Why Website Property Management?
For many businesses — from automotive to food service and many industries in between — a brick-and-mortar location is necessary. Yet if you are like most business owners, you’d rather focus on optimizing your business rather than the many small distractions involved in keeping a location running smoothly. Chances are water delivery, window washing, or installing a security system are handled by other companies specializing in those services.
The same approach could apply to a business’s web property, as well. However, many business owners make the crucial mistake of putting more effort into managing a brick-and-mortar location than they do in selecting and maintaining the business’s website property. And with Local SEO having more influence on a business’s bottom line than ever, overlooking this aspect of your business can be quite detrimental.
Even Simple Is Complicated
The smallest decisions can often have a biggest impact on search engine ranking and online exposure. As such, fully understanding the best decisions for your business model as it relates to Local (vs National) SEO can make a world of difference. Many hosting companies boast ease of management. The challenge, though, is not in the execution but in having the expertise to understand what the right decision will look like. For instance, consider the following common questions:
- Is SSL or site security really needed if I am not selling something online, or asking for credit card numbers?
- How is domain name registration, DNS management, and hosting different?
- Does it matter where the website is hosted (geographically)?
- Who handles theme, plugin, PHP, and server updates? Which ones are manual, automated, and semi-automated via the theme or host?
- Is email part of the service or do I need a different company for that?
- Now that Google uses site page load speeds to determine ranking, is my site fast enough and, if not, is it the site installation, host, or other technology slowing it down?
While not an all-encompassing list, these questions begin to reveal the depth of expertise needed to effectively execute a website property. This is where ioCreative’s specialized Web Property Management services can improve your overall website, not to mention provide peace of mind.
End-to-End Web Property Management
Our services run the gamut, from more traditional administration of hosting services through monthly maintenance to deep web property analysis that can lead to identifying potential risks or missed opportunities.
Underlying every decision, however, is our “SEO first” strategy. All too often in the world of website management, critical aspects of SEO are overlooked — or worse, ignored — leading to a need for SEO recovery services. We avoid the long-term, negative impacts to your ranking in Search by first providing a reliable foundation for your current needs, and then seeking actionable opportunities for improvement should you wish enhance your online presence.
We complement maintenance with branding, content marketing, CRO, and web development services so your site looks great inside and out.
A SOLID FOUNDATION: HOSTING, SECURITY, and BACKUPS
Simply put, there is too much to consider to have a simple litmus test in determining your hosting provider. A decision should not be based on the “cheapest” or the one “we’ve been using since 1998.” Instead, it is important to have a rigorous vetting strategy based on a range of qualities that, ideally, are SEO-relevant.
We deliver a range of services that will meet your hosting needs, including …
- Daily Automated Backups with high uptime so that you are never more than one day away from recovery.
- Shared Hosting with opportunities to upgrade to a dedicated server.
- US-based Servers with optional server locations in Canada since the geographical location of the hosting server impacts search results.
- Fast Page Load Speed and options for CDN or employing a multisite, which can be advisable (depending on business models).
- Comprehensive Security features, including SSL importing and rapid response / protection from DNS attacks .
- Scalability to grow with you and avoid the steeper costs that come with highly trafficked sites.
ONGOING SUPPORT: REGISTRATIONS, UPDATES, and MAINTENANCE
With over 10,000 themes and 50,000 plugins for WordPress alone, a “try before you buy” approach is too time consuming. Even then, finding a solution that isn’t short-term can be challenging since many developers stop supporting (i.e. adapting) their technology. This can leave you with an out-of-date plugin that may not work or, worse, continues working while posing security risks.
We are constantly reviewing and vetting themes, plugins, widgets, and various other add-on features to minimize risk and lower costs. Additionally, we readily administer other aspects of website management, as well. Our experience is that there can be “too many cooks in the kitchen” — some of those cooks are unaware how SEO can be impacted by the work they do. In order to achieve seamless integration, we …
- Oversee or Execute Website Migrations, which often involves working with multiple service providers to minimize downtime.
- Regularly Employ Updates for themes, plugins, and platform, taking the opportunity to reassess developer support.
- Manage Domain Name Registration, which can include determining privacy settings, adding/removing domain locks, setting up automated renewals, acquiring new domains, and other aspects of the Domain Name System (DNS).
- Enable or Migrate Email, from setup to support, including guiding you on how to manage email internally.
- Optimize Control of Data, performing database sweeps and interface adjustments to improve internal user experience and interfacing with the website.
POST-LAUNCH ANALYSIS and ONGOING ASSESSMENT
Whether we have been involved from the beginning or not, we will review core aspects of the website, especially as they relate to SEO. Typically, this begins with a post-launch analysis where we …
- Check Site Speed and Page Load Speed of select, cornerstone pages.
- Confirm most images meet best practice standards (e.g., alt-text, image size, compression, etc.).
- Review content for accuracy, format errors, and common grammar mistakes.
- Cross-check layout and quality on multiple operating systems and devices.
- Confirm cross-browser compatibility with various modern browsers.
- Perform quality review of Forms, Sign-ups, and email collection practices.
- Check for crawl directives via Robots.txt and XML Sitemap installation.
Additionally, we conduct ongoing and monthly checks, coordinating with clients on emergent issues or time-sensitive needs. We follow these with quarterly reports and feedback (if only to confirm we are doing everything right).
Ultimately, if you feel bogged down with the technical nuances of managing your business’s website, we provide the ideal solution. It’s more than turnkey — we do all the thinking, so you don’t have to.
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