"Well sorry, but I can manage to click one of those update buttons once a month," said our customer. Why that's not enough I explained to him. So yes, immediately a good subject for a blog, right? I convinced my client. Now I have to convince you.
Website maintenance is just clicking a button, right?
Yes, WordPress makes updating websites easier. You can, if you use a security plugin, sometimes get an email when there is a plugin update, a theme update or a WordPress update. Many plugins also have an automatic update feature!
So click a button every now and then and let the rest do itself?
Unfortunately. Sometimes a part of your site stops working. But of course you don't see that, because you're not going to check your whole site every time, I guess.
Your site can also go down completely (horror!) or your contact forms suddenly stop working. But then again, you don't find that out until after a month, because it stays pretty quiet anyway.
And now?
Backups my host does, right?
Most Web site hosts make one or more backups daily. No doubt yours does, too.
But have you ever tried having your host restore a backup? Hmm, suddenly it's not as simple as you thought after all.
First you have to get a hold of those people. And unless you're with a good host, that alone can be mega irritating.
Do you finally get them, you get asked if restoring a backup is included in your package. What do you know! Turn up a customer number from an invoice, wait 10 minutes while they check it, and then hear that it's going to cost you 25 euros. &*^%%%$)&^ Oh yeah, and of course they don't have time for it today.
So backups you have to do yourself. Or have them arranged through your maintenance subscription 😉
As long as I make backups, my site will keep running, right?
Your theme, WordPress and all the plugins are all separate pieces of software. They are developed independently of each other. And yes, of course software developers do their best to keep everything compatible with WordPress. And with other plugins, but that's almost impossible to do given the sheer number of plugins (58,000+).
If there's a bug somewhere, or a plugin hasn't been updated for a year and WordPress has, something can always go wrong. With a maintenance subscription, you are always assured that bugs will be fixed. We can do a rollback per plugin, we can check compatibility to see where the problem lies. We'd rather fix the problem structurally than restore a backup that might cause the problems to reoccur.
Furthermore, we can set it up to notify us if the Web site cannot load, so we can take action right away. And we monitor for any strange malware in a site. At the time of writing, we are even testing some new checks. We don't stand still when it comes to security!
They can't steal anything from my website, right?
Yes, still. Your site can be hacked if you don't secure it properly. Even sites without payment systems and personal data are at risk. Internet criminals like nothing better than to cheat you and the visitors to your site out of money. For example, because you often do not realize when your site has been hacked. And so you can restore a backup, but you don't know when it should be.
But, of course, especially if you process payment data, have a web shop that shouldn't be off the air, or just don't want people ripping off your mess, a site can't do without proper maintenance.
Give an example?
Examples abound. Just read the book "I Know Your Password" by Daniel Verlaan.
If you are not so into reading, there is also a podcast and a docu.
It's a super interesting book, nice vacation reading too. For example, it contains an example of an arthouse cinema whose website was hacked. The server the website was on was then used to infect Dutch computers on a large scale with ransomware. It is very easy not to notice that your site has been hacked while it is being misused for all sorts of things.
It won't go that far with me, right?
Often you think, oh well, big deal. But a hack can have a lot of collateral damage. Don't make the mistake of thinking that your site is of no interest to hackers.
Suppose a hacker, could just be a bored kid in an attic room, manages to get his hands on your webshop accounts and figure out the passwords. He sees that a number of your customers are using the same password. Easy peasy! Just use that combination of email address and password on other platforms like social media and you're in.
THAT'S HOW MOST PEOPLE GET HACKED!
If a your customers' Instagram account is suddenly hacked and crazy things are posted and orders are suddenly placed at Amazon that your customer doesn't know about, such a hack of your website suddenly becomes a lot more annoying. So there can be a lot of collateral damage.
Hackers can also turn one of the links on your site into a download link that, for example, downloads spyware or ransomware onto your visitors' computers. You don't want that on your conscience either.
OK, I'm convinced.
Nice. Another bunch of misery avoided.
Check out our maintenance package here. But that's not the only maintenance in the world. Trust someone else to do it right, go for it.
Still not convinced?
Then we'll wait until your site falls apart due to lack of, or bad, updates.
See you then.
Sorry for the scaremongering, but we can't warn people enough!
You get the point 😉
