When you run a web design agency or work as a freelance developer, keeping your clients satisfied is of utmost importance. However, if you’re not offering them website maintenance services, you might be missing out on a crucial opportunity to strengthen your relationships and increase your revenue.

After you’re done designing and developing beautiful sites for your clients, providing them with key maintenance tasks can be mutually beneficial. You can ensure that all your hard work remains properly cared for while simultaneously generating more income. Plus, you can automate much of the work to help streamline your operations. Meanwhile, your clients can rest assured that their sites are secure and functioning properly at all times.

In this post, we’ll start by discussing website maintenance services and the vital role they play. Then we’ll discuss three top reasons why offering these services can be a smart move for your business. Let’s jump in!

An introduction to website maintenance services

In a nutshell, website maintenance is about ensuring that there are no significant issues with the site, and that everything is regularly updated and safe. Whether you’re a freelancer or a business owner, your true passion likely lies in the development and design side of your work.

As such, you may be reluctant to take on a different type of service. You might fear that it will mean working twice as much or as hard, possibly with little return.

However, offering website maintenance services to your WordPress clients can be an effective way to grow your business and expand your potential cash flow. There is also a lot of flexibility in it.

You can build maintenance plans and packages based on pricing and tiers that work for you. For instance, you can work the maintenance pricing into the total overall cost of the project or as a monthly subscription package:

Also, you can decide which services to offer. For instance, you could handle site security and Search Engine Optimization (SEO), or simply carry out updates and backups. You can pick and choose the type of support you provide.

3 reasons to offer website maintenance services to WordPress clients

Now that we understand a little more about which website maintenance services you might offer and how to incorporate them into your current business model, let’s look at why you might want to do this. Below are three key reasons to offer website maintenance services to your WordPress clients.

1. It can help minimize customer support requests

As a web development professional, you likely understand the importance of regular website maintenance. Unfortunately, your clients may not. Therefore, they may be more likely to put it on the back burner.

Over time, this negligence can lead to major problems. Also, your clients may not be well-versed in website maintenance tasks or how to conduct them properly.

This can increase the likelihood of things breaking or going wrong, which might translate to an uptick in customer support requests for you. Managing the services yourself helps ensure that the processes are handled correctly the first time.

Plus, there are many maintenance tasks that you can streamline. For example, at ManageWP, we let you manage a wide variety of maintenance tasks for multiple WordPress sites all from one place:

You can see everything simultaneously and even generate reports for your clients. As a result, you won’t have to dedicate too much time to maintenance or handling customer support inquiries. Also, you eliminate the time it takes to fix any potential issues that clients may cause by messing with the sites.

2. You can build long-term business relationships

Providing maintenance support work can help you strengthen your relationship with your clients. It can also lead to longer business partnerships.

Maintenance services can be an excellent opportunity to upsell to your existing clients. This is an important part of running a business, as retaining your customers can help save you money. In fact, research has found that the cost of acquiring a new client can be five times as much as retaining a current one.

If your clients are satisfied with the site you build for them, they’ll likely also trust you to maintain it. After all, no one knows it better than you do. However, not all clients may realize that website maintenance services are necessary.

Therefore, we recommend mentioning it during the onboarding process as a potential add-on. Even if they do not choose to sign up for maintenance work immediately, they may decide to use your services in the future.

3. It can generate recurring revenue

In the same way that offering website maintenance services can help you form ongoing relationships, it can also help you generate recurring revenue. Rather than just charging customers one-time (or hourly) fees for development projects, you can charge monthly subscription plan prices for continued work on their websites.

Also, since maintenance work is ongoing, not only can you increase your monthly earnings, but you may also have a more stable income. This can be particularly beneficial when you’re working as a freelancer and your month-to-month projects tend to vary.

Additionally, if you provide quality work to your clients, they will likely be more willing to recommend you to their family and friends. This can help expand your business and open up even more revenue streams.

Conclusion

Running a successful website is a full-time job. However, many clients lack the time and skill to look after their sites. As a web developer, this presents you with an opportunity to boost your value and earn more income by offering website maintenance services.

As we discussed in this article, there are three main reasons to offer website maintenance services to WordPress clients:

1. It can help minimize customer support requests that take you away from your core work.
2. You can build long-term business relationships with increased value.
3. It can help boost your income and generate recurring revenue.

Do you have any questions about offering website maintenance services to your WordPress clients? Let us know in the comments section below!

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