Wordpress Website Maintenance
Wordpress Website Maintenance
It's a standing joke in computing that when something doesn't work, to "turn it off and turn it on again" and then to ask "have you installed all of the latest updates".
Whilst turning a website off and on doesn't really work, making sure that you have all of the latest software installed is a fundamental.
WordPress is a dynamic platform, and whilst you may not be updating your website yourself, the software underneath is being constantly updated, patched, fixed, improved and you really need to make sure that your website is as up-to-date as it can be.
Security patches, bug fixes, new features and enhanced functionality are just some of the reasons to keep your site current.
YOU MUST MAINTAIN YOUR WORDPRESS WEBSITE
Our Wordpress Maintenance Packages start from just £49 per annum. What value do you place on your website? Just imagine the scenario... Your website has gone... Do you wish you'd spent that £49 now?
Wordpress Website Updates
One of the great aspects of a Wordpress website is that all of the various components of your site can be updated without your knowledge.
Nearly every website designer that uses Wordpress as their foundation, also uses third party themes, plugins and extensions to build your website.
All of these components are being maintained by their own developers and as updates are made available, you need to make sure that they work with your website, but also that you install them when they are updated.
Clarke Design can do this all automatically for you
We can monitor your website for you and implement these updates to make sure that you always have the latest software running your business website.
These updates may give you additional features, provide bug fixes or implement vital security patches - so it's very important to always be as up-to-date as you can.
What if you lost your website?
Just imagine the scenario...
Your entire website is lost. How would you recover it? Could you recover it? Would your business be affected? Would you?
Just ask yourself, “how important is my website to my business?” To some it would just be an inconvenience, to others their website IS their business. eCommerce websites for example; without it a business could lose a massive amount of their profit. If their website is not backed up, how can they ever recover it?
How often you backup your website depends on how often you change it. If something on your website changes daily, then you need to back it up daily. This doesn't mean that you change some content, it means... does ANYTHING change? Orders, customer passwords, analytics or anything else that your customers are updating.
Why you should maintain your Wordpress Website
Technology Corruption
As with all technology, failure can happen when you least expect or need it. Disk drives can fail or become corrupted destroying your entire website and your oh so valuable data.
Whilst your website hosting company can recover files, individual chunks of data may not be an option. Regular backups can offer you more flexibility should you need to recover your website from a hardware failure or data corruption.
Bugs, viruses and hackers
Wordpress powers millions of content managed websites throughout the world. This is great as it's well supported and is well proven technology.
The downside however is that because of it's popularity, it can often be the target for viruses and hackers. So backing up your website often makes sure that should your site be hacked or infected, you can recover back to a safe time, without the loss of too much data.
Simple Human Error
We're only human and sadly make mistakes. We can edit something, remove something, move something and cannot find it, overwrite something that we later find out was wrong or just configure an option we need to undo.
Wordpress has a revisions feature to help you from these small types of errors, however for more serious human errors only a full website backup will ever get you out of really deep trouble.
Weekly Backups£69
Contact us- Just £1.30 per week
- Best for blogs and articles
- Great if your site changes quite often
- Updates applied automatically
Daily Backups£99
Contact us- Just 25p per day
- Best for Wordpress websites
- Suitable for high activity websites
- Updates applied automatically
Monthly Backups£49
Contact us- Just £4 per month
- Ideal for smaller websites
- Great if your site does not change that often
- Updates checked often
Why do I sometimes have to pay for WordPress updates?
WordPress is a magnificent tool and powers a massive number of websites across the internet.
Every WordPress website is built from the main WordPress core, a theme to determine the look and feel of the website and some additional plugins to give your website the functionality you need.
Nearly every website designer that uses WordPress as their foundation also uses third-party themes, plugins and extensions to build your website. If they had to write all of these from scratch, rather than buying in a pre-written plugin, your website would cost tens of times more and website designers would keep having to reinvent the wheel to build your website.
WordPress is Free, isn't it?
Yes, the core of WordPress is free, but the themes, design work and premium plugins are not. It's using these extras that makes your website, well, your website. Otherwise, every website would look the same and do the same.
Automatic Updates?
One of the great aspects of a WordPress website is that all the various components of your website can be updated without your knowledge.
All these components are being maintained by their own developers and as updates are made available, you need to make sure that they work with your website, but also that you install them when they are updated. These updates may provide a stability patch, bug fix, enhancement or new feature. Either way, we always say that you must use the latest and most current version of every piece of software. So, it's vital to keep your website updated.
However, as the core of WordPress is updated and progresses forward, so must all the other components of your website. Each website theme and all the plugins also need to be updated too. Say for example, if a bug or security issues were found in the WordPress core, that bug may also need to be fixed in some of the plugins, so many things need to be updated.
The danger here is just doing the updates without backing up your website first. What if something goes wrong? Can you go back? Are you sure?
Software Licences
Like any computer, some WordPress plugins come with licences from the developer, after all, this is their software and they are a business, just like you.
Usually, the first years' licence has been built into the cost of your website development. After a time, this annual licence will expire, so if you want to keep your website current (and you really do want to do this) then you will need to purchase a licence renewal. Your website developer can do this for you and just invoice you accordingly.
Why do I need to pay for a licence?
So why do I need to pay for a licence that was included in my website design build?
Well, think of this like buying a computer, with some software on it. When you buy the computer, you get everything thrown into the deal, the hardware, software and anything else you needed. After so long your software will become out of date as newer software is released. You don't expect that software for free, do you?
So, this is the same as within your WordPress website. It consists of many parts of software and some are free to update, and some are not. So, you need to make sure that your licences are up to date and paid for to get the latest features, fixes, patches and to make sure they are compatible with WordPress core updates.
So why did my website designer use expensive plugins?
Firstly, most plugin licences are not that expensive. Most range from £25 to £75 per annum. We think that this is a fair investment in the grand scheme of running your business website.
Features - Usually free plugins are a teaser into the feature-rich world of a premium plugin. If you want all the features of a good quality plugin you are going to have to pay for it.
Support - You are far more likely to get a prompt reply to a support request if you are using a premium plugin. Free plugins are free for a reason and you certainly won't get much in the way of support if something goes wrong or you find a bug.
Security - Plugins are generally safe, but vulnerabilities do come to the surface quite often. Premium plugins are less likely to fall foul of a security risk. Plugin developers generally patch their premium plugins more quickly to keep you safe.
Karma - good work deserves to be rewarded. Someone has committed a lot of time and expertise building a plugin you use to run your business. Would you expect to not pay your accountant, or not to pay business banking charges?
What if I don't update?
Well, all you do, if you do not update, is miss out on bug fixes, new features, security patches, upgrades and support to name but a few things.
You need to remember that this is your online business and you need to invest in it to be ahead of the game and keep in front of your competition.
If you have an eCommerce website, then this is your entire shop. You'd spend money on new fixtures and fittings, decorating and presentation materials if you had a physical store, wouldn't you?
So why is your online shop any different? The short answer is, “It's not”.
What should I do?
Just ask Clarke Website Design to keep your WordPress website up-to-date. Simple.
We can look after it all for you, make sure everything is up-to-date, licenced and registered for you.
We'll even make sure that it's backed up before each update, just in case.
Get in touch today to make sure that your WordPress website is safe, protected and up-to-date.