The Shipyard: Smooth-Sailing Websites Dock Here
For nearly 20 years (um, wow!), Big Sea has been launching websites for clients. Hundreds of websites. And for most of those clients, we’ve been providing ad-hoc support when they need something updated, changed, migrated.
We’ve always been your go-to web team
Many times, we’ll log in to update something for a client and find that the site hasn’t been maintained for years. Plugins are out of date, the platform too. We are asked to make a minor cosmetic update when the engine needs some significant maintenance.
Much like a car, a website that isn’t maintained regularly will perform poorly and be unreliable. Worse, though, are the security risks posed by vulnerabilities in out-of-date plugins or platform code. Your site becomes a sitting duck, just waiting for a hunter.
That’s why we are launching the Big Sea Shipyard: to provide regularly scheduled maintenance and ad-hoc support to give you peace of mind. From security updates to a full-on platform upgrades when necessary, the Shipyard will help you keep your content and customers safe, and performing at peak levels, always. The Shipyard will also be your go-to for site enhancements, upgrades, or changes.
Is your website an asset or a liability?
The difference between an asset and a liability can be marked with the ongoing investment of resources — time, energy, and money — to preserve something as an asset before it devalues into a liability. And as we can all attest, it’s far easier (and cheaper) to keep something an asset rather than attempting to convert a liability back into something valuable.
The Shipyard is here to manage the upkeep of your digital property for long-term value and long-term benefit. Just like ships spend time in a shipyard for repair and refurbishment before heading back out to the open sea, your websites need the same ongoing TLC and attention.
Protecting your investment
The Shipyard is a new department here at Big Sea entirely dedicated to website maintenance and support (think oil changes and tire rotations for that newly purchased vehicle) — that’s our entire job and purview.
While the rest of the Big Sea team works hard to build that new car, we work hard to keep that car on the road and driving smoothly. Through a combination of routine maintenance and ad hoc support, we ensure your initial digital investments are protected so your websites remain assets and don’t depreciate into liabilities. This creates a platform for year-over-year growth and sets you up for success.
Keeping the Shipyard entirely focused on maintenance support means that our Big Sea team isn’t pulled in multiple directions to both build and maintain projects simultaneously – leading to unnecessary context switching and a lot of frustration. This increases our team’s ability to focus, leading to increased quality, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. A win-win for all!
Life at the Yard
Okay, so how does it work exactly?
It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3 — Hosting, Maintenance, and Support!
Overview of Shipyard Services
1. Cargo Hold
Our Cargo Hold service provides ongoing hosting for the server environment that your site lives on. We host hundreds of websites across multiple servers, and will continue to do so — we just have a name for it, now. We work primarily with WordPress-based websites on dedicated servers at WordPress-specific hosting companies. We provide your first line of support whenever your site has interruptions.
2. Engine Room
Our Engine Room service offers routine and scheduled maintenance to ensure your website is being updated and attended to as needed. This is the “need to have” stuff that we do every three to six months depending on your site’s complexity, and often includes updating plugins, upgrading platforms, optimizing integrations, and keeping your site performant, secure, and up-to-date.
3. Refurbishments & Repairs
Our Refurbishment service is for ad hoc support across a wide range of our Big Sea service offerings. We can make small edits to existing pages, create entirely new pages or modules, install new plugins or add new functionality. We can rewrite poorly-performing copy or redesign a low-converting page.
This is where our clients submit ticket requests and we queue them up for completion based on priority and timeline — rinse and repeat. We also schedule regular account strategy meetings at our higher tier packages so our consultants can guide you to creating an even better digital experience for your visitors.
We offer tiered plans based on your business needs — past, present, and future — so we can grow together and stay afloat as partners.
Take your ship to the yard!
Contact us to learn more about the Shipyard, the details of our maintenance & support plans, and how Big Sea can be of service to your business — both now and in the future.
Bon voyage!