Do You Need a Webmaster? Have You Considered the Option of Hiring an External Employee for This?

Have you reached a point where your website requires a lot of changes, and even requires a full-time employee whose job it is to handle its day-to-day management? So now, you have to post an ad for a job on various websites, receive a lot of resumes and find the most suitable candidate, and then you have to manage that employee you’ve just hired, and it just keeps going like this. The question is, is that even necessary?!

Well, in most cases the answer to this question is absolute no. There is no reason to hire an employee whose entire job is to manage the website unless we have no choice. But let’s explain the rationale behind this statement:

Hiring a Webmaster VS Hiring Webmaster Services

As a business, you must calculate every step and check if it’s the best and most profitable financial option. Therefore, we will try to answer the titled question from an economical point of view, and only then address the personal aspects of it:

Costs of Maintaining a Webmaster as an Employee:

Keeping an employee is not cheap and requires considerable effort from you in managing them. Below is the list of costs that must be considered when hiring the average employee:

• The cost of posting ads on necessary websites.
• The cost of your time spent selecting and interviewing candidates.
• The cost of a month’s salary for the salaried employee.
• The cost of social benefits/travel expenses for the salaried employee.
• The cost of the employee’s work environment (electricity, property tax, rent).
• Cost of holiday gifts/personal days/sick days.
• And more…

As in any business, there are times when there is more work or less (holidays/vacations/winter), and during these times you must continue to pay the employee their salary even though the work required of them is not as high as it is during the summer or other peak seasons. However, it is not possible to subtract their salary or fire an employee for these reasons.

Costs of Hiring Website Management Services:

Hiring management services for the business’s website will usually be carried out according to service agreements which include a commitment to the required number of billable hours. That is, the package can be changed according to the needs of the business and even stopped/frozen during periods when the business operates in a limited format or when the market dictates it.

Unlike having an employee, the costs of managing a website by an external company are summarized in the following breakdown:

• Fixed monthly cost for the desired service.
• Exceptional overtime cost if required.

But what you really want to know is – how much it will cost to rent these services?

This is usually a cost equal to half the salary of the average employee, without all the extra benefits you must pay, which are extremely high. That is, if you need a webmaster as an employee, you can choose to pay a salary of $6,000-8,000 a month and add another $2,000-3,000 for social benefits, pension, etc… or pay around $3,000-4,000 every month to a company that will achieve the same results.

Now, let’s separate the financial from the personal

Feasibility of Holding Management Services on the Personal Side:

There is a definite advantage in having an internal employee in the organization who can be monitored, and their actions examined at any given time. This employee is obliged to report to work and can even be given additional responsibilities if they have some free time. Moreover, a company employee can be exposed to wide information in real time that is difficult for an external employee to be exposed to without having an authority figure in the company pass that necessary information to them.

However, several additional parameters must be considered before making a decision:

• An external webmaster will often be more professional and efficient than a hired company employee.
• An external webmaster must impress the company every month to keep the job.
• An external manager sometimes brings additional values to the organization besides their existing management.

That is, there are advantages and disadvantages to both options shown above.

What Do We Recommend?

We are, of course, biased – since we are interested in providing you with website management services. But we are also decent enough to give you the best answer to this question:

• If the goal is financial savings – external management services are preferable.
• If the goal is to improve visibility – employee services will be better.

Our advice to you, hire an employee and check how long they have been working on the website and whether you’re satisfied with their work or not. If you see that a significant part of their time is wasted (hidden unemployment), then you need our services, and the employee should be laid off from their position. If that employee works hard and takes on extra responsibilities and initiatives, their work is better than ours.

Confused about which option you should choose? Contact us for a free consultation without any obligations, and we will be happy to help you examine the advantages and disadvantages in accordance with your company’s needs so that you make the best decision for you. Good luck!