WordPress Maintenance Tips to Keep Your Site Running Smooth
Millions of business owners, developers and bloggers all over the world rely on WordPress for their website needs. The tool is versatile, powerful, customizable and user-friendly. But proper WordPress maintenance for each month is essential for keeping your site stable, secure and running as it should, month after month.
The problem is that running a WordPress website takes significant time and energy every month, beyond just the initial design. That’s each month, thousands of people rely on WP Tangerine for expert WordPress maintenance services for a flat, affordable fee each month. WP Tangerine provides professional, timely, and effective solutions for any issues that arise on your site, as well as all the WordPress tasks and site changes that eat up your time.
Furthermore, WP Tangerine offers ongoing checkup, regular backups and uptime monitoring every month to keep your site attractive, optimized and secure.
Every WordPress Has Different Needs
WordPress has created a robust content management platform that can be used to develop websites of any size or purpose. Some WordPress users build beautiful sites for their personal brands, blogs and businesses. Others utilize e-commerce plugins to sell their goods. Developers can customize their site, customize or create their own themes, and choose from thousands of different plugins to produce any look or functionality.
Users can choose to use a basic free account hosted by WordPress, but most businesses will want to install WordPress with their hosting provider for greater control over the site. No matter your needs, WordPress has something for you.
However, this versatility is both the bright spot and the downfall. Since there is so much customizability, some users may feel overwhelmed with it.
- For beginners, WordPress can take months or years to master, and it’s constantly evolving, too.
- Even for experienced users, maintaining a WordPress site can be extremely time-consuming and frustrating – especially if you’re busy running your business.
Why is Maintenance in WordPress Website Important?
Although WordPress is a robust tool that offers many benefits, it takes a lot of work to keep it running smoothly month after month. Beginners may believe that the work involved in owning a WordPress site is all in the beginning. However, designing and developing is just the first step to running a great WordPress site. Every site requires monitoring security, functionality and performance every month. Maintenance can prove to be tedious, time-consuming and outright challenging at times.
Proper maintenance is critical for:
- WordPress themes
- Plugins
- Integrations
- Forms
- Hosting
- Backups
- Functionality, like search features
- Everyday issues that are common for any website
Plugin Updates
Almost every business owner runs into trouble with their WordPress site.
Many websites utilize multiple plugins that change each month or over time as the plugin owners update them. Occasionally, these updates cause issues that must be resolved before the plugin works properly. If you don’t take the time to update these WordPress plugins, your site may not be able to function the way it’s designed to – and it could compromise your site security too. Plugins are just one example of where maintenance is needed. Many areas need frequent work from a knowledgeable WordPress developer or web designer.
Theme Updates
Some WordPress themes are updated every month, if not more frequently. As most WordPress users rely on a pre-built theme, these updates can change the way your site operates. The goal of these updates is to improve various aspects of the site, including:
- Functionality
- Security
- User experience
With regular check every month, users can be confident that any theme updates are handled correctly. Checking on these updates and implementing them ensures your website stays up to date with the necessary features.
Site Cleanups
Often, WordPress owners have loads of old content or information that is no longer needed, no longer relevant and sometimes not even valuable for SEO purposes. With regular cleanups and new content updates, your site will be rid of any that information, as well old plugins or integrations that could compromise your site.
This sort of maintenance is a behind-the-scenes process that makes sure your site is presentable and functions well. It may not always be very intensive work, but it can be very time-consuming. If your site has been active for a while, you should be going through it each week to clean up old images, fix broken links, update blog posts and outdated information. With this maintenance, your WordPress site will be clean, up to date and attractive.
Redesigns
Most WordPress websites need to be redesigned every few years. Even if a complete overhaul is not in the budget, the design itself should still be maintained and updated. As time progresses, certain features go in and out of style. To ensure your website stays up to date with the latest design trends, regular maintenance should be performed or at least evaluated for areas of improvement each month. This also requires knowledge of the latest web design styles and best practices.
Furthermore, some plugins may no longer be fashionable or considered positive for the user experience. Website redesigns can clean up your plugin and theme usage. You may want to remove some plugins, change themes, implement new design features or change the whole structure of your site. Beyond the aesthetic appeal of your site, redesigning your WordPress website can offer improved functionality as well.
