Website Maintenance Plans

The competition out there is fierce – everyone has a website now, so websites can’t simply ‘exist’, they need to be ‘cultivated’. A good website should continue to grow. With growth comes nurturing. A lot of us may not have the time to update our website, and therefore we assume that because we haven’t touched the site, it will stay the same and always work, but unfortunately that is not the case nowadays. A WordPress site will need security updates. Coding may become outdated. Hosting platforms may update their version of PHP which can conflict with older coding on a site. Web browsers may not recognize certain CSS styles any more because they’re deprecated. There’s many things that can stop a site or a feature from working, even though you think nothing has changed on your site.

In order to keep your website working in peak condition, ongoing maintenance must be performed. Just like a car needs an oil change and regular maintenance to keep it running smoothly, websites need to be updated and checked, to ensure it’s not going to break down and leave you stranded on the side of the road.

We’ve put together some WordPress maintenance packages that cover important issues and helps you keep your site updated at a discounted rate, with ‘priority’ updates. The plans offered are:

Website Security

WordPress is the most widely used content management platform out there today. Because of it’s popularity, it is the most targeted by malicious hackers. WordPress developers are excellent with keeping up with potential vulnerabilities, and send out patches with security updates quite regularly. This is great, but it’s also important when this happens to test sites and make sure everything is still running properly. Sometimes an update can conflict with a 3rd party plugin and cause a feature to stop working. This is all fixable if caught, but it’s something that needs to be monitored and scanned regularly for vulnerabilities.

Keeping your site secure is one of the most important things you can do for your site, and your visitors. One of the ways to ensure a safe site, is to always keep any themes and all plugins updated to the latest version.

Updates & the Importance of Database Backups

Updating your site is important for a couple reasons. One: you get people coming back to your site. Two: there’s more content for the search engines to index, and search engines love content. A nice and easy way to add updated and relevant content to your site is to blog. If you’re posting interesting new content that relates to what is going on in the world and also your brand, it’s a way to pull people in and keep them coming back. It’s important to perform regular backups of your site just in case the unthinkable happens, you’ll be able to restore your site and all that hard work you’ve put into it along the way.

Database backups are especially important if you have an Ecommerce site. Your database stores all your customers contact info and their order history. Losing that, would be detrimental.

Link Checking

It’s great if you offer resources and links to other helpful sites, but it’s important to make sure those links are all still active. Nothing is more frustrating than clicking on a link and having it go to an ‘Error Page Not Found’. Even though you were trying to be helpful, you’ve now frustrated your client and given them the impression that you ‘didn’t get it right’. Even though the link was correct originally, there may be a new website with a new page name or file structure, the page may have been moved to archive, or even been deleted. It happens all the time.

Form Testing

Most of us rely on leads from website inquiries. Forms are a very popular way to capture leads. Forms sent through email can sometimes get hung up, or stop working due to new internet provider policies. One way to rest easier, is to know your form is working by performing regular tests.

Email us or give us a call today (813-818-0682) with any questions or to get signed up.