Why Website Design and Maintenance is Not a One-and-Done Thing
By Steve Grant | September 28th 2020
By Steve Grant 
Client or customer? How do you refer to people who buy from you? If you’re in the business of selling consumables, then it’s probably the latter. But if you’re in the service industry, it’s likely you’ll have ‘clients’.
We always say that customers go hand in hand with one-off transactions, and clients are more about relationships. After all, if you’re providing a service, you need to get to know the people you are serving. Otherwise, how can you give them precisely what they need and make sure they achieve what they’re looking for?
What’s all this got to do with website design and business website maintenance you may be asking? Well, because it’s the quick answer to our leading question, why is website design and maintenance not a ‘one and done’ thing?
Transaction vs relationship
When you engage in web design, there’s a process involved. And it’s quite a lengthy one too, if you’re going to be doing things properly. It’s definitely, definitely not a one-off transaction. And there’s a massive need for your web designers to take time to get to know your needs and business goals. As a result, you build a relationship with your web design agency.
From brief to launch, they are hard on the trail of making sure you get what you need to succeed. Discovering your goals. Helping you define your marketing messages and user journey. Understanding your business. And then, the launch. It’s all over, and you’re out there on your own? Of course not!
A website is just one element of an overall digital marketing strategy designed by a digital marketing agency to get you to where you want to be. The site may be ‘done’, but that is certainly not the end of it! Or at least it shouldn’t be.
Here’s why the best web design agencies will never let you feel as though you’ve been a one-off customer, rather than a long term client.
Because you need search engine optimisation (SEO)
Simply leaving it at that once your website has launched isn’t going to help with your vision to increase sales. You may have had your website built for search engine success from the ground up, but there’s a lot more you’re going to need to be doing if you want to enjoy online visibility and top rankings.
SEO helps your business by increasing trust and credibility, by boosting brand awareness, by enhancing your competitive edge, by improving user experience and, ultimately, by landing you more customers.
SEO has to one of the best value marketing strategies, focused on drawing in those all-important warm leads that eventually become loyal customers. Customers that return to buy, over and over again.
Because you need business website maintenance
It’s vital that your website continues to perform at its best on a full time basis, otherwise sales could be lost and reputation could face damage.
Business website maintenance is an ongoing service that makes certain web pages load without errors. That anything connected with SEO is working well, like page loading speed for example, plus site security and device compatibility.
Website maintenance has to be an ongoing thing. Without it, you could lose valuable time trying to resolve issues yourself. You may even unwittingly put your business at risk by not keeping your content management system updated with security patches, or failing to back it up regularly. All this and more are included in an ongoing business website maintenance contract. It will also keep tabs on your all-important business goals too, to make sure you are on track for success.
Because you need ongoing monitoring to keep things on track
Once your website and digital marketing campaign have been up and running for a while, you’re going to want to know whether your return on investment is paying off. You’ll want to see a picture of how things have improved for your business. How many new leads have been generated, new customers acquired, that sort of thing.
However, unless there’s a digital marketing measurement system in place, you’re not going to see any of that. A good web design agency will continue to help you keep track of everything via a reporting service. They’ll also help you set goals and key performance indicators (KPIs), so you have a yard stick against which to check whether your return on investment is delivering.
For business website maintenance and award-winning design, choose Figment
Here at Figment, we’ve been designing bespoke websites for London businesses for a number of years, and with great success. And it doesn’t end there. Our services extend to website care and hosting and search engine optimisation. In other words, we are committed to continuing the relationship so that we can keep working on helping our clients achieve their business goals.
To learn more about how our web design and business website maintenance services could benefit you, you are welcome to get in touch with our friendly, expert team.