Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!
1. Introduction
We already know that updating WordPress is important to the security of your site. This does not mean that things will not break, though. Plugin conflicts, theme issues, or coding mistakes can wreak havoc on your site. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just undo those mistakes? A support company that keeps regular backups of your site could help with this. If an issue occurs, you can simply roll your site back to a previous state. This sure beats having to figure out what went wrong and starting from scratch.
Outsourcing technical support for your WordPress website may seem like overkill, but it can be a lot more cost-effective than you think. If you are running a business, you already know time is money. Anything that prevents you from focusing on the core functions of your business is detrimental. If you are a blogging enthusiast, this article is also for you. The less time you spend trying to fix your site, the more time you can spend writing great content.
2. Section 1: Enhanced Website Security
The plugin also includes a security scanner that scans your WordPress website for vulnerabilities and suggests actions to improve security. This tool is useful because when new vulnerabilities are found in WordPress plugins or themes, hackers may try to exploit websites. All In One WP Security uses this information to implement firewall rules and protect your site from hack attempts.
The security and Firewall plugin is easy to use and reduces security risk. It includes both ‘Basic’ security settings suitable for most websites and stronger settings for advanced users. The plugin categorizes Firewall rules by security threats.
Updating WordPress and its components is important for securing your site. The All In One WP Security & Firewall plugin provides a security strength meter in the WordPress Dashboard. This meter gives a score based on your site’s current configuration. There is a link to a page with necessary changes to improve the security score.
2.1. Regular security updates
WordPress is essentially software created by a variety of contributors and then maintained and updated regularly. The same goes for plugins. A failure to regularly apply the latest updates to the WordPress software, themes, and plugins can leave it vulnerable to attacks. As the most widely used CMS system on the market, hackers get disproportionately more bang for their buck by focusing efforts on WordPress. This is also partly due to the widespread misconception that WordPress is a quick and easy way to build a website as a novice. The readily available information to beginners, with those who are new to WordPress using the platform as a basis to learn how to build a website, are an easier target for hackers. In turn, this can sabotage web development brand’s longer-term aspirations, with customers later opting for better quality website builders who are not using WordPress. This can leave the web development brand high and dry with fewer potential customers in their target market.
When discussing website security, there is no such thing as too many safeguards. Cybersecurity is in a state of ongoing arms race, and it is essentially a case of survival of the most secure. WordPress websites can be an easy target for hacking due to plugin vulnerabilities, weak passwords, and outdated software.
2.2. Malware scanning and removal
Most website owners will not realize that their website has been infected with malware until it is too late, quite often resulting in being blacklisted by Google. In most cases of an infected website, the website owner will not have a recent backup of their website and can be left with having to rebuild the website from scratch. For this reason, the regular scheduling of malware scanning and having a service of one-click malware removal will make sure that your website is protected and the security threat is neutralized before any serious damage is done. This can give you great peace of mind for the preservation of your website.
In order to protect your website from malware and spyware, we had to brainstorm and integrate it into a very simple and easy-to-use format for the customer. Malware scanning and removal is a very useful task that is often overlooked by businesses and website owners. Malware (malicious software) can come in many forms, including viruses, worms, Trojans, ransomware, spyware, adware, scareware, and rootkits. Malware can be extremely damaging to your website and business and can result in being blacklisted by Google and other search engines, which can be devastating to your incoming website traffic and business inquiries.
2.3. Firewall protection
First and foremost, a firewall can help prevent a hacker from gaining access to your site. One of the most popular ways to hack a site is to target a vulnerability in the software. If this software is visible to the hacker, it can be analyzed to identify such a vulnerability. If the hacker finds a way through, he could potentially damage all your data and misuse the server. Through the use of a firewall, you can block off access to the website entirely. Even if there is a vulnerable piece of software, the hacker will not be able to see it, therefore keeping you safe from an attack.
