Realistic to mange own website? where to start?

[BlueSky2019]

We are a manufacturing SME and currently pay £££s pm to a faceless company to manage our website. Not impressed, difficult to communicate with, slow to react and not proactive.
Am wondering if a relative novice (ie me!) could take on managing the website? It's not needed for eCommerce, no sales processed through it. Fundamentally a gallery, technical information and a web enquiry interface.

Would really appreciate advice on next steps, any diy website build companies?

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

What do you mean by 'manage' your website?

 

[antropy]

Am wondering if a relative novice (ie me!) could take on managing the website?

It depends what the website is built with and on your technical skills?

Paul.

 

[fisicx]

Many people manage their own sites. All you need is the phone number of a friendly developer to help out on with the fiddly bits.

 

[SocialChameleo]

Can't really make an accurate comment without knowing the details really:

- The size of your site, and its complexity
- What you're currently getting (or supposedly getting) from your agency
- Your goals from your website
- Also what constitutes £££ in your eyes, cause that could be 10k p/m or £500.

 

[webhostuk]

If its not ecommerce what sort of website maintenance you are looking for? Do you regularly change website details/ contains or its technical issues you are talking about, like web hosting related?

 

[splashweb]

Self manage can work for sure. You don't mention which platform you're on, but WordPress for example will need you to be more hands-on than something like Wix. If you want to stand any chance of significant enough traffic to generate leads then you should also make yourself aware of things like Google Search Console and respond to their reports accordingly. Also, just having a good understanding of the relevance of user experience, internal linking, backlink profile etc. etc. You may well find that using a freelancer over an agency will give you flexibility you need in terms of oversight, costs and direction.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Speaking someone who definitely doesn't qualify as either a tech or design person, I'd say definitely 'yes'.

I built a functioning Wordpress site one evening - it looked DIY but was extremely effective.

You may want to pay a professional to tidy things up and to get the functionality right, but for a simple brochure site, it's hard to see what 'management' would actually involve. It would also be interesting to ask them for a breakdown of what they actually do for their money.

 

[Gibson46]

We are a manufacturing SME and currently pay £££s pm to a faceless company to manage our website. Not impressed, difficult to communicate with, slow to react and not proactive.
Am wondering if a relative novice (ie me!) could take on managing the website? It's not needed for eCommerce, no sales processed through it. Fundamentally a gallery, technical information and a web enquiry interface.

Would really appreciate advice on next steps, any diy website build companies?

It is fairly straightforward to set up a brochure website using platforms like WordPress, Wix, etc. They are designed to be user-friendly for both setup and management. In my experience, it is the marketing of the site that requires the real expertise. You may encounter difficulties in acquiring your domain name from the existing website company if they choose to be uncooperative. This would not be an issue, however, if you already have access to the domain name.

 

[Russ Michaels]

what is it built it? as this will determine how much management is really required.

If its WordPress, you need to keep all your themes and plugins and Wordpress itself up to date.
You also need to keep an eye on plugins that have been abandoned, removed from wordpress.org or just not getting updated for a long time.
I suggest installing wordfence which will tell you if there are any issues with your site.
Your hosting provider may offer tools for automatic updates in the control panel.
take a look at this article.

How to keep your #WordPress installation updated with #Installatron completely free.

Keep your WordPress updated and secure usiing Installatron. Many website owners do not realise they already have this option available in their control panel.

michaels.me.uk

If you would rather have it done for you, take a look at https://managedwp.uk