Website updates

What website updates are

Website updates are a standing arrangement for changing things that already exist on your site. A price that went up in April. A phone number that changed when the office moved. A staff photograph of somebody who left two years ago. A paragraph on the services page that no longer describes what you actually sell. Each one takes minutes. Together they are the difference between a site that looks tended and one that looks abandoned.

It is not web development and it is not writing. If a request needs the site's code, its templates or a new feature built, that is web development, which I bring in and manage. If you need a page that does not exist yet, that is page creation. This covers everything smaller than either, which on most sites is nearly everything.

When you need one

The common case is a site built three years ago by somebody who bills by the hour and answers in three weeks. So nobody asks. The price list stays wrong, the team page keeps two people who have left, and a customer mentions the fax number still sitting on the contact page. Nothing is urgent enough to chase and all of it is quietly embarrassing.

The second case is a business that could make the changes itself. Someone has the login. But they are afraid of breaking the layout, so it waits for a quiet afternoon that does not arrive.

You do not need this if your site genuinely changes twice a year. One tidying pass is cheaper: an outdated page refresh deals with the stale dates, prices, dead links and departed staff in a single go. And if you have a capable person who is only nervous of the system, half a day of CMS training removes the need for me altogether.

What counts as an update

The rule is simple. If it can be done from inside the editor without touching the site's code, it is an update.

• Text. A price, an opening hour, a rewritten paragraph, a service added to a list, a name corrected, a date moved on.
• Images. A new staff photograph, a replaced product shot, a logo swapped in the footer, each resized properly and given a description.
• Links and buttons. A dead link repointed, a button relabelled, a form confirmation message reworded, an old PDF replaced with the current version.
• Small structural edits. A section moved up a page, a heading rewritten, an item taken out of the navigation, a banner removed once the sale has ended.
• The seasonal ones. Holiday hours put up and taken down, a closure notice, a price list swapped at the start of a quarter.

Outside it: anything needing a plugin installed, a template rebuilt, a payment system touched or the hosting account opened. I tell you which side of that line a request sits on before I start it, not after.

What you get

The change, live. Made in the editor, checked on a phone and on a desktop, with the address of the changed page emailed back so you can look at it yourself rather than take my word for it.

A stated turnaround. Anything sent before noon on a working day is live by the end of the next working day. A wrong price, a closure notice or a legal correction is done the same day, and I do not charge more for you calling something urgent.

A running log. One shared sheet with the date, the page, what was asked for, what was done and how long it took. When the arrangement comes up for renewal you can see exactly what you bought.

A worked example

An illustration, not a client. A four-branch veterinary practice has a site built by an agency that has since stopped answering email. Over eighteen months the changes have piled up: new consultation prices, one vet who left and two who joined, holiday hours that are still last year's, a broken link to an insurance form, and a home page banner advertising a vaccination clinic held in the spring.

The first month clears the backlog. Fourteen changes across nine pages, done over two weeks, with the new vet photographs taken by the practice manager on a phone and resized at my end. From month two the practice uses about two hours a month: holiday hours in December, a price change in January, a new branch page linked in from the locations list in March. The manager stops keeping a list of things to ask the agency.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. What system the site runs on, how often things change, and what is sitting in the backlog now. No charge.
2. A fixed price in writing. Either a monthly block of hours or a per-request rate, agreed before anything starts.
3. Access. An editor account with no more permission than the job needs. Where the site has a staging copy, anything structural is done there first.
4. Requests. Sent by email, one per message, with the page address and what you want it to say. A photograph attached is enough for an image change.
5. The work. Next working day for ordinary requests, same day for anything urgent, with a reply confirming what was changed.
6. The log. Updated as we go and reviewed with you every three months.

What it costs

Quoted in CAD after the half-hour call and fixed in writing before the first request. There are two shapes. A small monthly block of hours, usually two to four, is the common one: you send changes as they arise and nobody has to judge whether a request is worth phoning about. Unused hours do not roll over, which is the only reason the block can be priced low. The alternative is per request, for a business with a handful of changes a year, quoted within a working day of you asking. The pricing page shows the four published ways of working.

What happens next

Most businesses settle into the monthly block and stop thinking about it. Some find the log is mostly one page being patched over and over, which means that page needs rewriting rather than editing. If the backlog turned up dead links in numbers, a scheduled link check catches the rest before a customer does. And when there is new material rather than corrections, CMS content entry handles the batch. This arrangement is complete on its own, a month's notice ends it, and nothing further is assumed.