Website Management for Owners

The concept of boutique website hosting
Why would I need it ?
Wouldn't my developer handle all this ?
What's the cost
What's the downside ?
How does this get arranged ?

THE CONCEPT OF BOUTIQUE WEBSITE HOSTING ?

In a nutshell, a boutique host fits between the website owner (client) and the technical installation (web hosting farm) where our website servers are located. Website developers may place the website in our care for hosting or we are replacing the absent developer at a later stage in the website lifecycle.

We move your website from your present hosting provider to one of our own servers, and then provide you with an additional service point between you and the new hosting administrators. We provide the website care facilities such as editing, repairing, extending scripting, search engine optimisation, security, mail administration, SEM and PPC marketing, statistical analysing, auditing and general advising.

And, best of all, this is often at no extra cost.

WHY WOULD I NEED IT ?

Developers, conceive, design and build websites.
Hosts (MWeb, Telkom, Afrihost, Hetzner, etc) maintain the servers that house the websites.
In between, there are a number of functions that are largely uncatered for.
A boutique host typically provides :
- broad developer services
- backup and disaster recovery systems
- domain administration and custodianship
- private (non-public) server environments
- security administration
- search engine optimisation (SEO)
- SEM and PPC marketing advice00
- updates on trending issues
- email administration
- CMS management
- auditing and reviews
- strategy development

WOULDN'T MY DEVELOPER HANDLE ALL THIS ?

Generally, yes .... but circumstances change and the boutique solution makes great sense where there are support issues or you need those missing services.

ABANDONMENT
Many developers, especially the smaller outfits, need to be creating several websites a month to generate income. Revisiting completed projects from some time back is usually an inefficient and time consuming process which interrupts current project delivery. There are also the issues of emmigration, corporate employment, vocation change and relationship breakdown which sever the developer link.

SKILL RANGE RESTRICTIONS
A developer needs a very broad range of skills and experience to conceive, manage, build and implement a new website project. This can tax the resources to the limit for the typically small team. Now add in server administration, security, SEO, domain management and custodianship, scripting and mail management and you'll understand why those services won't necessarily be handles at the expert level. It's just asking too much.

WHAT IS THE COST ?

When we move your website to our servers, the hosting costs we charge are generally much the same as you were paying before.

But you now have the services of the server farm (where we have placed the hosting) along with Webpro providing the management and boutique services as a bonus - most of which will be included in your standard package at no extra cost.

Sometimes there could be a once off transfer cost but that would be identified and quoted for.

[Learn more here about Costs..... ]

WHAT'S THE DOWNSIDE ?

We are trying to give a balanced view here so we need to address this issue. But it's hard to find negatives in our proposition. We'll try to find something.... Do you have any suggestions or concerns.?

HOW DOES THIS GET ARRANGED ?

We make sure that the site technologies are catered for on our servers
We then quote a transfer cost (often it is zero) and a hosting fee
On your acceptance we start the authorisation process to amend the domain registration details and prepare the data for tranfer.

Anything we left out, stuff you don't agree with.?
Good article, bad article.?
Please give us your comments and suggestions.

If you would like our opinion on how easily we could take over your site, then please complete our Enquiry Form and we can give you a quick estimate quote.

Simple, low technology non-CMS sites can usually be transferred at zero cost.