Contracted Webmaster ™
Website Management Service

A Practical Solution to the Employee vs. Vendor Conundrum:
Cost-Effective, Full-Service Website Development, Maintenance and Marketing

You've invested a lot of time, energy and resources to advance your organization's web presence. But ongoing maintenance, development and strategic planning can be a costly challenge. A smart and sustainable web presence is only as good as the people behind the scenes, and requires a reliable team that can consistently deliver professional results while also navigating an ever-growing maze of choices and possibilities.

Unfortunately, hiring an experienced in-house webmaster to manage your website is not inexpensive, and even entry-level employees can come at a premium, especially in metropolitan areas where demand for services is strong and turnover rates are high as web developers hone their skills and climb the professional ladder toward new opportunities.

Furthermore, there are so many areas of professional web development and management that it is virtually impossible to find a single person to do it all (design, application development, coding, programming, database administration, marketing and communications, project management, information architecture, usability, strategic planning, etc), meaning that you need to hire multiple employees with diverse specialized skills if you want an in-house team to cover all the bases of managing a complete web presence.

Sometimes it may be necessary for an organization to maintain the infrastructure and expense of an in-house website management staff (e.g. a company whose entire business model is web-based). However, for many organizations, a contracted website management team provides superior skill and service at a fraction of the cost of the employee model.

Fortunately, web development is an area that is particularly well-suited to a remote team approach, and geography is no longer a barrier to quality service or collaboration. With the HSS Contracted Webmaster ™ Program, we become part of your core team and work with your existing in-house staff to help execute your vision, and facilitate your organizational goals.

Maintenance, Development & Support

On-demand service when you need it:

• Ongoing Content Updates
• Functionality Enhancements
• Rapid Response for Bugs, Errors and Troubleshooting
• Custom Web Development
• Information Architecture and Usability
• Project Management
• Support Requests
• Collaboration with IT and Other Development Staff
• Software & Plugin Updates
• Managed Hosting & Maintenance

Marketing & Communications

Let us work with you to manage your organization's outreach, including:

• Design graphics and interactive multimedia
• Content development
• Email campaign production and publication
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• PPC campaign management
• Blog and social media management
• Web analytics reporting
• Collaboration and strategic planning with marketing staff, PR, executive decision-makers and other consultants

Leadership and Accountability

An engaged team to drive your web strategy as your organizations evolves, in-line with your needs:

• Pro-active feedback and consultation
• Strategic planning and collaboration
• Project management
• Rapid response time for critical issues
• Ongoing performance monitoring

Return on Investment

Compelling advantages for our clients:

• Significantly lower cost than hiring in-house staff
• Minimize liability of turnover and loss of internal knowledge/resources
• Professional service across the full spectrum of web development, maintenance and marketing
• Consistent, reliable service from an established team with proven track record

Before you hire your next full or part-time web support staff member, consider the following:

	Employee Webmaster	Contracted Webmaster™
Base Cost to Company	Average Salary of over $90,000 in major metro areas (example).	Typically at least 50% lower than the total cost of an employee.
Additional Costs to Company	Social Security Tax, Health Insurance, Disability Insurance, Vacation Time, Bonuses, Continuing Education, etc. Actual total employee costs can exceed $100,000.	None.
Experience and Capabilities	Typically limited to content management and graphics preparation; 2-5 years experience. Skilled programming and marketing expertise requires additional employees and/or outside vendors.	Scalable team of experts across the full spectrum of web development, administration, and Internet marketing, dedicated to your organization, customizable according to your needs, with skills applied on-demand.
Basis of Compensation	Time-based (40hr week).	Performance-based (services and results delivered).
Turnover Liability	Yes	N/A

 

Please Note: We only service a limited number of contracted web management clients at a given time in order to ensure quality service, so please contact us to check availability for future planning.