Choosing help
Managed website vs. doing it yourself
Launching a website is a project. Keeping it running is a job — one that many owners take on without realizing it. Before deciding whether to maintain a site yourself or have it managed, it helps to see everything the job includes.
By Masoud Kabir, Founder of XeauraUpdated
What maintaining a website involves
- Hosting: keeping the site online and fast.
- Security: applying software updates and patches, and watching for problems.
- Backups: making them regularly and knowing how to restore one.
- Monitoring: noticing when the site or a form stops working.
- Content changes: hours, prices, staff, photos, services.
- Support: fixing whatever breaks, whenever it breaks.
None of these are hard on their own. The difficulty is that they never stop, and the consequences of skipping them — a hacked site, a lost backup, a broken form — tend to arrive at the worst time.
When doing it yourself makes sense
- You're comfortable with the technical side, or have someone who is.
- The site is simple and rarely changes.
- You have a routine for updates and backups, and stick to it.
When a managed website makes sense
- You'd rather not think about the website at all.
- Nobody on your team owns the technical side.
- Your website brings in customers, so downtime costs money.
- You want one place to send changes, and someone accountable for them.
What to look for in a managed plan
- What's included each month, in writing.
- How many content changes are included, and what counts as one.
- How quickly support responds.
- How backups work, and how long they're kept.
- Whether your domain stays in your name, and what happens if you leave.
Where Xeaura fits
Xeaura's website management is $249 a month: hosting, security monitoring and updates, daily backups kept for 30 days, uptime and performance monitoring, up to 2 minor content requests a month, and a reply within 1 business day. If you'd like someone watching your forms and leads too, that's Xeaura Operator.