VirtualMV/Web Development/Web Site Management/Site Maintenance/Content

Overview
When maintaining your website always consider what small enhancements can be made, such as: providing new content by hotlinking to free streaming content – eg news, time and weather feeds
 * adding further text to what is already there (not just updating) – eg providing better explanations & adding to the number of frequently asked questions
 * adding new images, video, audio – eg providing a video demonstration of a product or artefact
 * adding new links – eg adding to the hotlinks to other sites and providing expanded explanations about the hotlinks
 * promoting more aggressively – eg registering the site with search engines that you have never registered with before, increasing the number of reciprocal links with other sites.

Technical Maintenance
A technical maintenance list might include :
 * the speed of the site
 * hotlinks to other sites – eg validity of the hotlinks
 * the reliability of the web server – includes dealing with error reports from the web server
 * the speed and reliability of information derived from the database
 * email lists – includes removing faulty email addresses
 * user sessions, hits and traffic through the site
 * the exporting of data collected from online forms to the appropriate personnel
 * the integrity and performance of the e-commerce system, if applicable

Issues that can arise after maintenance 

Think of this from a user point of view where the contacts may have been built up over several years and may be both internal & external.

Budgeting for maintenance

 * The cost of maintaining your website over a 12 month period needs to be estimated and the money allocated so that the website has every chance of achieving its goals.
 * Many businesses make the mistake of only considering the cost of developing a new website and forget the cost of annual maintenance.
 * For some businesses the maintenance costs are not high, for others they can far exceed the development cost. No matter what the cost, annual budgeting for maintenance is very important.
 * The website budget should be considered along with everything else at budget time. It might be listed as a unique item in the overall budget and given its own allocation.