
- Analytics
Analytics is the heart and soul of any website. Without analytics, the website cannot plan ahead since it is blind to its strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. Analytics for this plan will mostly revolve around website traffic, bounce rates, conversion goals, and engagement.
- Updates
Updates are a necessity when it comes to running a website. For a basic plan, you can expect updates that include and are not limited to software, plugins, and WordPress updates.
- Marketing
Some basic plans offer marketing management though in limited quantities. They may take a little weight off your chest by managing your email campaign and offering some inbound marketing such as lead generation and conversion rate optimization.
- Support Time
Many basic plans offer support time for website management. Most of the time, support time is offered in hours in all three packages, with the basic package getting an average of about 6-10 hours each month.
- Backups
Website downtime is the nightmare of any business. That’s why many web managers offer backup services even for their basic plans. These backups are likely to be done each week for this tier of service.
- Site Monitoring
A website requires constant monitoring in case something goes amiss. The longer it takes before issues are discovered or fixed, the bigger the toll of the loss. Even for a basic package, monitoring is offered by most website management firms.
- Security
It won’t be easy to find a website management firm that does not offer web security, even in its basic package. These services include and are not limited to malware scanning, SSL certification, web application firewall, and software updates.
- Performance Optimization
All websites are not the same. They have wide variations in performance. Even for the basic plan, many website management firms offer limited performance optimization centered around improving turnaround time, decreasing page load time, and the overall error rate.
Typical Cost Of A Basic Package
All basic plans are made as cheap as possible and sometimes even free to attract as many leads as possible who should then move to the middle or premium plans. On average, the price of a basic web management plan from a SaaS software can range between $30- 200 dollars depending on the firm and the service offered.
What’s Included In A Mid-Level Website Maintenance Package?
Did you know that around 80% of consumers start their research for a product or service online or on websites? The people with mid-level website maintenance packages do.
When buying a mid-level package, expect it to have every single service in the basic package and a few services in the premium or top tier package. It is a favorite for medium businesses and offers a middle ground for people who are past the basic packages and yet to require a premium package.
- Monthly Hosting
A mid-tier package is likely to offer some hosting services. This is likely to cover domain name reservation and hosting that may include shared hosting and dedicated hosting. Hosting is one of the website tasks to outsource, with the hassle of hosting off your mind, you now get to focus on more important aspects of your business.
- Website Maintenance
A mid-level package offers a more robust maintenance for your website. This includes and is not limited to software updates, plugin updates, version upgrades, and limited amounts of content reviews and updates.
- Uptime And Security Monitoring
A mid-level plan offers assurances and insurance on both security and uptime. Downtimes are anticipated and mitigated on your behalf, ensuring their impacts are greatly reduced. Security, ranging from SSL certification to Web Application Firewall and Global CDN’s are justified.
- Backups
With this package, your website is entitled to daily packages in contrast to the weekly packages that come with the basic package. The backups are sometimes linked to third party storage for ease of restoration.
- Access To Training
Some medium-tier packages offer limited access to website training for your website managers or yourself. This training usually covers the basics of website management.
- Search Engine Optimization Audit/ Tool Installation
Search engine optimization is a quirk that you won’t find in many basic packages but one that is widely accessible in medium packages. This is most likely to include medium or lower-tier keywords or one-word keyword SEO optimization.
- Number Of Blog posts
Depending on your website management firm, some medium-tier packages may offer content or a blog post. This may come in a number of blog posts on demand or image or news updates.
- Support Time
Support time is expected in many medium-level design plans. These are mostly offered in hours a month with medium-level design plans, mostly offering 10-15 hours of support time each month.
- Design/ Development Time
Website design and development is another quirk and feature that you won’t find in basic plans but is common in many medium plans. This design may include and is not limited to social media integration, google map integration, content management system upgrades, and graphic design upgrades.
Typical Cost Of A Medium Package
Most mid-tier website management packages are crafted to be affordable to a large audience of businesses. These are small and medium businesses that are still growing their websites and operations. Expect the website maintenance pricing of a medium-tier plan or package to cost from $75 to upwards of $300.
What’s Included In A Top-Tier Website Maintenance Package?
Top-tier website management packages are the premium packages offered to IT firms, E-Commerce firms, and businesses that run well-established websites or those whose operations are heavily dependent on websites.
90% of customers shop with a competitor after visiting a site with a poor user experience. That’s why many E-Commerce sites and websites outsource their website management with premium packages. Premium packages offer:
- Content Updates
Premium website packages offer a wide variety of content updates and even replacement at times. They can manage the most successful blogs on a website offering content updates, content auditing, graphics updates, design updates, and SEO customization.
- SEO audit/ SEO tool Installation
Premium packages don’t stop at SEO optimization. They go further to offering SEO audits and SEO tool installation. The audits can range from technical audits to on-page audits and server log audits. The plan may offer the installation of SEO tools to help with Search Engine Optimization.
- Monthly Hosting
A premium package is most likely to offer monthly website hosting as a feature. This goes beyond the domain name reservation and shared hosting to even dedicated hosting, VPN hosting, and Cloud hosting. With a premium package, hosting will cease to be one of your worries.
- Priority Customer Support
Unlike the basic and medium-tire packages, the premium package offers support time as a priority. This means that your website has the first priority, and they get to address your issues on-demand or with a call.
- Analytics
Expect a detailed monthly report with a premium website maintenance package. This package exposes your website to a plethora of analytics tools that give you a 360-degree view of your website together with presentation, analysis, and advice.
- Website Maintenance
A premium website management package offers a variety of maintenance perks to keep your website up to date. These range from software updates including and not limited to Content Management System updates, Plugins, Themes, Extensions, and Server.
- Marketing Optimization
Unlike medium packages, premium management packages come with a variety of marketing options for website lead optimization. These include email campaign management with automatic emails, social media integration, live chat integration, and landing page optimization.
- SEO Optimization
All premium packages come with SEO optimization as a feature. These may include and are not limited to Keyword research, Custom 404 page setup, Meta tag optimization, and website sitemap setup. Many premium packages also offer SEO audits besides their SEO optimization.
- Design / Development Time
Design and development time in premium packaging is offered in hours per month, like in the medium and basic options. Design and development time is likely to range from 20 to 30 hours a month in a premium package covering everything from graphics to SEO image optimization and page speed optimization.
Typical Cost Of A Premium Package
Being the most premium option for website management, top-tier packages are more expensive than the medium and basic plans. They are created for established websites and E-Commerce sites and may cost from $1200 to upwards of $4000.
The Key Takeaway
Outsourcing one of the many day-to-day tasks in your business can go a long way in boosting growth and productivity. Here at Zirtual, we understand that fully and have spent the last years creating the best platform for Personal Assistant Outsourcing.
For more information about virtual assistants, contact us today and let us be part of your story.