If you’re running an ecommerce website, you’ve probably seen agencies advertising their WordPress maintenance and support services online. But why is WordPress maintenance important, and can it contribute to your bottom line? Find out everything you need about ongoing website care with Coalition Technologies.
Table of Contents
The Rundown
- WordPress maintenance is necessary for:
- Shielding your website from threats
- Optimizing your website’s performance through caching and other techniques
- Troubleshooting and avoiding expensive downtime
- Building the user experience your customers deserve
- A professional agency can help you streamline WordPress maintenance and save more with custom services
- Poor WordPress maintenance can lead to:
- A permanent loss of customer data
- Long-term damage to your brand reputation
- Broken website features due to plugin conflicts and other technical issues
- Lengthy downtimes with time-consuming troubleshooting
What is WordPress Maintenance?
Building a website on a robust platform like WordPress isn’t enough to guarantee success. Ongoing WordPress maintenance and support keep your website running optimally and protect it from threats in the long term. This maintenance can include:
- Regularly refreshing WordPress themes and plugins to protect your website from threats
- Regular malware scans and vulnerability patches
- Performance optimization through caching, image compression, and other techniques
- Technical maintenance, including updating broken links
- Troubleshooting in case of emergencies and 24×7 support (offered by certain agencies)
Client Stories: Wellness Brand Gets Hacked
Omitting the most straightforward WordPress maintenance and support tasks can have a massive, expensive impact. We saw this firsthand with a wellness client, one of the biggest brands in their industry.
This client’s previous WordPress maintenance and support services provider hadn’t promptly updated their plugins during their engagement. Naturally, this opened the client’s website up to all manner of vulnerabilities and threats, causing their website to get hacked and taken down.
Our response was simple but comprehensive. Our dev team added the right security plugin for the client’s requirements, manually cleaned up the hack, and restored the website to full functionality. This took 10+ hours of dev work, and the final result was a fully optimized website shielded against future threats.
The True Importance of WordPress Maintenance and Support
Better Website Performance
Effective WordPress maintenance can supercharge your website’s performance. This can have a massive impact on your overall revenue, considering bounce rates can jump up to 24% if a website takes at least four seconds to load.
How does maintenance improve website performance? A top-rated WordPress agency can improve performance through:
- Techniques like caching
- Image optimization (while conserving image quality)
- Database cleanups and server tweaks
Improved Search Engine Rankings
WordPress maintenance has a cascading effect on search engine rankings. For example, better website performance directly impacts ranking on search engines. Other elements of WordPress maintenance and support also signal quality to search engines like Google and Bing, including:
- WordPress maintenance and support services ensure your website is optimized for mobile users, which is critical considering Google’s position on mobile-first indexing
- Maintenance includes security, and a secure website can earn the trust of search engines. Tasks like maintaining SSL certificates and vulnerability patches are worth mentioning here.
Time Savings
This is a rarely mentioned but incredibly essential benefit of professional WordPress maintenance. WordPress maintenance is important because it lets you offload repetitive and time-consuming technical tasks, leaving you to focus on growing your business.
Tapping the services of a reliable WordPress maintenance and support agency can make a real difference here. Instead of deciphering error logs and setting up backup schedules, you can let the professionals handle it for you. This also saves many resources and pays for itself long-term by minimizing website downtime.
Maximized Uptime
Proactive support allows you to catch minor issues before they become serious problems. For example, an expert who is constantly monitoring your website will be able to spot a plugin conflict before it escalates and causes an issue for a potential buyer, maximizing your website uptime and keeping it accessible for everyone.
Optimized User Experience
Regular WordPress maintenance and support services can significantly elevate the ultimate user experience. After all, the goal is to create a website that runs fast, is functional, and is safe to use. Users expect these three things when looking for a reliable ecommerce website, and ongoing website care is the most surefire way to gain their trust.
Client Stories: Future-Proofing a Top Non-Profit
WordPress maintenance and support are almost a necessity for custom-coded websites. Using custom-coded solutions gives brands much more flexibility in functionality, but it also opens them up to issues if their website is left unmaintained.
This was the case with a large non-profit client. Their previous provider had designed a custom-coded website for them using an outdated PHP version. They were using many out-of-date plugins that couldn’t be updated as they clashed with newer PHP versions.
In around 50+ hours, our dev team revamped this non-profit’s website with updated plugins and fixed its code. We also helped maintain a massive database crucial to their everyday operations.
Common WordPress Website Issues
A lack of proper WordPress maintenance and support can cause critical issues and errors to crop up, including:
- Slow load times caused by unoptimized images, poor hosting, and outdated plugins
- Plugin conflicts lead to broken features that potentially keep visitors from checking out
- 404 errors caused by broken links and deleted content
- Security breaches caused by unpatched security vulnerabilities
- Extensive website downtimes due to irregular backups
Client Stories: Shielding a Leading Defense Manufacturer
Sometimes, even the biggest defense manufacturers need a little protection.
This client’s website was hacked and rendered vulnerable after a massive hack. The hackers had left an extra payment method on the checkout page that would steal users’ information through a script injection. This usually happens due to a lack of WordPress maintenance and support, leaving vulnerable plugins on the site.
Our response was swift, considering the scale of the hack. In under 20 hours, our dev team shut down the admin user created through the script injection and patched up any remaining vulnerabilities on the client’s store page. We updated their plugins and outdated code, creating a storefront that could reliably withstand any threat for the foreseeable future.
Optimize Your WordPress Website Today
Discover how proper maintenance and support can help your website increase traffic, conversions, and revenue. Work with Coalition Technologies, an award-winning WordPress agency, to create the definitive experience your business deserves. Contact us for a free consultation today.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I perform WordPress maintenance and support myself, or should I hire an agency?
While you could handle your WordPress website upkeep yourself, hiring trusted WordPress maintenance and support services is always better. Ideally, maintenance involves constant monitoring and requires a dedicated team of experts (in case of emergency downtime, for example.) Hiring a professional agency like Coalition Technologies gives you the peace of mind to focus on growing your business instead of worrying about ongoing website care.
How can I find the best WordPress maintenance agency for my business?
An established track record is the most important consideration if you’re looking for a WordPress agency for your business. Agencies like Coalition Technologies have verified case studies covering their experience with the platform. You can also review their testimonials to see what other clients say about the agency’s professional WordPress services.
Is professional WordPress maintenance and support expensive?
It’s more affordable than you might expect! Agencies like Coalition Technologies offer flexible packages, allowing you to choose what best suits your needs instead of paying for unnecessary services. Contact our experts today to get an accurate quote based on your needs.
How can I tell whether my WordPress maintenance agency is worth the investment?
If your WordPress agency is working well, you’ll see an increase in revenue, improvements in website performance, and a reduction in website downtime. WordPress maintenance is important, but it also takes time to show results.
