Why Maintaining a Website is Important??

My question to you is, are you maintaining your website? If not, you really need to read this blog.

The reason why website maintenance is important because when hackers try to hack into your website it’s easier for them to go into your website which is not maintained and updated.

So let’s talk about the first thing or the first point i.e. area of maintenance. So the first area of maintenance is updating the Plugins and the core WordPress platform. Occasionally you would get updates from WordPress, which pretty much security updates in most cases it’s features but the security is the main thing.

So if you don’t update your website it means that the hackers are able to get into your website and install software. On the other hand they also get updates from the plugin developers of the plugin that you are using. We have a WordPress 4.4.1 update, in which a section is there when you click on it, you will see all the updates that are needed for Plugins. So these are the updates I am talking about.

Sometimes these updates may break the system because it is not compatible with the current WordPress version. So here for example you can see that WooCommerce plugin and it says that here is compatibility with WordPress 4.4.1 that is 100%. So this is very good. So as mentioned before updating your WordPress core system and upgrading your plugins is very important. Because this is an open door for hackers to come into your website.

Now let me give you an example of one of our clients that works with us. Who decided not to update her website and she received a notification as ‘the site contains malware’. The other thing is sometimes these hack attacks are so sophisticated that you don’t even see it. The website will be running ok but when someone accesses your website through a mobile device, then it redirects to the hackers website or a page where they are selling their own products.

Now let’s talk about a second thing which is Brute Force Attacks. When you have a weak password on your computer, it is very easy for the hackers to come into your website by guessing your password. So you can see that you have an attempted failed login using an admin. Now this is true evidence that your website is being targeted on databases and sometimes even on an hourly basis.

Let’s move onto the last thing which is troubleshooting. Now sometimes, when you update your website you upgrade your themes, update WordPress things which do break as I mentioned earlier on. You could face a problem when things break and you are not sure where to go and fix your problem. So you need to have ability to backup your website to make sure that when these things happen you can always go back to the backup and run your website.

Now why is it important for small businesses to make sure that they have this website maintenance in place? Well!

1. Obviously if you are running a business you want to make sure that you are up there on the internet 24*7, so people may visit your website. It is always up and running, which always gives a good impression that you are always online.

2. When people come to your website and see that your website is down or it’s got malware, installed on it or it is redirected to unwanted website this can cause your visitors to your website to distrust in a work that you are doing so maintenance is very important.

Now the question is why would anyone want to hack your website? Of course, you know, you have just built your website if you have a small business you are the target as I mentioned before these targets are done automatically. Ok! This is unlikely that these hackers have seen your website and they are coming directly at you because of your business or you or although sometimes it does happen.

But these are ways these hackers can redirect traffic to their own website and then sell their product using your whatever information on your website. Secondly they may want to come into your website to grab your databases especially if you are running an eCommerce website to see if they can get information from your website.

Let’s see how to get the website maintenance work done?

I just want to go over a few points about how to get website maintenance work done? Few things to go through. Some things to know and first of all you might want to know what is website maintenance?  There can be a lot of things. It can be everything from updating content to adding images to a page or adding links, adding events, updating software, adding a blog post, fixing broken links and uploading a PDF file.

Typically you wonder who does the work. It could be done by IT departments, your web master if you have one or the business owner or maybe you don’t know. Maybe not sure who is forced to update your website and everything. Now it’s a time to get it updated and you are happy with that.

Another way to do this is – Outsource the work.

Just like you do anything else. You can outsource your work to your website designer or website maintenance firm or anyone around that can do it.

When you look for somebody to do this work the few things that you have to look for are:

1. Make sure that they quote the work before doing it.

2. You want to know what you are going into with somebody who says,” Yes! I can”. But then you get a bill for hours. You don’t want to be surprised you want a full fair billing.

3. How much time they would need. Do they ask for or do they explain it to you or whatever.

4. You want to make sure that you are billed for the time you need.

5. Extra time is being stored somewhere. You want to make sure that they take a backup. The things are restored or changed later.

6. That could be that, do they test in the browsers like Google, Firefox, Internet Explorer etc.

7. Make sure you know what they did to make sure what time they use and how they do it.

8. Make sure that you get the report about what they do that’s important.

9. If they did any mistake which can happen sometimes, you should notice them to fix it.

10. And you need to know that if it is a fast turnaround time or else you will have to wait forever. So get a timeline, ask them when it’s going to be done or they should tell you right away.

11. Next thing to think about is billing:

Think about the contract, the retainers those who are a good fit for your company may be they are not. To find out that you need to think about how much maintenance time they are going to need? Is it a couple of hours or months, is it 20 hours of the month or 100 hours a month. So figure out how much time how much maintenance is required before you are putting in your website.

So it’s good to have a plan for it. Think about how your contract is: monthly or 10hours only or 3 or 4? You know where that extra time goes or what happens if these are gone.

Finally if you get some discount for a big project by some more time is required, make sure you get a discount.

Let’s see how to select the outsourcing website maintenance work?

1. First check whether they quote the work.

2. How much time it will take. Stick to that, things may change but use pretty fair pricing.

3. Make sure that the communication between you is reliable.

4. Do they use ticket systems that will track the emails and give reply to them. No request is ignored.

5. Do they take backups?

6. Check their work.

7. Fast turnaround time.

8. Do they fix any mistakes?

9. They might provide mockups; it is easier to change things around mockups.

10. Pricing can be based on how much time is required for maintaining different blocks.

Here is the small review about what to look for website maintenance retainers

1. Send it to work in and quote it.

2. Buy the blocks and do the work.

3. You need 28 to 48 hours for a long time. Leftover blocks stay in your account and use them anytime.

4. Do testing and take backups.

5. The work is done quickly.

6. It is a dedicated team.

7. Clients should like it!

I hope you find this information helpful. If you have any suggestions please do not hesitate to leave a comment in the comment section below. Bye for now!

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