With developers constantly innovating the web development field, new features are often released that improve functionality. General maintenance combined with industry knowledge can help your website look and perform better than your competitors’ sites.
Further Benefits of Regular WordPress Maintenance
Depending on the utility of your WordPress site, maintaining your site every month offers various other advantages. If you’re using the content management system to sell and advertise products, maintenance allows for frequent updates. When you sell goods, you have to regularly update the prices, shipping costs and description information. An e-commerce WordPress site needs frequent support to keep your information up to date and accurate.
When running a WordPress site, you always have to keep branding in mind. Regular support allows you to check on your content, including:
- Copy
- Images
- Logos
- Icons
- Colors
- Fonts
- And much more
When you have accurate, informative and up to date pages, clients can get a clear understanding of your services and products. They will develop a good understanding of your company and your company’s goals. Furthermore, this maintenance allows your users to feel more connected to you.
What Happens to Your WordPress Without Regular Maintenances?
WordPress websites require a lot of upkeep each month. Letting it sit, unmanaged and unmaintained, is NOT an option if you want a website that runs smoothly and provides a quality user experience. Websites need regular backups to ensure your content is safe. If your site isn’t being maintained, then problems are inevitable. When your site is not getting the maintenance it needs each month, there are a few key indicators that tell you.
Page Loading & Hosting Issues
One of the most obvious indicators of a site needing maintenance is poor loading speeds. Some users may experience this due to inadequate hosting. However, other issues with the site can lead to this as well. Some WordPress sites may use out-of-date plugins or incorporate too many features that each take a long time to load.
Numerous underlying causes can lead to pages taking too long to load or even pages that crash. All of which tells a user that your site is not cared for. When a user comes to your site and it takes too long to load, they’ll leave immediately. The same goes for visitors who attempt to navigate through your site to other pages. Nobody wants to browse through a website, read a blog or attempt to purchase something from a website that offers an unpleasant experience.
SEO Performance Issues
Many WordPress users want to utilize SEO to their advantage. However, this requires substantial work each month. When a website is lacking in the SEO department, that means it’s not receiving the necessary maintenance and optimization. Issues that can hurt a website’s SEO score include crashes, page loading issues, broken links and unrelated content. Proper maintenance and support from reputable WordPress SEO services to keep your site clean and ensure you have a good SEO ranking.
Broken Plugins & Functionality
Imagine a user who goes to a WordPress site, tries to follow a link, perform a search or other task, only to receive an error. That user will immediately think poorly of the website. They’ve experienced a bug or broken feature firsthand. Broken features and bugs arise all the time, of course. But they need to be fixed as soon as possible. Otherwise, your WordPress site provides a poor user experience.
Regular maintenance each month is needed to ensure any broken features or bugs are fixed on time. When plugins, themes or tools become outdated, a solution needs to be implemented. WP Tangerine provides the necessary maintenance to cover any outdated features.
Security Issues
As the internet changes, so do the security features a website needs. This is especially true of a WordPress website. When plugins change, security issues may arise, which can be evident to users. As users go through a flow of purchasing an item or entering information, they may notice bugs or abnormal functionality.
This may be a sign a feature is broken. Often this is due to a plugin needing an update. But the real issue is that these outdated plugins could be allowing hackers to exploit the security flaw, take over the site or steal visitors’ personal information. Regular maintenance includes backups to overcome loss of content from security issues.
Site Crashes
Without proper maintenance, the chance of a site crash increases dramatically. It’s nearly impossible to determine if a website can crash or not. However, with regular WordPress maintenance, your site should be built well and have the necessary features in place to prevent such an occurrence.
Outdated Design / Experience
If your WordPress website does not get regular maintenance, it will quickly become outdated—both in design and functionality. You need to continually monitor your site throughout the month to ensure features are running the way they’re designed to operate. You’ll have to make sure your plugins get the necessary updates, patches and tweaks whenever necessary.
Problem with Doing Maintenance on Your Own WordPress Site
Some WordPress website owners often try to design, develop and support their websites. But this doesn’t always work out well. Professionals can tell when WordPress users are hacking it themselves – and often it’s apparent to everyday visitors as well. Features may be outdated, bugs appear, security risks exist and the user experiences lags. When issues arise, it takes longer for a DIY person to find the cause and figure out how to fix it.