Firewall protection is a critical feature for WordPress websites. It acts as a barrier between your server and the rest of the internet. All user requests first pass through the firewall, where they are checked against specific rules. If they fail to meet this criteria, they are not processed any further. A firewall acts as a sifting mechanism, helping to keep you safe in a number of ways.
3. Section 2: Improved Website Performance
Often times, WordPress websites use plugins to help run and operate their site. However, a common issue is that website owners will sometimes install a plugin but forget to maintain and update it, or that the developer stops working on the plugin. By having an up-to-date plugin or theme, you can ensure compatibility with it and reduce any issues it may cause on your site. Finally, always make sure to uninstall any plugins that are unnecessary or not being used. This can free up space and simplify the backend of your site.
The number of visits to your website plays a huge factor in its success and visibility. By maintaining your WordPress website on a weekly basis, you are ensuring it will be up to date with the latest versions of PHP, MySQL, and Apache. With this, your site will also be able to utilize the newest features that these platforms have to offer.
3.1. Regular updates for plugins and themes
Installing updates gives you easy access to new features, and plugin developers are always making adjustments to improve their product, whether it’s additions, subtractions, or changes to the way things are. By not keeping yourself up to date, you miss out on the improved quality that the updates will bring. Furthermore, if you run an outdated plugin with a new version of the content management system or other software on your website, there can sometimes be compatibility issues resulting in plugin malfunction or failure. This is not ideal.
Regular updates for plugins and themes are crucial for the overall functionality and security of your website. Plugins are created by a number of third parties, with the sole purpose of improving the function of your website, whether it’s to enhance the appearance or the content, and in some cases, serve a purpose in the background to conduct an important task. An example of this would be a plugin for a booking form or an e-commerce facility. Just like software, plugins are often updated, most of the time to fix bugs, introduce new features, or improve compatibility with other software.
3.2. Optimization for speed and efficiency
One important thing to mention is that clients often notice a decrease in website performance, but usually the website owner will not notice it. They will only notice once they get complaints from clients or enough error has occurred to prompt them to investigate. Ongoing WordPress support often carries out small but meaningful tasks in the attempt to optimize the website. Whether it be compressing images, reducing the size of certain files, or removing bloat from the website, these changes can greatly improve the website load times. Support may use tools such as PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to analyze the website performance and compare before and after results to show that optimization has been effective.
As the internet becomes significantly faster, the attention span of viewers gets lower. It’s not the majority to blame slow internet or computer systems for small attention spans, but it has become an increasingly relevant factor. It is now more important than ever to ensure that your website loads quickly and uses as little of the viewers’ resources as possible. This is especially important for those who have an e-commerce website. If a page takes too long to load, the client may just exit the page rather than waiting.
3.3. Database maintenance
A slow website can often turn visitors away, lower search engine rankings, and result in lost revenue. A website might run very quickly initially, but over time its performance will degrade if regular maintenance is not performed. This is the main reason why many websites can appear to be slow, despite the hardware being many times faster than when the website was first launched.
A slow website can be the result of unoptimized or inefficient PHP, scripts running external service calls, or an extensive amount of content to name a few. But the most common factors are usually due to a lack of cache and using a shared, slow or unoptimized database. Regular maintenance can often be overlooked, but it’s an essential part of keeping a website running as quickly and as efficiently as possible. This is particularly important for high traffic websites.
When people think of website performance, they usually think about how fast a page loads. This is no doubt important, but there are other factors which can contribute towards how “fast” a website feels. This might not seem as important as it’s unlikely a visitor is going to stop and time how long a page takes to load, however, this still has a direct impact on a website’s success.
3.4. Cache management
We need to clear the cached files once we’ve done any changes on our website. But most users often forget to do so and later they will wonder and ask why the changes are not affected on the website. By dealing with ongoing WordPress support, our team of web developers can help to clear the cached files whenever there are any changes done on the website. This can save time and prevent users from doing it themselves because some people may not know how to clear the cached files. Sometimes by clearing the cached files we may encounter a 404 page not found error. This is usually caused by the cached files. Fear not. Our team can help resolve that issue and prevent it from happening again in the future.
