When someone asks me why they should bother with website maintenance I reply you brush your teeth don’t you? 
By the way if you don’t brush your teeth then maybe this article is not for you 🙂
I’ll confess something here – I have a fear of dentists. My dentist already knows this and he still sees me! I’ve found that if I don’t go for a long time then there’s more to fix when I do go.
Our teeth are an asset and speak to anyone who doesn’t have some (of all) of them any more and they’ll tell you what a pain it is – sometimes literally.
Your website is a business asset. Unlike teeth, which don’t make us money, our websites should be making us money either directly through online sales or by bringing in customers.
Performing regular website maintenance gives you peace of mind so you can focus on what you do best, your business, while letting me do one of the things I do best, WordPress website maintenance.
Websites are not set and forget, unless you like throwing away money.
You’ve spent time and money on your website so why would you ignore it? Add content to it, make sure it’s a useful resource for your customers and keep it up to date so that it’s constantly working for you.
Did you know that most people won’t tell you if there’s an issue with your website?
It’s true. If your website is slowing down, or has weird characters across the screen, it’s a rare person that will contact you to let you know. Of course if your website is down completely then they can’t contact you anyway.
If a website doesn’t load quickly, and is error free then your potential customer will move on and you’ve just lost a sale.
Some people think that nothing could ever, ever go wrong with their website…..
While I wish this true it’s not been my experience, nor the experience of others who come to me as a professional to sort it out when it goes wrong.
Here are a few of the things I’ve been told when people approach me with a website in need of some webcare.
I thought that no-one would try to hack my website since it’s too small
It doesn’t matter how big or small your website is when it comes to hackers. I’ve had someone come to me with a small regional website. It was a blog for fun and interest, not for money at all. Their website was hacked. The hacker has changed their website so that they can’t get back in to fix it.
Recently we’ve all heard about the ransom ware that affected people computers. There are ransom ware that can be loaded on to your website too. Some people will simply hack into your computer because they see that it’s vulnerable, often because the software has not been updated.
My brother / sister/ friend has a website or computer so I thought that they could maintain it for me (for free)
They may know something about WordPress websites or they may not. How committed are they to ensuring that your website is up to date? Are they checking it every day? What about when they go on holiday? Do they get notified when a vulnerability is discovered in either WordPress, or more likely in one of the plugins (small programs for additional functions).
If the person ‘looking after’ your website knows nothing about WordPress websites then it gets even worse.
I thought I could update the website myself
Possibly you can update the website yourself since I don’t know your technical skill level. WordPress is a very popular software for creating websites and it has hundreds of thousands of plugins. Both the WordPress core software has to be updated as well as any plugins that are used on your website. Plugins need to be checked regularly because after an update they don’t all play nicely together.
The issue is that when something goes wrong will you know how to fix it? Will you be able to explain to a professional like me the steps that you took, whether you tried to fix it yourself, what else you’d been doing recently so that I can fix it.
Will you be able to find a professional to help you that won’t charge the earth because it’s an emergency job?
Prevention is better than cure.
Website maintenance gives you peace of mind that any issues can be found quickly and sorted out.
When something goes wrong I’m there to hold your hand and to get things running smoothly again.
What do WordPress webcare plans cover?
There are three different levels to suit your needs (the details for the webcare plans can be found here).
Even at the basic level the webcare covers WordPress core updates, theme (the look and feel of the website) and plugin updates, regular backups sent away from the hosting, uptime and security monitoring, and regular reporting, so you’ll know what I’ve been doing.
Health experts are always saying that prevention is better than cure and a lot cheaper too. The same is true for your business website.
You put effort every day into maintaining your teeth – doesn’t your website deserve regular maintenance too?
Find out more about WordPress webcare plans.