WordPress is a robust tool that requires years of experience and a wealth of knowledge to use effectively. Busy website owners simply cannot keep up with the constant updates every month, new plugins, new themes, new security measures and features that go out of style. Learning the ins and outs of WordPress simply takes too long, especially when you need more time to focus on the “big picture.”
Many users end up falling behind when they need WordPress maintenance service month after month. Often, they may not understand the need for proper hosting, uptime monitoring and various account types. They may try to search for WordPress tutorials to learn how to debug and solve various issues and perform backups on their own.
However, if backups not resolve the many issues may arise that do not have preexisting documentation that allows for an easy fix. WordPress may prove to have a high learning curve for individuals without prior experience in providing maintenance.
The Benefits of Using a Professional WordPress Maintenance Service Provider
If you’re a business owner, startup company or simply a self-starter getting into WordPress, you already have plenty of to-do items on your plate each month. Researching hosting and security best practices is not at the top of your to-do list. Daily business operations, creating new content and developing new ideas may be vastly more important than performing tedious WordPress maintenance service. Even if you have the desire to become a WordPress guru, you simply may not have the time it requires each month.
That’s why a professional WordPress developer or support expert is needed. Their sole responsibility is to provide the WordPress maintenance and support service that your site needs. Using a professional allows you to worry about what you do best. You get more time for your business, and you’ll have confidence knowing professionals are taking care of your WordPress site.
Real-World WordPress Experience
WordPress professionals come with years of experience serving clients of diverse backgrounds and needs. They know how to maintain sites used for e-commerce, business sites, blogs and much more. Each site requires different plugins, benefits from different themes and runs into different problems.
Different features require certain security measures, which only a professional can ensure are added. The uses of a website may necessitate different hosting strategies and providers. A professional company offers the same knowledge to each new client and has already served individuals, large companies, nonprofits and much more. With the use of a professional, no problem can prove too difficult to solve.
The Power of Collaboration
When you sign up for WordPress services from a professional WordPress maintenance company, you get a full team at the ready to support you whenever you need it. WordPress sites can develop problems that come from plugin, themes, new content input, e-commerce and many other sources.
A diverse array of problems requires a diverse array of knowledge. With a full team of experts, each staff member may specialize in one subset of WordPress. That means no matter the issue your site has, you’ll have a professional with expertise in that one field. This translates into much faster and more effective support: actual resolutions to your issues and not just a workaround.
Diverse Project Backgrounds
Working with a professional company means you get a group of employees that each come from different backgrounds in web development, project management, design and more. For example, some of the employees may have previous experience working in high-level WordPress development agency and IT security positions where hosting and monitoring are common topics of concern. Some could be trained web designers, whereas others are computer science gurus. By working with the right WordPress maintenance support company, you can be confident you have experts with a wide range of backgrounds.
Endless Maintenance Resources
Another highly advantageous aspect of working with a company is the number of resources they have. Experienced companies will have an endless supply of expertise, past projects and a wealth of knowledge they can pull from. Maybe your website runs into a tough issue that has happened before. They can use their resources to rapidly troubleshoot your issue and offer the optimal solution to save time and get your site up and running quickly.
How Do I Choose the Right Professional Maintenance Services?
Finding the right company is vital for proper services. As every WordPress site owner has various needs, you must be sure you’re getting the support you need. Check out the following things to look out for when choosing your provider.
The Kind of Support Offered
It’s important to know what support a company offers. Many may say that they offer unlimited support, but they don’t specify what their support covers. Look for a company that says directly what they offer and the number of tasks they cover. Furthermore, you need to see how quickly companies can solve your problems. If they don’t specify, you may end up with a company that takes a week before they even look at your issue. You can’t have a security issue persist for days; it needs to be fixed ASAP.
Experience
When choosing a professional WordPress maintenance & support service provider, the experience the company has is one of the most important factors. Sure, a relatively new company could offer the best rates and seem to be great on the surface. That doesn’t mean you’ll receive that, though. Check out a company’s reviews, how many successful projects they’ve had and how long they’ve been operating. When you agree to terms with a company, you must be certain you’re getting an experienced professional.