Caching is an important element in website performance. Caching helps to make a website faster and better. In addition, caching plays a vital role in offloading your server’s CPU and minimizing the cost on hosting. Cache management is one of the seven benefits offered by us. By doing ongoing support, our team can help manage cached files which are very easy to get out of date and cause website errors. By keeping the cached files up to date, it can help to improve the website performance and minimize the issues of the website.
4. Section 3: Expert Technical Support
This point is very similar to security concerns, but is more to address issues of maintenance and daily support. It is easy to find a host, developer or IT “expert” to help with any website related issue. What can be hard is to find someone who actually knows how to fix it. A lasting bond with a client accumulates a trust that allows for a more efficient solution to any problem. Support for custom development is an often overlooked benefit to many technical support packages. The WordPress CMS and framework is constantly evolving, and sometimes the tools we use to develop become outdated or needing improvement. When we have a problem with a custom solution, it can be hard to decipher if it is an error on our end, or an issue with WordPress. Having someone there to support the custom solution will ensure the problem is taken care of, and can often translate into a better tool. Evidently, reliable and ongoing technical support ensures peace of mind for any business running a website on the WordPress platform.
4.1. 24/7 assistance
Bugs don’t adhere to a 9-5 schedule. They’re bound to happen at an inconvenient time, whether you’re getting ready to launch a new product, or are heading out the door for a vacation. Knowing that there’s a competent WordPress expert only an email or phone call away can offer immense peace of mind. Think of the productivity you’ll gain (or loss prevented) by not having to spend countless hours trying to figure out a solution to a problem that’s evading you. With our 24/7 support services, the security of knowing that a WordPress professional is on standby to resolve any issues will mean much less stress for you.
As a business owner, with all of the duties that come with running a company, it’s hard to commit to spending hours on your website trying to work out any bugs or issues that could be fixed within minutes. The technical support team at WP Site Care is staffed with WordPress experts, many of whom are plugin/theme developers, contributing to WordPress core, or other highly respected members of the community. Our team is well equipped to handle any issue, big or small.
4.2. Troubleshooting and bug fixing
Now at this stage, we need to recognize that a quality WordPress support package doesn’t come cheap. For some small-time bloggers or businesses using WordPress, the level of support discussed here might be overkill. However, for anyone relying on the platform for money – be it through commercial activity or running a community built around the site – properly planned and implemented WordPress support can really make your work more effective and allow for the ongoing success of your WordPress presence.
Hand in hand with bug fixing, your support company should also be able to run regression testing on the system to ensure that any changes made don’t adversely affect your site. This is important if the site is to be continually developed.
Should the error be something you or the support company cannot fix, WordPress-specific support will likely enable you to quickly and easily escalate the issue directly to WordPress. This is something you might not have access to in a one-off support scenario. By having the problem fixed in the WordPress core, you don’t have to worry about it in the future or in other installations.
One of the great benefits of ongoing WordPress support is that it makes the process of troubleshooting a great deal easier. When an error occurs, there can be many potential causes, making it a time-consuming process to locate and fix bugs. Your support company will help pinpoint the cause of the problem and often fix it for you. With the right support, it’s even possible for this to result in an improvement to the system or a new feature.
4.3. Customization and development support
As your business evolves, you will need to continuously make adjustments to designs, templates, and functionality on your website. Technology is advancing rapidly, and failing to keep up can cause your business to fall behind and lose momentum. Ongoing customization and development support are crucial to prevent this from happening. Your developers will be there to assist you every step of the way as your site grows and changes.
Customization and development support are essential for businesses using WordPress. WordPress is highly versatile and can be customized in various ways to meet specific needs. It is rare to find a small business that does not require any changes to their website. However, many people who start using WordPress may not be familiar with how to address their needs, leading to poor decision-making.
