With the recent challenges imposed by COVID-19, it’s not surprising that the number of people earning an income from independent work in the U.S. rose 34 percent in 2021 (see below). But making the switch to freelance web development full-time is not an easy decision. To successfully make the switch, Read more…
This summer, the Watchful team was careful to set aside time to rest and recharge on vacation in places like Naples (Italy), Thassos (Greece), and Vail, Colorado (USA). But we had some projects “simmering on the stove” that address the user experience of website management at Watchful. We also introduced Read more…
Building a modern website requires a large set of skills and expertise in many softwares. Given the costs that can be involved in purchasing numerous suites of software, it’s not surprising that an ecosystem has developed around the production of free tools for web designers and developers. Below you’ll find Read more…
Automatic software updates are an important tool to help keep your website running smoothly and to minimize maintenance time. Today we are announcing two improvements to our auto update tool: the ability to update core software automatically and the ability to pause automatic updates in a single click. Below, we’ll Read more…
If you are running a web agency or digital consultancy, you probably use multiple services that send white-label reports, notifications and other emails to your clients. Using your own email address with these services is important for white-labelling third party emails. But emails from your account sent via a third Read more…
Here at Watchful, our goal is to make website maintenance as efficient and reliable as possible. Today were launching the next step in this journey with a new account dashboard that may change the very nature of how you perform website maintenance. Let’s jump right in and preview the account Read more…
As part of JDay USA, Watchful hosted an Ask Me Anything session focused on website maintenance. We invited a panel of Joomla and WordPress experts to help answer your questions. The session was a great success. The questions and discussion points covered a broad range of topics well beyond simply Read more…
Website notes are the humble little feature used to store specific information about a website in the Watchful dashboard that isn’t stored or logged elsewhere. Common examples include site-specific upgrade steps, client preferences, a record of site milestones or 1-off site maintenance tasks such as modifying the .htaccess file. Watchful’s Read more…
It’s a scary and all-too common story: a WordPress plugin update has taken your website offline and you don’t have a recent backup to revert the changes. Now you’ve got to spend a bunch of time troubleshooting and fixing the problem on the live site before your clients start calling. Read more…
The primary purpose of Watchful is to save you time. Organization of your website plays a big part in achieving this goal. The ability to tag your websites provides a flexible way for Watchers to organize their mainteance workflows. And since Tags can be added and managed easily, we see a lot of Read more…