Reputation
The reputation a company has is key. Some companies may have been in the business for a long time offering cheap services, only to provide cheap support. You should vet each company to see what kind of reputation they have. Does the company have a proven track record of providing timely service? How is their customer service? Do you see any outstanding complaints about services? What do people complain about, if anything?
The Cost of Support
Of course, you want to consider the pricing of any maintenance service you want to use. Some companies may charge pennies on the dollar compared to their competitors – but be wary of pricing that’s too good to be true. Cheap pricing may be a sign that the support service will be poor. Alternatively, you may find some companies whose pricing is outrageously inflated. Look around, compare pricing and see what’s best for you.
3 Common Questions About WordPress Maintenance Services
How do I turn off maintenance mode?
Maintenance mode is not a default feature of WordPress. However, several plugin allow you to put your site in maintenance mode to display an “Under Construction” page while you’re making larger changes to the site. If you’ve installed a plugin that offers a maintenance mode, you likely need to navigate to the plugin’s settings. Find the maintenance mode setting and deactivate it.
How much does it cost to maintain a website?
Prices vary widely depending on the company offering services and what kind of support they offer. WP Tangerine’s maintenance services start at just $67 a month. More comprehensive maintenance services can cost up to $1,000 per month or more to support multiple sites.
How do I take down a WordPress?
If you’re hosting your WordPress site, you can take it down by deleting the WordPress installation, files and database from your server (or web host).
For sites created with WordPress.com and not owning hosting account, if you’re the main account holder, you can deactivate your WordPress site directly from the dashboard.
Go to the settings page from the tab on the left side of the dashboard. Find the option that says, “Delete Site” and click it. Once you delete the website, it cannot be undone.
Why Should You Use WP Tangerine for Your Maintenance Needs?
Here at WP Tangerine, our expertise is focused solely on WordPress. We have the best in-house WordPress designers, developers, support technicians, managers and QA specialists. We solve thousands of bugs and complete thousands of projects each month.
WP Tangerine employs only the most qualified and experienced WordPress consultant. Every staff member comes with years of experience, an endless supply of knowledge and unparalleled communication and customer service experience. WP Tangerine promises to provide each client with the highest level of customer service anywhere in the WordPress industry. When you choose a WordPress maintenance support service plan from WP Tangerine, you receive all the following advantages.
➢ Dedicated developer, designer, manager and QA specialist
➢ The ability to submit tasks/issues 24/7
➢ Unlimited maintenance support on WordPress and WooCommerce websites
➢ Advice on proper settings for your needs
➢ Uptime Monitoring for any bugs
➢ Maintenance support for any plugins, themes and basic software updates
➢ Backups and Restorations on your WordPress site
➢ Regular Emergency Care
➢ Security Assurances
➢ Expert-level advice on any WordPress site improvements
The Benefits of a WordPress Team from WP Tangerine
When you choose WP Tangerine for your maintenance & support service needs, you receive a dedicated team for ongoing maintenance service, site changes AND any problems. Your account will be of the highest priority to your team. Imagine how much more efficient a team of experts is compared to one individual. The two scenarios shouldn’t even be compared. A team from WP Tangerine is sure to surpass all your needs in WordPress support.
Clients often come to us and are surprised by how quickly their dedicated team improves their site. Our teams have this effect on clients for many reasons. We’re experts! Each team member has their area of knowledge and experience. The team has plenty of prior experience working together, so they can efficiently knock out any bug that arises.
Why us?
- WP Tangerine has already provided plan for maintenance support and development services on well over 3,000 different WordPress and WooCommerce sites.
- In the last month alone, WP Tangerine teams have completed over 6,400 different tasks and projects. These range from basic WordPress issues to full-scale updates to complete redesigns.
What WordPress Monthly Maintenance Does WP Tangerine Cover?
You name it. WP Tangerine covers anything and everything. Simply choose the maintenance service plan that fits your specific needs. No matter what plan you choose, have peace of mind knowing that your site is handled by experts.
Our team has the knowledge to fix any issue and handle any task, large or small. Maybe some of your links no longer work. There could be flaws in security preventions. Or you have a plugin that’s gone through an update, and now your site needs to be reworked a bit. Or maybe your entire site needs to be updated and redesigned. Every plan from WP Tangerine lets you leverage our team’s vast knowledge of WordPress.
