WordPress Website Support for EDCs and Infrastructure
As an Economic Development Corporation (EDC), your job is to bring new business, retain existing businesses, and focus on the long-term economic growth of your community. This might be at the state or local level. Much like growing a community, EDCs need to think about growing their website and plan to maintain its infrastructure and long-term health. Questions to ask about your current website: What type of WordPress website support do EDCs need? Is it healthy? Does the structure support the types of content services you’re offering? Are people finding their way around? Like a community, if the website is not very usable and doesn’t have the right structure, it can quickly fall into disrepair.
We don’t think website support should be intimidating. If you’re looking for WordPress website support for your EDC, it’s important to understand what’s involved and what goes into supporting a website long-term. The more complex the website, the more complex the infrastructure. If your website was well planned, cleanly built, and maintained by a professional team, it will have a longer shelf life.
Planning for the Full Website Lifecycle
It’s important that your EDC’s website support is well planned. Our team provides professional WordPress website support for EDCs by creating our support plan ahead of launch. If it’s a website we are taking over, we conduct an extensive audit of the site to understand how it was built. That audit allows us to create an appropriate plan and support package for each client. We offer competitive packages that keep you updated, secure, and looking great.
The website lifecycle typically includes a few key milestones and iterative events. The design, build, and launch of the website is the first phase. Depending on how well the website was built and its complexity, it will directly impact the effort needed to maintain it long-term. At CH Web Agency, we design and build websites to grow with your organization. After launch, the website will move into support with routine updates and security patches. Each year we will relicense any software the website relies on and continue updates throughout the year, including regular bimonthly patches.
In addition to the typical updates, we also support new campaigns and updated branding. Our website support team is ready to help make sure your website is up to the task, as your EDC adds new services, attracts businesses from different industries, and promotes growth across your region. We can help with new landing pages, SEO articles, and relevant graphics to make sure you meet your target goals.
What Proactive Website Support Includes
Your EDC team is working to make sure they stay ahead in a quickly evolving technological landscape. They must wear new hats and work diligently to make sure the community stays on track and continues to see economic growth year-over-year. We understand the value you bring to the community, and our experts understand how to keep your website running smoothly and reliably each step of the way. Our team is actively monitoring your website for any issues. We have website monitors that track whether there is any downtime and are notified right away. Downtime is rare, and our hosting service provider has an estimated 99% uptime. Because of our systematic approach to updates, we mitigate potential disruption to your website. As time passes after launch, our team will make updates and recommendations to keep your website secure, responsive, and reliable. We can scale up or down our support to match your business needs each quarter. It’s important to be proactive when providing WordPress website support for EDCs.
Managing Updates Without Disruption
One of the reasons our team doesn’t encounter as many performance issues as our competitors is that we plan website updates. We specialize in the type of WordPress website support EDCs need. Every month we perform 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. If the error is the result of a compatibility issue from a code or plugin update, we rollback the update, make the patch, and publish the changes.
Risks of Deferred WordPress Website Support for EDCs
If you skip regular updates, your EDC’s website pages can quickly start to look dated, broken, and unattractive to business leaders. If your website falls into disarray, it may not support your mission of attracting new businesses to the area. Even if your programs to reduce blight in the community are working, a broken website may give the appearance of a broken community. Regular website maintenance is critical to keep your site safe, secure, and working as intended. If you defer website maintenance, it opens you up to vulnerabilities with plugins and lower engagement from a lack of activity. It’s critical to make regular updates to your site. Update text to be more relevant, update the backend and code to make the site safer, and check for any issues across devices so you don’t miss out on potential new customers. The Chapel Hill Web Agency is a professional website design agency that offers web design and development services across North Carolina.
