Website maintenance includes tasks such as updating plugins, checking for malware/viruses, optimising images/media files, reviewing sitemaps, fixing broken links, and backing up your site data.
Research has shown that the main contributor to comprised WordPress websites is outdated plugin and core files. Updates provide security patches that keep your website protected from malicious attacks. Unfortunately, many business owners do not feel comfortable updating their websites and they become easy targets.
A WordPress maintenance plan is a great way to ensure your website is protected and kept working in tip-top shape. It allows business owners to focus on their business while our WordPress experts handle all your website updates, security, backups, and much more. It is a small monthly investment that could save you a lot of money in the event that your website is brought offline or potentially removed.
In this article, we are going to look at 7 key benefits of being on a WordPress maintenance plan.
As mentioned above, outdated software contributes to nearly 40% of all successful WordPress breaches. This doesn’t mean WordPress is not secure but it does highlight how important it is to keep your plugins and core files updated to the latest version. Each update will provide WordPress and plugins with the latest security patches and improvements to ensure the security integrity of your WordPress site.
Performing updates can be a daunting task for most website owners. It is not always a fool-proof process with updates potentially breaking your WordPress website. For this reason, many businesses simply put the task out of their mind and hope for the best. This is certainly a risky move but one that is understandable. The fear of breaking your website and not knowing how to recover it is stressful.
A WordPress maintenance plan will take care of all your updates for you. Multiple times a month our team will access your website and update all plugins and core files to ensure you have the latest security patches in place. We test the compatibility of the updates to confirm that nothing is broken on your site and in the scenario where something does, we will fix it.
We also monitor your site on a regular basis to check for security issues such as viruses or malware. Have peace of mind knowing that your website’s security is at the forefront of your WordPress maintenance plans.
From time to time the WordPress development team and plugin developers release major updates that include new functionality that enhances your website's capabilities. These could ultimately make the workflow of daily work tasks easier for you and your staff.
By not performing updates your website will not benefit from great new features that could perhaps give your website an edge over your competitors.
Because WordPress core and plugin updates are included in all of our maintenance plans, your website is guaranteed to have the latest features at your disposal.
Your visitors expect your website to load fast and site performance can impact sales and conversions greatly. There are many components that will impact your website load time. This includes;
WordPress maintenance plans don’t cover web hosting or website rebuilds (can recommend solutions) but we do provide advanced caching solutions that will instantly improve the speed of your WordPress website. Every time a visitor goes to a page on your website the browser must download all the files required for this page to function. If the visitor loads a second page on your website, all the files must be downloaded again even if they are mostly the same as before. This creates a lot of download waste and the solution is caching.
Caching is a complex topic but we implement 2 types of strategies for websites that are on a maintenance plan. The first will take a copy of your website files and store them on the computer of the person that is viewing it. If the person views a second page or views the website again at a later date, the files are loaded directly from their computer/device instead of re-downloading them from the web server. This saves a considerable amount of time as your website loads, especially if your page has many images and other resources that are large in file size.
The second method takes a slightly different approach by caching data from your website’s database. WordPress websites store all content in the database. The process of connecting securely to the database, finding the required content, and outputting it to the page template all takes valuable time. By caching individual pages the web server skips dealing with the database and the process of building the pages dynamically. Pages are already pre-built and ready to be displayed to your visitors at significantly increased speeds.
The combination of these 2 caching methods plus a few extra performance tweaks, will make help your website load quicker for your visitors resulting in better visitor retention and SEO rankings.
The real value that our maintenance plans offer, is the better utilisation of time and resources for your business. You don’t need to waste hours trying to stay on top of updates or working out how to change content on your homepage. Your time is best attending to your business so you can continue to drive growth and sales.
Whilst on a WordPress maintenance plan, our developers are always keeping a watchful eye on your site ensuring things are kept tidy and in working order. When issues arise, we are there to get it sorted so you can continue your day without worrying about the status of your website. Our monitoring system will notify us straightaway if your website is experiencing downtime so we can work proactively.
Our experts will also communicate with you if they foresee any issues that your site may experience in the future. We will then work with you to plan out a suitable solution.
In the event of a disaster, it's best to have a backup of your WordPress site. There are many different strategies that you can implement to do this. It’s best to have a strategy in place before you need it because when you do, it may be too late.
The best WordPress backup strategy is one that has multiple contingencies and redundancies in case of backup failures. What this means is that the website gets backed up multiple times using different backup methods.
The strategy WP Care Plans uses as part of our maintenance plans works on a 3-prong approach. We back up your WordPress website in the following ways.
A backup strategy is a crucial part of any website maintenance plan. Without backups, you will have no way to recover your site in case of an emergency.
In the event that your website needs to be restored from a backup, our WordPress experts will communicate with you during the process and provide feedback once the process has been completed.
Websites are evolving entities that need to be kept fresh and maintained. Search engines love it and so will your customers. The reality is many site owners do not update their content or images because they are nervous about breaking the page layout and not knowing how to fix it. This is unfortunate as there are many benefits to updating content on your site.
Updated content can help your site by;
Our WordPress maintenance plan comes with an allocated number of support hours that will have our experts update the content on your website. This content can include;
Rest easy knowing that when you have new content ready to go live, our team can have it up quickly without any technical glitches.
There is a lot that goes on as part of a maintenance plan and we think it is important to communicate with our clients the work that occurs on their website. Each month you will receive a report outlining all the work that was carried out as well as some helpful insights on traffic, backups, security, and uptime.
The monthly reports are a great way to see what you are paying for each month and what work needs to be carried out on your site in the upcoming months.
Reports are sent straight to your inbox at the start of each month and are easy to understand and follow.
Your website is a crucial part of your business and, therefore, requires extra care to make sure it continues to perform its purpose. It’s important that it’s looked after so it can support you through business growth and sales. A maintenance plan is a small monthly investment that could save your business thousands of dollars in the long term. By having an unmaintained WordPress site, it is not a matter of if your site gets compromised, but when, and by then the damage is done.
If you would like us to maintain your WordPress website, click here and select the plan that best suits your needs. If you have any questions at all, send us a message, and one of our consultants will be in touch with you.
