Once you've build a Joomla website, do you just hand it over to the client and run for the hills? Probably not. In this presentation we take a look all those things you to do keep a website running. We'll look at tools you can use to make things easier, as well as disaster recovery planning, and other ongoing tasks. We'll also look at how you can charge a client for this ongoing work, but at the same time make the client feel they are getting value for money and not just getting shafted.

1. Maintaining a Joomla Website
Sydney Joomla User Group
Presented by Tim Plummer

2. • Client doesn’t see value in ongoing
maintenance
• I don’t have time to maintain the site
• How much should I charge?
• What regular tasks should I do?
Maintenance challenges you may face

3. What if you don’t maintain a site?
Site becomes vulnerable
Site gets hacked
Angry customer
Joomla gets bad reputation

4. Educate them as to why website needs to be
maintained
• Keep website operating in peak condition
• Patch security vulnerabilities
• Disaster recovery
Client doesn’t see value
Would you buy a car and never service it?

5. • There are tools available that can help
automate some of the maintenance tasks and
save you time
• Charge enough to make it worth your while
• Consider leveraging cheaper offshore
resources
I don’t have time

6. Different ways to price
• Include maintenance in project cost
• Annual maintenance percentage (eg. 10% of
project cost)
• Fixed monthly rate
How much should I charge?

7. • Daily offsite backup
• Disaster recovery plan
• Software updates (core & third party
extensions)
• Website monitoring
• Support
What maintenance tasks should I do?

8. • PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising
• Content marketing / strategy
• Social media campaigns
What should I exclude?

9. • Akeeba Backup professional
• Amazon S3
• Daily/weekly cron to trigger backup
Daily offsite backups
TEST YOUR BACKUP
Untested = no backup

10. • In the event of something going wrong, have a
plan to restore backup and recover site
Disaster recovery

11. • Keep Joomla core version up-to-date
• Keep extension versions up-to-date
Software updates

12. • Do you bundle subscriptions in maintenance
cost?
– Client doesn’t need to worry about ongoing
subscription costs for extensions used
– Depending on licence, you may be able to use for
other clients at no extra cost
Software subscriptions

13. • Apply the latest best practice
recommendations
• Can use tools to check basic settings
Site audits

14. • Support to help client maintain content
– some developers include up to 30mins per month
in their maintenance fee
Support

15. • Monitor when core files changed
• Is there an update available for an extension?
• Uptime/downtime
Website monitoring

16. • Most of these items, the client doesn’t have
visibility of, so they may not feel they are
getting value for money.
• Monthly report showing what you have
done/improved
– Extensions updated
– Average backup size
– Other minor improvements
Does client see value?

17. • Each month, focus on one small change to
make all your client sites better
– SEO improvement
• update meta data
• Add a sitemap
• Update robots.txt
– Security audit
• Update/improve .htaccess
What else can you do to add value?

18. • Watchful.li
– Get notified when core files changed
– Get notified of extension updates
– Single interface to update multiple sites
– Site audit
• Myjoomla.com
– Security audit
• BF SEO
– Improve organic SEO
Tools to make this easier

19. Questions?

20. Tim Plummer
www.tamlynsoftware.com
@bfsurvey