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Working With Greensboro, NC WordPress Professionals
WordPress is an online, open-source website creation tool written in PHP. It is a powerful blogging and website content management system (CMS). WordPress can be an excellent tool for DIY website projects, but for the majority of business owners hiring a professional is the best way to deal with the complexity of building and maintaining a WordPress website.
It may be tempting to create your own website from scratch using WordPress and a WordPress theme, but it’s more affordable in the long run to partner with an experienced agency that knows how to navigate a WordPress dashboard with ease.
But most companies do realize that hiring an agency to build your website is only the beginning. Once launched your website will require ongoing annual maintenance and updates. Most smaller business owners do not realize this. In addition to the cost of building a website, most business owners should budget an additional $175 to $1,000 annually for plugin updates, theme updates, etc.
The range in annual fee is based on website complexity. The hourly rate for this type of work will range from $135 to $175 per hour. The annual cost of website maintenance may seem significant at first, but the time and effort saved by outsourcing these tasks to professionals makes it well worth the investment. Moreover, hiring an agency to service and maintain your WordPress website can decrease downtime and allows you to focus on business operations instead of worrying about your site.
In addition, partnering with an agency that specializes in WordPress maintenance means you have a team of experts on your side at all times. Not only do we offer custom development and maintenance, but we also work with you to define an online presence that brings in new customers and keeps current ones coming back for more. Our extensive programming knowledge means we’re the top choice in Greensboro when it comes to WordPress website maintenance.
Work With WordPress Experts To Build & Maintain Your Website
Maintaining a WordPress Website
Many people think about the cost of getting a WordPress site up and running but they fail to consider other costs of maintaining a WordPress site annually. While WordPress itself is free, the time it can take to proactively keep your site contemporary, relevant and successful can be time-consuming and tedious. You would have to learn and keep up with new technologies to make sure that your web visitors can continue to access your site without errors or downtime. You will need to address all aspects of website maintenance and quality assurance that should to be assessed on a regular basis.
Time spent performing things like updates, backups, deleting spam, checking for bad links, adding new plugins, and changing themes would be better spent working on promoting and servicing other aspects of your business. By partnering with Get YOU Found, you can save time and money with the assurance that your website is in good hands. Plus, we offer our very own hosting services so you don’t have to worry about managing an emergency website crash.
WordPress Updates
One of the factors that figure into the costs of maintaining a WordPress website is WordPress software updates. WordPress software updates are released on a regular basis and need to be constantly uploaded to your site to keep it functioning properly.
Making sure WordPress software updates are completed will reduce the risk of having code conflicts, with elements of the site becoming out-of-date. Also, making sure WordPress and its components are kept up to date allows the user to take advantage of new features and reduces vulnerabilities that hackers can take advantage of. It is important to make sure that your site always runs the latest version (within reason) of WordPress and all its components.
WordPress Plugin & Theme Updates
Like WordPress updates, it is also important to update plugins and themes to maintain the security of your site and to take advantage of new, upgraded features. A major aspect of maintaining a WordPress website is the cost of acquiring and maintaining plugins. Like WordPress updates, keeping plug-ins and themes current is an investment in time that most business owners would rather avoid or put off indefinitely.
Basic WordPress Site Maintenance
Maintenance is absolutely essential to running a WordPress website. If you do not maintain a WordPress site, it can become slow, unresponsive, and full of errors. This makes your WordPress site a target for hackers.
In addition to basic maintenance, WordPress websites require monthly quality assurance to make sure the website is running properly. This is especially important in regard to WordPress or plugin updates. Monthly quality assurance checks include:
- making sure the site’s search function is working properly
- specific plugin functionalities work
- page browsing and navigation are smooth with no errors accruing
- the checkout process (if e-commerce) flows correctly
- the site speed is appropriate (especially after having upgraded plugins and WordPress)
The website is displayed properly on desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile devices. Performing monthly quality assurance can help catch issues before they become a bigger problem.
WordPress Data Backups
Backups are a crucial part of maintaining the long-term health of your website. Multiple, regularly scheduled backups that send your website files to different locations are imperative. Backups ensure that if something happens to your site that you can quickly recover lost content. Backups also ensure that if you make a mistake you can reset your site to an earlier form. Automated backups reduce the amount of work associated with this task.
Deleting Comment Spam on Your WordPress Site
Comment spam comes with having a website and needs to be deleted on a regular basis to free up resources. Comment spam comes in the form of low-quality comments and, in general, does not relate to your site at all. It is important to delete comment spam to keep your site looking professional and keep it from getting bogged down.
Risks of an Outdated WordPress Site
A WordPress site that is not regularly maintained becomes vulnerable to hackers. Your private data is easily accessible to malicious users hoping to wreak havoc on your business. In worst-case scenarios, hackers gather sensitive information for their financial gain, which will impact your bottom line as you attempt to recover any stolen data and assets.
Additionally, updates to the WordPress platform and its associated plugins make it extremely important to maintain your site. These crucial updates allow your site to function properly, so users don’t experience slow load times or errors. By not maintaining your site, visitors faced with operational issues will quickly navigate away, meaning your company loses out on potential leads and sales.
Other risks to organizations that opt not to invest in WordPress maintenance include diminishing SEO rankings, loss of data, and incorrect analytics. A typical fee between $300 to $1000 per year (depending on the complexity of your site and the number of plugins installed) safeguards your business from security risks. Speak with the WordPress experts at Get YOU Found to discuss an affordable monthly maintenance plan for your website. We’re ready to:
- Install WordPress themes or develop a custom one for you
- Provide 24/7 hosting support
- Regularly update your themes, plugins, and widgets
- Work with small businesses and e-commerce websites
- And more
Regular WordPress website maintenance and quality assurance will keep your site running well for years to come. The elements that we’ve highlighted above are the necessary features that WordPress professionals are upgrading and maintaining on a regular basis to assure the overall success of your WordPress website. Get YOU Found offers high quality hosting services including WordPress updates, website themes, and plugins. Call us to find out how we can help you keep your site up to date.