Furthermore, your support plan from WP Tangerine provides services that cannot be found elsewhere. Your dedicated team will be monitoring your website’s performance and managing any issues with lags or slow performance. When something like frequent lagging occurs, your WP Tangerine team will dig into the code and find the root of the problem. The necessary maintenance support service will be conducted, and your WordPress website will be up and running as a fully optimized websites in no time. Check out this plan list below to see what other support you receive with WP Tangerine.
General Fixes, Cleanups, Site Changes, New Content & More
Whenever anything arises, rest assured that your team will get it fixed ASAP. With a routine maintenance service plan, your WordPress website will look better and function better. Plus, a smoothly-running websites with regular monitoring is likely to have a better SEO ranking.
This ultimately leads to increased traffic from search engines websites like Google. Choose your preferred plan from WP Tangerine and get the necessary support to ensure that regular support service is performed and that your website continues to run perfectly.
New Features
When new features are implemented, bugs may arise and persist if a team of experts is not there to support your site. We’ve got your back! With any plan you choose, our WordPress team is always ready to research, find and implement the necessary solutions.
WordPress Updates
At times, WordPress theme or plugin updates are released. These are necessary to ensure website have good health and are secure. However, they may bring forth issues as well. WordPress updates can prove to be finicky, so you want to make sure you have the necessary WordPress experts on your side to provide WordPress help. Your WP Tangerine team can dig deep into the updates to see what went wrong and provide a quick solution.
Plugin Maintenance
Virtually every WordPress website utilizes plugins. They bring improved functionality and improve the user’s experience. Sometimes these can run into issues, though. As independent parties create these plugins, they may not always work well with your website’s design or with other plugins you use.
Out-of-date plugins can slow down your WordPress website and even expose you and your users to security issues. Your WP Tangerine team will ensure the security as they provide you with patches, fixes and updates to all your plugin. That way, you never run into any issues with your diverse plugin usage.
Emergency Care
Your WP Tangerine team will be ready to provide an emergency maintenance service plan whenever problems arise. When a frequently used feature breaks or your website crashes, you’ll have support at the ready to help you. Your team will evaluate the issue, fix it and outline a plan to ensure your website continues to run smoothly in the future too.
WordPress Site Redesigns
With select WordPress website design packages, if you decide your WordPress website needs a redesign, our expert designers will take care of it promptly. From there, your dedicated support staff will ensure no bugs are present before deploying the site. Your dedicated team provides the necessary quality control to minimize the need for support later.
Backups
WP Tangerine provides regular backups as a part of the wp maintenance services. Backups are vital for ensuring your WordPress website is safe, backups, and secure in the case of a crash. If your website were to crash without frequent backups, you’d experience downtime that could significantly hurt your platform.
Site Optimizations
If you ever notice your website performing slowly or improperly. Your WP Tangerine team will fix that in a blink of an eye. With continual monitoring, nothing goes unnoticed. Your website will be optimized and running smoothly as soon as possible.
24/7 Ongoing Support
You’ll have a team of support staff at the ready for any issues 24/7. No matter the issue, security risk, malfunction or task you have, someone will be there for you.
WP Tangerine Starter Plan
If you’re looking for a professional company that offers various service options every month for your WordPress needs, WP Tangerine is your solution. WP Tangerine provides numerous options per each month, so clients can find the perfect fit.
Affordable Pricing – Starting at Only $67/month
As a highly affordable option per month, our Starter I Plan provides everything you need to get going with a professional maintenance support service plan in each month for your website.
With this month plan, you get a dedicated team to handle your problems. You can submit 1 problem at a time that will be properly fixed. With the Starter I Plan, each month you can submit tasks 24/7 and expect to receive the solutions in one business day. The Starter Plan covers all the following as well.
- Theme, Plugin and Core Software
- Uptime Monitoring
- WordPress Support
- WooCommerce Help & Support
- Backups and Restorations
- General Emergency Care
- Any WordPress tasks & website changes
For greater needs or multiple websites, we offer numerous other plans to take care of all your WordPress tasks. