Website Maintenance

What website maintenance actually means

Every website needs looking after. Pages go out of date, contact details change, new services get added, and the odd thing breaks. Website maintenance is the ongoing work that keeps your site accurate, functional, and performing the way it did on launch day.

For most small businesses, this falls into a few categories: content updates (swapping a photo, adding a paragraph, changing a price), performance checks to make sure load times stay fast, SSL certificate renewals to keep the padlock in the browser, and uptime monitoring so you know the moment something goes wrong.

The difference with a hand-coded site is what you don't need. There are no WordPress plugins to patch every week, no CMS core updates that risk breaking your layout, no database bloat slowing things down over time. A static site has far fewer moving parts, which means fewer things that can go wrong and less ongoing cost to keep it running well.

That said, "fewer things can go wrong" is not "nothing can go wrong." Content still needs updating. Hosting still needs managing. And someone still needs to be checking that the site loads properly on new devices and browsers as they come out. That is what I do.

What I cover

On the monthly Business plan, website maintenance is built in. Content edits, hosting, SSL, uptime monitoring, and direct support are all part of the £150 a month. You send me the change, I make it, and the site stays current without you needing to touch any code.

If you bought your site on the one-time plan and want ongoing support, that is available too. Hosting starts at £25 a month. Edits and support are £75 a month on top. Both are optional, and you can add or drop them whenever you need to.

What maintenance includes

Content and text changes on any page, image swaps and resizing, adding or removing pages (extra pages are £100 each), contact detail and opening hours updates, SSL certificate management, uptime monitoring with alerts, monthly performance checks against Core Web Vitals, and fixes for anything that stops working.

Larger requests (a new section of the site, a full page rewrite, a structural change) fall under the dev rate of £50 an hour. I will always quote before starting, so there are no surprises.

Why hand-coded sites cost less to maintain

Most website maintenance companies charge £60 to £300 a month because they are dealing with WordPress. Plugin updates, security patches, database backups, staging environments for testing, malware scans. That is genuine work and it needs doing, but it only exists because the platform creates those risks in the first place.

A hand-coded static site does not have a login page for hackers to target, a database to inject malicious code into, or third-party plugins that can introduce vulnerabilities overnight. The attack surface is dramatically smaller. That means the maintenance work is focused on what actually matters to your business: keeping the content right and the site fast, not fighting the platform.

This is also why I can include maintenance in a £150 monthly plan rather than charging it as a separate £100+ line item. The work is real, but the volume is lower because the site is built to need less of it.

What happens if you stop maintaining your site

Sites that get left alone tend to age badly. The content drifts out of date, and visitors notice. Google notices too. Pages that show last year's prices or a phone number you changed six months ago send a signal that the business might not be active. That affects trust, and it can affect rankings.

On the technical side, SSL certificates expire, hosting configurations change, and browser updates occasionally break something that used to render fine. A site that loaded in 1.2 seconds at launch can creep up to 3 or 4 seconds if nobody is watching. According to Google's own data, 53% of mobile visitors leave a site that takes longer than three seconds.

Maintenance is not about doing busywork. It is about catching small problems before they become expensive ones.

How it works in practice

You get in touch by phone or email. Tell me what needs changing. I make the update, usually within a day or two for small edits. Bigger jobs get a timeframe and a quote upfront.

There is no ticketing system, no support queue, no account manager sitting between you and the person doing the work. You talk to the same person who built the site. That means I already know the codebase, the structure, and what will and will not break if something gets moved around.

If you are on the monthly plan, you do not need to think about hosting renewals, SSL expiry, or whether the site is still up at 2am. That is handled. If you are on the one-time plan with the hosting add-on, same thing. The only difference is the edits and support piece, which is the separate £75 a month option.

Common questions

How often should a website be updated?

There is no fixed schedule. Some businesses need monthly content changes, others go six months without touching a thing. The important part is that someone is monitoring performance and keeping the technical side current, even when the content stays the same.

Can I make changes myself on a hand-coded site?

The site's code is clean and well-structured, so a developer could edit it. But part of the point of the maintenance plan is that you do not have to. Send me the change and it gets done.

What if I want to add SEO later?

The site is already built to meet technical SEO standards out of the box: fast load times, clean code, mobile-first layout, proper heading structure. If you want to start ranking for local search terms, the Growth plan adds keyword research, local SEO, and location pages on top of the maintenance that is already included. The foundation does not need rebuilding.

Is there a contract?

Monthly plans run on a 12-month minimum. One-time buyers can add or remove the hosting and support add-ons with no long-term commitment.

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