The Problem: Website Maintenance is Key to a Successful Website
Just like any software, website maintenance is key to success. WordPress websites require regular care to keep the site working properly. Avoiding website maintenance is like not having regular oil changes on your vehicle. You wouldn’t drive your car very long if you didn’t look after its maintenance, would you? Well, the same process is true for your website. Your website should always be live, ready for customers, and present your business at its finest.
Software is vulnerable and requires regular maintenance
WordPress, the plugins you install, and any third-party systems integrated with your website are all pieces of software that need to be maintained, cared for, and updated.
The code that runs WordPress is updated regularly with new features and capabilities, but more importantly, to close security gaps or eliminate opportunities for exploits. Hackers love trying to break into websites, and your WordPress website is not immune. You need preventative measures in place and methods to block nefarious attempts to hack into your site.
By neglecting software updates on your website, you risk getting a spyware or malware infection or getting hacked, which can take down your entire site. If you think your website is too small for a hacker to worry about or that no one would attack you, you’re wrong. Most hacks aren’t personal, they’re bots that attack anything and everything they come across no matter how big or small.
Regular care and timely updates will help ensure your site is protected and safe from malware,
spyware, ransomware, hacking, and other vulnerabilities.
Taking care of your website takes time
Just a few of the things you’re going to be responsible for are updating software and making any configuration changes needed as a result of the updates, ensuring the site is being backed up constantly so you don’t risk data or content loss, and managing comments and clearing out spam.
If these tasks aren’t a good use of your time and you’d rather focus on tasks that generate leads and revenue and move your business forward, that’s okay too because we have your back. We offer monthly website care plans to take care of all of these things for you.
Cap Web Solutions focuses on doing the little things your WordPress website needs done every day, so you don’t have to.
Matt Ryan, Owner, Cap Web Solutions
FAQs On Website Care
My website runs by itself, doesn’t it?
Nope, Websites Need Regular Care and Feeding
Your website is not a “Set and Forget” part of your 24×7 online presence.
Your website plays a critical role in the lead and revenue generation process for your business. Prospects visit the website to research you and your business before hiring you, buying a product, or joining your email list. They want to see if you’re legit, trustworthy, and who you say you are.
If you don’t have website maintenance carried out monthly, you may actually be throwing money out the window. When visitors go to a website and find things wrong with it, they often don’t stick around.
If you are not monitoring your website for uptime, it may go down without you knowing — or as we’ve seen with others, it may go down during a new product or program launch or during the sales push for a live event. Missed website issues or downtime can cost you potential customers.
At best, you’ll lose some sales or new email subscribers. At worst, it can damage your brand. Regular site monitoring and backups can protect you from this potentially devastating situation.
What are the benefits of regular website care & support?
The Benefits of Regular Website Care
Many people don’t realize the benefits of site maintenance:
The website performance, its load time, downtime, and uptime, are all dependent on the WordPress software and plugin functioning as they should ( and on the recent version).
The website growth, its fresh content, analytics monitoring, and design changes, are all dependent on you having someone making sure all updates to the website are done in a smooth and error-free fashion.
What do you do to take care of my website?
Care and Support Workflow
At Cap Web Solutions we take great care in working with your website.
We begin by taking a full backup of the website and check then check the website after our updates for any issues. Our management software keeps a record of plugins we update so if there is ever an issue we see what plugin version was changed and revert back.
Also included in our monthly maintenance report are the performance and security scans. If in the event we ever catch a plugin issue, it becomes a support ticket and we address it before you ever know there’s a problem.
What are the tasks that you do?
Here’s a list of the things we take care of on a regular basis.
Daily Tasks
- Uptime Monitoring
- Security Monitoring
- Website & Database Offsite Backups
Weekly Tasks
- Plugin / Theme Updates
- Malware Scans
- Visual Inspection
Monthly Tasks
- Monitor Traffic & Search Engine Rankings
- Clean Database
- Test Loading Time
- Search for Broken Links
- Check for Search Console Errors/Issues
- Server Maintenance
Annual Tasks
- Review WordPress Setup
- Review Content for Updates
- Renew Hosting, Domain, & Licenses
On-demand Task Examples
- My software/plugins won’t update.
- An element on my website isn’t working like it used to.
- My email is not sending and/or receiving.
- My email is going to “spam”.
- I’m getting emails (or calls) telling me there is a problem with my website.
- My website is not loading.
- My website is loading very slowly.
- My website has a security warning.
- My website is redirecting to a different website.
- Oops! I made a mistake, can I “undo” my changes?
I can do it myself. WordPress can’t be that difficult.
Dangers of Do It Yourself Maintenance
Maintaining your site yourself could cost you more than you may think. If you just update from your WordPress admin, you wouldn’t have a record of what was done.
If an update to a plugin created an issue a couple of weeks later, it would be difficult to know what changed and how you should revert back without restoring a very old backup (and possibly losing content changes, sales orders, contact entries, you name it).
What happens if an update breaks your website and you can no longer log into it? What do you do? How long will your website be down before you Google around enough to find a solution that works for your setup?
Cap Web Solutions has the expertise and the time to identify the fix and apply it correctly. It’s what we do, so that you can do what YOU do.
How about I just call you when I need some help?
It Costs More to Fix Your Website Than to Maintain It
Inexperience and neglect can damage the look and functionality of your website. That can damage your brand’s reputation – cost you a sale, or two.
When that happens, you have a choice to make.
- Try and fix it yourself, in which case you may do further damage, or
- Find and pay the (sometimes hefty) price for someone experienced to fix it right then.
Just like your car, it costs more to fix it than it does to maintain it properly. Regular oil changes help keep your car running properly — regular site maintenance helps keep your website running properly.
If we aren’t already working with your website, it will take time for us to get all the access needed to investigate – incurring more downtime for your website, and additional cost in terms of service time to find all your account logins and passwords to get under the hood.
Cap Web Solutions does provide on-demand support. However, our Care Plan clients ALWAYS get our priority response when anything arises.
Next Steps: Call in a Professional
Why not deal with what you know best and let us deal with what we know best?
You are busy. We know you don’t have a lot of time, but your website will require regular monthly care and updates.
Why try to maintain your own website if you’re not a web professional? By securing an experienced web professional to update and maintain your site properly you are actually saving potential lost sales and visitors.
If you’re interested in securing a care plan for your website, contact us using the form below to learn how we can keep your site in proper working order. Or, if you are ready to go, compare our care plans to see which one will work best for you.
Please tell us a little about your support and website care needs using the form below. We will get back to you within a business day to discuss it.
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