5. Section 4: Time and Cost Savings
Emergency fixes can be very expensive. By committing to an ongoing support plan, businesses can often negotiate a reduced rate for any work that is billable. It’s also likely that work considered to be an emergency would be covered by the support plan, providing a free fix. In the long run, it’s a cost-effective solution to opt for the ongoing support, rather than paying full price for multiple emergency fixes.
A broken website can be costly to a business, both in terms of time wasted trying to fix it and lost revenue while the site is not operational. By signing up for ongoing support, businesses can save themselves time and money. Having a developer on call to fix an issue immediately means a business will not have any downtime. This avoids lost revenue and wasted time. It also means that the issue is more likely to be fixed properly, rather than applying a temporary fix and allowing the same issue to reoccur at a later date.
5.1. Preventing website downtime and revenue loss
Lost revenue is often the result of website downtime. Businesses can experience varying losses in profit for a downed website. For online retailers, each hour can cost a substantial amount in lost sales. An efficient way to calculate your downtime revenue loss is with the formula: ((Revenue per hour) x (downtime in hours)) = Loss of revenue. The duration for which a website is going to be down is usually uncertain, so the total cost can be an indefinite figure. Any loss in profit is still a loss in profit, so minimizing downtime is going to aid revenue consistency.
In contrast, a developer performing updates on a website can occasionally cause the site to crash. However, not keeping the site updated can be more detrimental. Regularly updating the website backend software, plugins, and themes makes for a better performing website and can minimize future downtime.
When website maintenance and changes can affect your website too, utilizing a site mirroring strategy can prevent any damage to your website. It involves making a close replica of your website on a different URL. Any activity on the mirrored site does not affect the original site, minimizing any potential revenue and customer losses. Website downtime is always going to be a possibility, so damage control steps are best to minimize any effect it has.
Preventing website downtime is crucial for businesses. Uptime and downtime can be difficult to manage with web host servers; however, it is an important factor in a website’s success. Often times, when your website goes down, the server is to blame. Web servers can have faulty software, an overload of users, a hacker, and even regular maintenance can cause your website to go down. Server maintenance usually takes less time than repairing a crashed website. During maintenance, your website will be offline to prevent any damage to its online reputation. If recurring downtime does happen, consider changing hosts. It might just save your website.
5.2. Avoiding expensive emergency fixes
The costs associated with having to fix the aftermath of a hack or attack on your website are many times greater than the cost of protection. Any website can fall victim to an attack with the goal of distributing malware. Malignant software can be used to steal or damage data or to disrupt the normal operation of your site. The potential results of an attack can include irreparable damage to your database, loss of data, a drop in search engine rankings, complete loss of website access or a complete site takeover. During the fixing of the website, the site may be taken offline by the web host in order to prevent further damage. In this case, depending on the situation, notification may be sent to the site owner to alert them of the situation. Other times, this can entail a complete lockout from the web host’s services. An attempt to fix and remove malware without any backups can exponentially increase potential damage costs. The calls for help from someone facing a hacked website are never pleasant. In the unfortunate event that your website does fall victim to an attack, having a support team in place that will be able to assess the damage quickly and begin the restoration process is invaluable. Regular maintenance and support greatly decrease the chances of an attack and can minimize the damage done if the unspeakable does occur. In comparison to the thousands of dollars that malware removal can cost, support from maintenance service providers offers a far cheaper and painless solution to a very real problem.
5.3. Access to premium plugins and themes
Ongoing support can eliminate the problem of having to take your own time to do a change that may just break something else later on. A support agent with the proper knowledge would be able to do the changes or maintenance for you quickly and efficiently.
Premium plugins and themes often also come with their own unique changes to maintain good customer support. Some may have a more frequent update schedule. Some may require some form of server-side PHP support. Some may have new settings that have to be configured. Without the proper know-how, you may end up breaking the site. The cost and time it may take to fix this could add up.
