I’ll Make You Love Your WordPress Site Again

But how…?

Most people start out with a great idea, then either by hiring a Web Developer or trying a DIY approach, they build a website. WordPress is a great solution for this regardless of which route you take, but there’s one very large problem. Not long after the site goes live, it gets forgotten about. I can’t blame you. I mean, after all you do have a business to run, but you should be wary of this “set it and forget it” mindset.

Wait…What Maintenance?

Maybe your site is a static business card with nothing more than your contact info, and you simply just leave it be. Or, you update your content regularly, but have no idea what these plugin thingies are. Heck, you might even be a pro WP user and have a pretty complex site with dozens of plugins, but your site loads SLOW. In any of these situations the only way to keep from pulling your hair out is to proactively maintain your site.  WordPress maintenance involves lots of things:

• backing up your site
• keeping your WordPress core, plugins, and themes up to date (even if they’re inactive)
• monitoring your site to make sure it’s not down
• performance checks and repairs to keep pages loading fast
• malware checks and removal (yes, websites can get malware too!)
• database optimization
• lots, lots more

You see, for the most part, your WordPress site is a living thing. If you launch it and ignore it (unintentionally of course), then it will die a slow and horrible death. It doesn’t matter if you are selling products, showing your portfolio, or even hosting your blog, if your site isn’t performing then your visitors are going elsewhere for what they need. Pages take forever to load? Goodbye. Malware warning? I’m outta here. Page cannot be displayed? Nice seeing ya! What good is your site if your clients can’t use it?

That’s where maintaining your site comes in, but don’t get me wrong, it can be a lot of work. At the very least, you should be backing up your site daily. Let’s say you’re updating a page that has some pretty important content on it then oops, you just saved the page but accidentally deleted half of it. Having a recent backup is invaluable in this circumstance. Not to mention it can be quite handy in the event that you installed a plugin or theme that completely wrecks your site.

Another highly important tip is to keep everything updated. Your WordPress core install, plugins and themes all get updated (hopefully regularly) and should be updated as soon as you’ve had the ability to test them. Some of these updates are bug fixes or feature enhancements, but the main reason to keep them up to date is for security. Developers are constantly updating their software to patch vulnerabilities and flaws that could allow an attacker to compromise your site. The downside here is that if you have a site that you’ve either never updated, or have a lot of plugins to update, this can take quite a while to do. Remember, you started your site to HELP your business, not take up all of your time.

How Do I Keep Up With Caring For My Site?

As I’ve mentioned, this can easily get out of hand and become time consuming. This is why we offer several maintenance plans to take this off your plate so you can enjoy the benefits of what your WordPress site can do for your business. No matter what your budget is, we have plans that range from just the essentials to keep your site running smooth, all the way to helping your site thrive with included marketing consulting. Now, we didn’t want to just limit these plans to preventative maintenance. I mean, what if you need a hand making some changes to your site, but just don’t have the time? Well, we’ve included some perks to our plans that will include some change requests at no additional cost. Got a larger job? No worries, we’ll let you know and if you’d like we will provide a quote along with how long it will take to accommodate. If you have more questions about this, you can always contact us.

But How Will I Love My Site Again?

Simply put, you won’t have to worry about it anymore. We will do all the legwork. You will have the piece of mind in knowing that if something breaks, we’ll fix it. If you need to change web hosts, we got your back. Think of it this way, aren’t the things that cause you the least amount of trouble the things you love the most? Would you rather have a car that broke down all the time or one that always worked, and worked well? It’s true, the best things in life are free….free of hassle!

In closing, I’ll leave you with a quote from Benjamin Franklin that just about sums up this post:

“If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail.”