What happens to a website after launch, what technical support covers, what goes wrong when nobody looks after a site, and how to choose between one-off tasks, a monthly plan or an in-house specialist.
Many business owners assume a website needs nothing more once it goes live: it was delivered, it was paid for, and it works. Six months later the SSL certificate expires and the browser starts warning visitors away. A couple of months after that, the lead form stops sending emails and nobody notices. A website runs on a server and depends on a domain, certificates, libraries and third-party services, and all of them need regular attention.
What website support includes
The exact scope depends on the site, but support usually covers four kinds of work.
Technical health
- uptime monitoring, so that if the site goes down you find out within minutes rather than from a client;
- scheduled backups of files and the database, stored separately from the main server;
- renewing the domain and SSL certificate before they expire;
- updating the CMS, framework, plugins and libraries, above all when security fixes are released;
- keeping an eye on server space, load and errors in the logs.
Everything still working
- checking lead forms, the cart, payments and integrations, for example with a CRM or Telegram;
- fixing bugs that appear after browser or third-party service updates;
- checking how the site displays on phones and in different browsers.
Search and speed
- tracking indexing errors in Google Search Console and Yandex Webmaster;
- checking load speed and removing whatever slows it down;
- fixing broken links and setting up redirects when page addresses change.
Content and small changes
- updating copy, prices and photos, adding new pages and articles;
- small additions: a new block, form, section or language version.
What happens to a site without support
Problems rarely show up all at once. These are the most common:
- The domain expires. Both the website and the email on that domain stop working. If it is not renewed in time, someone else can register it, and getting it back can be hard or expensive.
- The SSL certificate expires. The browser warns that the connection is not secure, and most visitors leave.
- The site gets hacked, most often through outdated plugins in popular CMSs. Foreign links or malicious code appear on the pages, and search engines start showing a warning in results.
- The lead form breaks. The site looks fine, but leads go nowhere, and the company loses clients for weeks without knowing why.
- The site goes down and nobody notices. Without monitoring, you hear about it from a client or spot a dip in analytics.
- Data is lost. If backups were never made or were kept on the same server, there is nothing to restore after a failure.
Most of these can be caught with a check that takes a few minutes.
Support formats
One-off tasks
You contact a developer when something needs changing or something breaks. This suits simple sites that rarely change. The downside is that nobody watches the site between requests, so you find out about a problem after it has happened.
Monthly plan
For a fixed monthly fee, the contractor monitors the site, runs backups and updates, and handles an agreed amount of changes. For a business that gets leads through its website, this is usually the most convenient option: costs are predictable, and issues are found before clients run into them.
In-house specialist
This makes sense for large projects with enough work for a full-time role, such as online stores that change constantly, web applications and customer portals. For a business card site or corporate website it is usually more than you need.
Support works best when it is done by the team that built the site, because they know the code and how the project is put together. If that is not possible, a new contractor will need time to get to grips with someone else's code, so allow for that in the timeline and budget.
How to choose a support contractor
Before signing a contract, check:
- response time: how many hours it takes the contractor to start on an urgent problem such as the site being down, and how long a routine task takes;
- what the fee covers: how much work is included in the monthly plan and how anything beyond it is billed;
- where backups are stored, how often they are made, and whether restoring from them has been tested;
- who owns the access: the domain, hosting and Google and Yandex accounts should be registered to your company, and you should have every password;
- reports: what the contractor did during the month, which updates were installed and which errors were fixed.
What a site owner can check on their own
Even with a contractor in place, it is worth doing this once a month:
- Send a test lead from every form and make sure it arrives.
- Open the site on your phone and go through a client's path: find a service, tap the phone number, submit a form.
- Check when the domain and certificate expire.
- Look in Google Search Console for new errors and warnings.
- Compare leads and visits with the previous month. A sharp drop often points to a technical problem.
Frequently asked questions
Does a business card website need support?
Yes, though only a minimal amount: renewing the domain and certificate, backups, monitoring and checking forms. A business card site brings in leads too, and if its form breaks you lose clients just as you would on a large site. We covered what goes into building one in a separate article.
How much does support cost?
It depends on how complex the site is, how often it changes and how fast a response you need. The price is usually set after an audit, when the contractor looks at what the site is built on, which integrations it uses and what state the code is in. For what drives the cost of website work in general, see "How Much Does Website Development Cost and What Does the Price Depend On?".
Can I hand over a site built by another studio?
Yes. The first step is an audit of the code, updates, access and backups. It shows what needs fixing first and whether it is worth supporting the current site or better to build a new one. If you are leaning towards a new one, read our article on redesign, which explains how to move without losing search rankings.
How is support different from promotion?
Support keeps the site running without failures, while promotion brings visitors to it from search and ads. If the site does not work, the traffic you paid to bring in simply leaves.
Tell us about your website and get in touch. We will check what state it is in and suggest a support format that fits.
