Blogging is a great way to share your brilliant insights to the world. But if you’re a writer and not a web developer, you probably don’t particularly enjoy all of that technical stuff that comes along with maintaining your blog’s web presence. (I know I don’t.)
Setting up a blog, managing hosting (including security and backups), customizing your theme and webpages all take time. And when you’re trying to live the life or run the company that your blog centers around, the things you need to do to maintain your blog can easily sap the precious moments you’d rather use for writing.
That’s why your blog needs a web developer. So you don’t waste your time managing the technical details of keeping your blog running.
Here are some of the key areas where a web developer can improve your web presence and boost your blog’s reach:
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Let Your Web Developer Handle Hosting, Backups, Uptime Monitoring and More
Right out of the gate, there are some technical issues that a blogger must handle before even drafting a first post. From choosing a domain to finding a reliable host and putting systems into place to maintain security, it might take a few hours or days before your blog is up and running. And that’s before you even do the fun stuff, like choosing a theme or sticking your logo on everything.
Depending on how much research you want to do to find the best host or security plan, you might spend a good amount of time trying to figure out just where to start. Then you have to figure out how to put all the piece together.
Sure, starting a blog isn’t rocket science, but if you’ve got your mind deep into your future posts or want to spend time developing a stellar downloadable to deliver to your new audience, you might not want to take the time to put everything into motion.
In a few hours, an experienced web developer can puzzle together your initial blog needs and get the access he (or she) needs to monitor your uptime, manage backups and keep your security up to snuff. This way, you can get to work and not worry about the minute details of your blog’s initial needs and ongoing background upkeep.
Invite Your Developer to Customize Your Website
When you establish your web presence, you want to make sure that your website stands out – in all the right ways, that is. In addition to creating a welcoming environment for your readers to enjoy, you will also want your blog to display colors, fonts and other details relevant to your unique brand.
Your atmosphere, including your theme, are essential to your blog’s overall look and feel. But it can hard to find a blog theme that’s just right for your website. Maybe you find one with the right colors and the totally wrong font. Or you want to adjust certain parts of the theme – like the sidebar or layout – in a specific way.
Modifying a theme can be simple or complex, depending on what you’re trying to do. And while you can certainly take charge and make the necessary changes, sometimes you need to educate yourself on modifying theme code, color values or compatible plugins to enhance your theme.
This work can take hours or even days that you might not have. Plus, you run the risk of breaking your theme if you mire too deeply into the code without knowing what you’re doing.
If you want your website to stand out and don’t want to invest time into learning code and modifying your theme, consider letting a web developer do the heavy lifting here. Your developer can learn about your wants and needs and make the necessary adjustments to your site’s theme.
Employ a Web Designer to Make Your Branding Pop
Additionally, a design minded web developer – aptly called a “web designer” – can help you establish theme colors based on your logo and customize a theme that’s exactly what you need. Web designers bring bloggers the best of both worlds, because they can modify code and adjust visuals to make your site function well and look great.
Your web designer might also be aware of different plugins that can further customize your theme or add helpful elements to improve your user experience. A web designer is the creative blogger’s best friend when it comes to website personalization.
Help! Help! I Broke My Website!
Whether you work with a web developer or not, you have probably gone behind the scenes to adjust code or customize a page. Often, you can make a few tweaks and get the results that you want.
But sometimes everything inexplicably goes wrong and you break your site. A broken website is a disaster – especially if you don’t know what you did and can’t retrace your steps to put things back together.
When you’re in the midst of a broken website crisis, the last thing you want to do is Google “what did I do wrong?” and sift through thousands of results or have to learn code to put things right again. A broken website is a blogger’s worst nightmare.
Instead of trying to go it alone, call Web 911: your web developer. A skilled web developer can look into your code and quickly diagnose your problem. Then, he or she can get to work fixing what went wrong, whether that involves editing a bit of code or tracking down a backup to restore your site from the ground up, if need be.
Have Your Developer Optimize Your Site
SEO. Love it or hate it, it’s here to stay.
But optimizing your site for search engine rankings can become an obnoxious time drain. From dealing with metadata details to ensuring that all of your blog posts perform their best in the rankings, you may spend a few hours a month making sure that your SEO is up to snuff.
If the idea of managing the SEO for every page and post, in addition to keeping track of changing SEO rules, doesn’t appeal to you, let your web developer handle those details. A web developer who’s well-versed in SEO standards can implement little changes throughout your site and maintain your compliance with SEO standards. That way, you can focus on what you love to do and make sure your content lands in the hands of the people that you want to see it.
Ask Your Developer to Add Ecommerce Capability to Your Blog
If you’re ready to take the plunge and sell items from your blog or accept donations for the charity you run, you’ll want to implement a payment system that’s safe and secure. You certainly don’t want customers sending a payment that you never receive, and you definitely don’t want to open your loyal customers’ info to hacking as a result of doing business on your site.
Running a secure blog store is essential, whether you’re selling a single item or hundreds. Look to a web developer to implement a payment system that’s safe and that’s easy for you to understand and access.
There are a lot of options when it comes to accepting online payments, and it can be hard to compare the advantages, security benefits and transaction fees from service to service. Ask your web developer for the best info regarding trusted payment services and EFT plugins.
Chances are, your web developer will have a handful of recommendations, depending on the type of products you’re selling (virtual or tangible) and whether you’re accepting donations of any sort.
Hand Off Your To-Do List
Blogs of all sizes and genres can benefit from the aid of a skilled web developer. In addition to helping you manage your background tech tasks and customize your site, a web developer can help you tackle the tiny tasks you simply haven’t gotten around to.
Let’s face it, running a blog or blog-based business takes a lot of time. And when you’re self-employed, time is money. What’s the real value of taking precious hours to learn how to handle your blog’s tech troubles, when you could simply hand off those tasks to a web developer who already knows the way around a blog’s backend?
If you crunch the numbers on your lost productivity, you might be shocked to find that hiring a web developer can save you hundreds – even thousands – of dollars in the long run. Especially if the job is done right the first time.
Next time you run into blogging tech troubles, consider hiring a web developer/designer to help you tackle them. Or look into securing a retainer that guarantees professional help from web developer/designer for a few hours of work per month to keep your SEO, updates and security in tip top shape.
Your web developer is an important asset to your team and can help you find the success you seek in from your web presence.
Curious about hiring a Rystedt Creative web developer for your blog’s tech needs? Contact us today to learn more about our hourly retainers or ask about our new Blog Safety Net services!
