More and more of the websites we build are based on content management (CMS) frameworks to give you, the owner of the website, total control. Of these frameworks, the one we specify most often is WordPress. This is because its code is mature, its administration is elegant, intuitive and easy to understand, it is secure and its underlying technology and programming base means we can add the functionality you need, easily and quickly. These features combined make it a very cost effective platform.

However – could you hear that coming? – the result is that we, professional developers and designers, let you, who are almost certainly neither of these, have total control over your website and its management. This can be a cold and lonely place. Our new service offers to give you the support you need in that area. A halfway house between a website where you have to ring up the developer for every small change and a website where, if you break it, no-one can hear you scream.

*it’s a fair use policy, this is supposed to reflect one hour a month, if we think changes or artwork will take longer then we charge you as normal, giving you an estimate of costs before we start. For full details have a look at a Sample SLA.

There are three main things you will need to go with your WordPress site; training, backup and maintenance

Training

While we are building your asite we will be throwing lots of information your way, image sizes, uploads, typography, menu structures.

Once the dust has settled, you have written a few pages, you know your way around your website we suggest two sessions of two hours each to properly train you on the administration and format of your site. The first is in the basics, the difference between pages and posts, how to add material, how to format images, image sizes, how to add and change menus. The second is more focussed on your specific needs and a place to ask all those ‘how-to’ questions.

Backup

You should be doing this yourself. The important difference? We’ll remember.

A CMS, unlike a static site, is in a constant state of change. As you add material, live, to the site, the only place that material resides in on your website itself. With a static site, the latest iteration is effectively a backup. With a WordPress site this backup has to be performed manually. There are three key elements to your site; the content of posts and pages, any images or documents you upload and lastly, the theme. The theme is usually static, is backed up when the site is built or amended by the developer. The other two change as you make changes to the site.

Maintenance

WordPress is the most popular CMS framework in the world, with nearly 30% of the world’s websites being based on WordPress, it’s a target for hackers.

WordPress core and any plugins are updated regularly  to address vulnerabilities as they become apparent. We can take the hard work away from you. We will keep your WordPress installation up to date and safe. If you read the sample service contract you will see that it also includes adding content, making sure it fits with your corporate guidelines, for instance making images conform to size requirements. It’s intended to provide an hour’s work. It can take all the worry out of keeping your site working as your users expect.