There are millions of you with WordPress websites, whether someone else built it or you did it yourself. But you probably want to know what needs to be done to keep your site running smoothly.
Digital Oasis built thousands of WordPress websites for the last 10 years, and we are hosting and maintaining those fully working and updated sites. That being said, in this post, I wanted to cover what I think are the most important tasks when it comes to maintaining a WordPress site. I’ll also show you some companies you can get them to take proper care of for you, and what these firms charge, and what you get in return. Stick around till the end because I’ll also share information about my own service.
1. Updating WordPress, Themes, and Plugins
One of the most common aspects of WordPress website maintenance is updating your WordPress theme, the software itself, and the plugins.
The update of your WordPress theme is based on whether you’re using a theme. Every theme developer has their own process, but many allow for quick, automatic updates. However, before updating, always make sure your site is backed up. When updates are concerned, especially to themes, sometimes it breaks things, it’s good to have a backup.
To check for updates, go to Dashboard > Updates to see what updates are available, including for themes. In my case, I’m using the Divi theme. I simply click “Update Themes,” and I’m confident it won’t break the website because I’ve updated it hundreds of times. Plus, I always have a backup ready.
For paid themes, you’ll usually need authorization, such as an API key or a username/password combination, to update the theme automatically.
2. Content Updates
For a WordPress site, you will need to update the content from time to time. All this involves changing the text, uploading new images, adding pages, or even playing with the design.
You can do these updates yourself if you feel comfortable, or you might need to hire someone. Some website maintenance companies include content updates as part of their service. For example, two companies I found charge around $78 to $200 per month for maintenance and offer updates to WordPress, plugins, and sometimes themes. Digital Oasis charges the same.
In the hosting and maintenance package of Digital Oasis, we include up to 2 hours of content updates per month for most clients, which works well for them.
3. Uptime Monitoring
Uptime monitoring makes sure the website is online and easily accessible. There can be lots of reasons for websites to go offline. Perhaps not the most common, but one of the more common, is not renewing your domain name. So, if it’s an active site, I suggest setting your domain to auto-renew.
Other causes of your site going down may be excessive bandwidth or storage limits. While uptime monitoring is not available with most of the companies, Digital Oasis provides it as part of their maintenance plans, and you can also install plugins or monitor your hosting provider’s uptime.
4. Backups
Backups are crucial for WordPress site maintenance. You want to make sure you have a backup in case anything goes wrong during updates. I’ve even made a separate video about WordPress backups, covering plugins and options from your hosting provider.
Some maintenance companies offer daily offsite backups, which is great in case something happens to your hosting server. For example, my own server offers multiple backup levels: one on the server, one offsite updated continuously, and a third backup offsite to Amazon Web Services (AWS). These are the kinds of backups that provide extra peace of mind.
5. Security Monitoring
Website owners are concerned about the security of website. While it is true that weak passwords are a frequent entry door to hackers, that’s not the only thing you can do to safeguard your site. Common exploits are completely secured at the server level in most of the hosting environment.
To secure WordPress-specific security, I suggest using the Word-fence plugin to block brute force attacks or malicious login attempts. Any maintenance package that is worth it needs to include a good security monitoring service to help protect your site from common threats.
6. Technical Support
Another important aspect of website maintenance is technical support. If you are the one managing your site, you may need more support for things that you cannot figure out by yourself. Basic hosting companies, such as GoDaddy or HostGator, are offering basic support but upon a limited scope if you are on a basic plan.
So many of the WordPress maintenance companies will grant you access to their support teams that are focused on WordPress. For example, Digital Oasis offers support via chat, email, and even phone calls. We offer our clients phone and email support with most tasks completed the same day or within 24-48 hours.
7. Reporting and Audits
Some maintenance plans also offer reporting services or even SEO audits. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services are often expensive, so I wouldn’t expect much in terms of SEO with basic maintenance packages under $100 a month.
For reporting, I recommend setting up Google Analytics. This is a one-time setup fee that you can use to monitor your site’s performance. If you’re paying for a Google Analytics maintenance plan, then most of them are charging you per month for a service that you could set up yourself for a one-time fee.
8. Hosting
Hosting is sometimes part of some maintenance companies’ services and not others. When considering a website maintenance plan, you must know if hosting is included and what type you can get them for. Not all hosting is equal. In fact, the maintenance plan at Digital Oasis involves high-level professional hosting and dedicated servers for their client only. It guarantees your site’s loading happens on a fast, reliable server.
Want to Maintain Your WordPress Website Without a Hitch?
To finish up, WordPress maintenance is about keeping your site up to date, secure and backed up. The cost begins at about $50 per month for basic maintenance, or whether you do it yourself or hire a company to take care of it for you, it will run about that. If you don’t want to take the risk, you can find out what it will cost to use their service and compare which services they will offer, including updates, backups, uptime monitoring and security.
WordPress hosting and maintenance are things Digital Oasis offers at a cost lower than a lot of the companies. So, need help maintaining your WordPress site? Check out affordable hosting and maintenance plans of Digital Oasis to keep your site running smoothly.
