Websites as Long-Term Infrastructure
If you’re a nonprofit, your website may have a nontrivial architecture. This means that the permalink structure has both breadth and depth. It also may mean that there are a large number of taxonomy terms supporting the organization of content. As the website grows, new pages and posts are added. With new pages and posts come requests for additional features and functionality. This may have even been what lead you to start thinking about website support for nonprofits.
With the right website support team, the website remains fast, efficient, and healthy long after launch. New requests are folded into the structure of the website and content grows at scale. However, if you don’t have a professional website support team, those editing the website can unsustainably make changes that lead to plugin bloat such as multiple page builders, security vulnerabilities, out-of-date WordPress environments, and unresolved errors.
It’s critical that nonprofit teams think of their website’s full lifecycle and how the website is a long-term infrastructure project. This means not just planning for the next event or landing page, but how to sustainably add new features to support the next event so that it’s not just a one-off, but can benefit all future events as well. This prevents multiple solutions being created for a single problem. Your team needs a professional web design and development for nonprofits.
Planning for the Full Website Lifecycle
At CH Web Agency, our team of professional website designers and developers plan for the full website lifecycle. We offer competitive packages for website support and maintenance as well as any website changes that might be needed. Our unlimited website edits packages are tailored to your team’s needs, making it easy for you to budget for the year and have all of your annual website needs taken care of. CH Web Agency provides transparent and predictable pricing to support the mission-driving work of your nonprofit.
We plan for the full website lifecycle. Immediately after launch, we’re there to support training of staff that will be posting content on the website. With our support packages, we make sure that the website remains secure and that updates are made on schedule. Our 24/7 website monitoring immediately notifies our team of any issues. While downtime is extraordinarily rare, our staff are standing by to resolve any problems. If your team signs up for the unlimited website updates package, they can send any website changes to our staff over our dedicated communication channels. Tasks are completed quickly with many routine requests completed same day and most larger requests within a week.
When major updates, special functionality, or new features are requested, we offer the right solutions to make sure that your website is updated with the same care as it was originally built. The same expert website team that built the website will provide all updates.
What Proactive Website Support Includes for Nonprofits
Long-term nonprofit website support can take on many different forms. It can mean making sure a nonprofit’s WordPress website remains secure. This might include WordPress, theme, and plugin updates. The team hosting your website may also need to plan regular checks and scheduled updates to the server environment. This could include updating OS versions and software packages, such as the latest version of PHP. CH Web Agency is a professional website design agency in North Carolina. Our team makes website updates as part of a routine schedule. We also push critical updates outside of the regular schedule to keep websites as secure as possible. We plan all updates and mitigate downtime and unexpected issues by building maintenance into our website support packages.
Managing Website Support Without Disruption
Our team understands the critical role that nonprofits play in our communities. We are dedicated to providing the same level of support and care in our updates as you put into your mission every day. This means performing regular updates to your nonprofit’s website to keep it secure, functional, and looking great. One of the reasons our team doesn’t encounter as many performance issues as our competitors is that we plan website updates.
Every month, we perform these routine updates to the website, including security patches. Each update is scheduled, and we conduct a series of compatibility checks to ensure that performance and layout remain unaffected. Emergency fixes are when an unexpected error appears on the website and needs to be resolved quickly. Emergency fixes are where the cause of the error may not be immediately apparent. Because of our systematic approach to updates, emergency fixes are rare. For routine updates and questions, our team is easy to reach, with after-hours support available for emergencies. We deliver the responsiveness and hands-on support of an in-house team. Nonprofits need a reliable website support team and often don’t have the resources to pay for a dedicated staff member to manage the website expertise. Our agency can provide the responsiveness and level of support that comes with an in-house team at a significantly lower cost.
Risks of Deferred Website Maintenance and Support
A secure website depends on routine maintenance. If your team defers maintenance or doesn’t have a dedicated website support team, it might mean that your website is behind on updates. If your hosting provider is not managing updates or you don’t have a team managing hosting updates, it could mean that your website is on outdated software which also introduces security vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities mean that your website can be hacked and malicious code can be added. This might be used to steal users’ data, it could be to redirect traffic to malicious third-party sites, and it could be used to discredit your organization through harmful vandalism of your site. It is critical that nonprofits of all sizes have a website maintenance plan in place.
CH Web Agency is a professional web design agency offering WordPress and website services in North Carolina. We support websites for large nonprofits here in the state of North Carolina and nationwide. If your team is in need of fast, reliable website support services, reach out to our website experts. We offer website support for nonprofits with existing WordPress websites and as part of all new website builds.
