So you have a brand new lovely WordPress website that you have just invested a nice bit of your hard earned dollars into and your website designer asks if you would like a website maintenance plan. You politely decline.
After all, who wants to spend extra money every month for that? What could possibly happen? Anyway, if something does happen, you’ll just handle it yourself. How hard could that be?
So, that means no back end security updates of WordPress itself, the theme, or the plugins, no ensuring that your PHP level is up to date. Well really what does that matter?
Whether your business sells tangible products or offers services to the public, without those necessary security updates, guess what happens?
Your website will eventually get hacked into, and one day you’ll be told by website visitors that instead of selling widgets or your law or consulting services, you are now selling over the counter unmentionables. Or worse. And, to top it all off, your website can quite simply break with enough neglect. Sometimes it’s recoverable, and sometimes it’s not.
What exactly is website maintenance, anyways?
Put simply, it is insurance. You don’t skimp on car insurance do you? Well probably not since the law requires drivers to carry insurance on their vehicles. Do you skimp on health insurance or property insurance? Of course not! What if’s can happen, and they do happen. And Thank God you had insurance!
Website maintenance ensures that your website will always be up to date behind the scenes on the back end which is where many back door hacker break ins happen.
It also ensures that all the working components that keep your website running smoothly and operating quickly and efficiently will continue to play nice together and keep working.
Website maintenance done right ensures that you will never be subjected to a broken website, a non-functioning website, or loss of business and revenue due to neglect.
How complex is website maintenance that you need to pay for it?
Well, to be perfectly honest, it’s not brain surgery. However, it’s a little more complex than the average person gives it credit to be. Many website owners are very good at running their businesses but not always that good with techy stuff.
Let’s say your shopping cart stops working. Or something else on the website stops working like a form or a feature or is working in a really wonky fashion. This will cost you business with your website visitors and your customers.
Would you know where to look to troubleshoot? Would you be willing to put your entire business day on hold and begin poking around the backend trying to fix what you don’t even know is broken?
it’s best to leave technical glitches and functional issues to the pro’s – by trying to do it all yourself and not really know what you are doing, you are losing money!!!
What is a small business owner to do?
Do the best possible thing for your business, and for yourself. Think of WordPress website maintenance services as insurance for your website.
Leave the maintenance to the experts.
Monthly maintenance is peace of mind and security for your online business presence.
Many maintenance packages are extremely affordable and may include a few extras such as simple website updates etc.
The best part is, it’s money well spent, ensuring you have next to zero downtime and that issues can be addressed in an extremely timely manner, without major impact to your business.