Doing this part on your own can be very time consuming and frustrating. When you’re not exactly a very tech-savvy person or aren’t someone who’s tried and true into the niche that you’re representing, this is going to be difficult. It’s not impossible, but for the amount of time it may take to research and get good at finding out what plugins work best for you, or how to maintain changes to a theme, it may not be worth it. The value of the time wasted can be translated to a loss of potential revenue for time not spent focusing on the business itself.
Premium plugins and themes are often times on the higher end of the money spectrum for small business owners. We have to consider, however, that for the look and feel of the website, the functionality, and the value of brand image, this isn’t something that should be overlooked.
Keeping up with maintaining a WordPress site, however, can be challenging for small businesses who don’t have the time or the money. This is why ongoing support is a very important aspect of maintaining the functionality of your site, which is an important staple for businesses of any size.
In this day and age, having a website set up using WordPress is nothing out of the ordinary. WordPress has turned into a platform that many businesses have come to find necessary when they’re trying to expand their online presence. This is because of the simplicity it offers business owners, the scalability, and easy customizability.
5.4. Scalable support plans for budget flexibility
A large benefit of ongoing WordPress support is the scalable support plans for budget flexibility. Simply put, you can adjust how much support you need and pay accordingly. When looking at the big picture, your website is an investment and taking care of your investment is crucial for success. Your support needs will increase over time as the site grows. When starting with a new site, you may not take full advantage of this support service until the site is close to complete. At this point, you would require full support and continue into the future as the site is periodically updated and tuned with changes in web standards and software. With a pay-as-you-go approach like this, you are able to minimize your costs over time and reduce expense in the early stages of your website. In many cases, hiring a full-time webmaster from the start is overkill and not cost-effective for small to medium websites. With a scalable support plan, you have access to the same degree of expertise at a fraction of the cost.
Thrilled to reveal wonders? Step inside and uncover what distinguishes us!
References:
Bagus, J. C. “WordPress: A content management system to advance publishing.” 2023. theseus.fi
Kazemi, Alireza, et al. “Architecture and development framework for a web-based risk assessment and management platform developed on WordPress to address opioid overdose.” JMIR formative research 8 (2024): e49759. jmir.org
Wittig, A. and Wittig, M. Amazon Web Services in Action: An in-depth guide to AWS.” 2023. [HTML]
Manner, P. “Continuous integration in WordPress plugin development.” 2020. doria.fi
Serra, Gabriele, Pietro Fara, and Daniel Casini. “Enhancing the Availability of Web Services in the IoT-to-Edge-to-Cloud Compute Continuum: A WordPress Case Study.” 2023 26th Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design (DSD). IEEE, 2023. [HTML]
Watson, Alastair, and Tom MA Wilkinson. “Digital healthcare in COPD management: a narrative review on the advantages, pitfalls, and need for further research.” Therapeutic Advances in Respiratory Disease 16 (2022): 17534666221075493. sagepub.com
Hunter, M. E., Soper, D., and Stanley, S. “Standing Up Vendor-Provided Web Hosting Services at Florida State University Libraries: A Case Study.” Code4Lib Journal, 2023. code4lib.org
Tomarchio, Orazio, et al. “Torch: a tosca-based orchestrator of multi-cloud containerised applications.” Journal of Grid Computing 19.1 (2021): 5. springer.com
Teychenne, Megan, et al. “Factors relating to sustainability and scalability of the ‘Food, Move, Sleep (FOMOS) for Postnatal Mental Health’program: Qualitative perspectives from key stakeholders across Australia.” Health Promotion Journal of Australia 35.2 (2024): 393-409. wiley.com
Blancaflor, E. B. and Samonte, S. A. “„An Analysis and Comparison of Proprietary and Open-Source Software for Building E-commerce Website: A Case Study “.” Journal of Advances in Information Technology, 2023. jait.us
