Image of a formula 1 pit crew an analogy for Wordpress Maintenance

Why You Need a WordPress Maintenance Care Plan

Why do I need WordPress maintenance? What is a Care Plan? These are common, and expected, question we get from our clients. Considering the investment you’ve made getting the website developed, it’s a good question to explore.

If you’re surfing the web chances are you’re visiting a site built on WordPress. Accounting for over 30% of the world’s websites WordPress is used on sites from fortune 500 companies like Time, Sony Music, Tech Crunch, Microsoft, etc. through to hobby sites and blogs.

A huge installed base, open source code, infinite extensibility, a huge community of designers and developers means WordPress is well suited to meet the diverse needs of organisations large and small.

But there is a dark side. WordPress’ enormous reach makes it target for hackers, viruses, bots, and other nefarious characters in cyberspace looking to spam, deface, insert malicious code, steal your customer’s information, or worse. Just imagine the impact of finding out your site has been blacklisted and your traffic has stopped completely!

Fortunately thwarting the majority of these security concerns can be addressed by keeping your site up to date. WordPress core is updated regularly with security and performance enhancements. Quality plugins are typically updated regularly too. Plugins that are not actively maintained should never be used.

That’s where our WordPress Maintenance Care Plans come in. If you use a modern motor vehicle as an analogy you have a very sophisticated piece of technology that, after learning the controls, is easy to operate, and a joy to drive, but under the hood is a complex combination of mechanics, electronics, and ( as I found out recently ) software. It requires regular maintenance to keep it running at peak performance. Your WordPress site is no different.

Our WordPress Maintenance Care plans offer the following;

WordPress Core, Plugin, and Theme Updates

Running a WordPress site is not a set and forget proposition. It’s important that the system is constantly updated to ensure any discovered security issues are patched as soon as possible. WordPress core, Plugin, and Theme updates are the first line of defense.

Website Security

Advanced firewall protection from known threats, login protection, security hardening, malware scanning and, if ever required, malware removal.

Website Backups

A daily backup with effortless restore capability and multiple backup points. Backups are performed and or updated prior to any work being performed on the production site. Backups are incremental and we have the ability to restore from the latest, or older backup sets.

Performance optimisation

Maintaining a good user experience by ensuring the WordPress Database is optimised, checking for broken links, addressing speed issues. Maintaining consistent evaluation of the site and the infrastructure it’s hosted on, providing consulting on areas where performance improvements can be made.

Value

Few small businesses can afford to have a full time developer in house. While Clients often wish to work on the site themselves it’s our experience that other priorities take precedence and pretty soon the site is neglected. Having experienced people available to address your requests, make changes, and ensuring your site is in good shape, for a minimal monthly investment leads to peace of mind, and allows you to focus on what you do best.

The sites we develop are built with a trusted and core set of plugins, the sites we inherit often need a lot of remediation work, either way we’re here to ensure the sites are maintained and running ship shape. For more information on our WordPress Maintenance Care Plans visit our Care Plans page, or simply Contact Us.

One last thing to consider. An emergency is not a good time to be considering WordPress website maintenance.

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