During my 15+ year agency run from 2002 until the start of 2018, I watched the internet “grow up” first hand. In the early years of my entrepreneurial journey we did a ton of simple promotional micro-sites for a wide variety of clients, mostly Hollywood stuff. I’m not gonna lie, it was super fun and rewarding getting to work on some of the most popular shows at the time (Friends, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Hannah Montana, Gilmore Girls to name a few).
This is a shot from a website we created for Warner Bros. in 2005 to promote a Friends trivia game they launched on Playstation 2. Ahhh, the good old days.
During those early years (2002-2007, or so) it was feasible to be a “web design” agency. Every business was waking up to the notion that they needed a website and demand was heavy.
On top of the gold rush of businesses scrambling to get online, internet technologies were improving so fast that a company would need to “re-do” their website nearly every year (which kept demand and repeating clients consistent).
ABC Family hired my agency to create the Smallville website when the show moved to their network back in 2004. I loved the first couple seasons of this show.
Somewhere between 2009 and 2011 the website gold rush changed. Technologies and web design usability standards stopped changing every five seconds and a client’s new website design and technology would now last a few years. (No need for annual website re-do.) Annually repeating website clients became less common and agencies like mine had to figure out how to create residual income from website clients.
My agency (and many other creative businesses like mine in that era) solved this problem organically over time by answering this question, “How can I get consistent ongoing revenue from a website client because they don’t need a new website every single year?” The services outlined below became part of the answer to that question.
Ok, enough for the internet design and development history lesson. Here are four services you can offer website clients to create consistent, monthly recurring revenue for your creative business. Each of these services provides value to your client and consistent income for your agency. Here is a brief summary of each service and a few bullet points to help you understand what the monthly service might entail.
Website Maintenance
Summary: Maintain the client’s website technologies and make content updates. This service acts as an “insurance policy” for your client’s site.
- Update the content management system
- Update website plug-ins and tools
- Act as a liaison between your client and the web hosting company
- May or may not include hosting fees
- Can include a small batch of hours each month for bug fixes and/or content updates
- Monthly Income Potential: $300-3,000+ per client
Conversion Optimization
Summary: Analyze website data and make improvements to increase visitors, stickiness and conversion.
- Analyze website metrics
- Identify under-performing content and pages
- Recommend improvements
- Implement and test improvements
- Report results to client
- Monthly Income Potential: $500-5,000+ per client
Search Engine Optimization
Summary: Improve website results in search engines to increase organic traffic and drive target audience to site.
- Audit current search results
- Identify keywords for SEO improvement
- Optimize meta data and website content for improved search
- Report results to client
- Monthly Income Potential: $1,000-5,000+ per client
Content/Blog Marketing
Summary: Create content to keep your client’s website “fresh” and engaging for visitors.
- Create content pillars, sub-pillars and content ideas
- Write articles based on content pillars
- Publish articles to client site (images and formatting)
- Design infographics to support articles (option/extra fee)
- Monthly Income Potential: $500-2,000+ per client
If you create websites for your clients, I consider adding at least some of these services to your business a MUST for today’s creative service industry. Your clients will benefit from your efforts and your business will become more stable with projectable monthly cashflow.
You have two options for implementation. Option one, you can take the time to learn the skills and execute on them. Or, option two, you can hire someone to perform these types of services for your clients. You mark up their price to make some money and they do the work. Either way, my strong recommendation is add monthly website support services to your business and add them now.
