Web project management - create new sites or redesign existing ones Webmaster Website administrator Ongoing Maintenance for Wordpress sites Member Services + Communications Design Online Submission forms Graphic Design Instructor & Coach Photoshop: General, enhance images of art for use, restoration & retouching of digital images
I work on sites based on Wordpress, Squarespace, Cold Fusion and Weebly
Ongoing Site Maintenance: This is different than updating the content by updating text and creating new blog posts for your site. Ongoing site maintenance means keeping the components of the site up to date. It should be done carefully. This includes creating backups of the files that make up your site and testing those backups periodically. It also means implementing some security protocols,
Keeping the components of the site up to date means making updates, as required, to the Wordpress installation (the platform the website runs on), the theme that gives the website its look and feel and the plugins (programs that give the website extra functionality). It is important to make sure everything is working properly after the updates are made. When do this, I proceed very carefully after making a backup of your files.
The website should be backed up on a regular, scheduled basis and before any major changes are made to the site. Two types of backups should be scheduled: the database only, on a daily basis, and a full backup performed weekly. A full backup should be done before making any major changes to the website. This may include logging into the hosting site and making a full backup of the files on the server (Cpanel, website files and databases). The scheduled backups should be tested for reliability at least every three months. Having a backup and recovery plan in place means less downtime in case there are issues with the website. A few of the common risks include hacker attacks where they try to gain access to the site and other types of attacks where they try to load malware or use the site to send spam emails from your email address to people who have never heard of you.
Implementing basic security protocols is also very important. The protocols are monitored and updated as required. This helps prevent hackers from gaining access to the site. There are many ways they can do this, but security measures make the site less attractive to them.
It is not possible to make a website 100% secure, but regular updates, scheduled and tested backups, and basic security protocols contribute to the smooth operation of a website.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
There is much controversy about the effectiveness of Search Engine Optimization. It is said that there are over 200 Google ranking factors. There are many factors that affect whether a company shows up in the first page of a Google search and these factors change every so often. The mix of content on the site - Google likes a mix of images, text and tables, the type of sites that link to your site from theirs - a link to your site from The Jerusalem Post carries more weight than one from a small business or personal site, how often your site content is updated, how many people visit your site, how interesting and original your content is, how often important keywords appear on your site and how they are formatted, are just some of the considerations. This site will be optimized for search engines in a basic way. If you decide you want to explore this further, we can discuss it at that time.
Updating the content of site: If you would like help with making updates to the content on the site, I can look after that for you. Let me know what you need and I can give you a quote for the work.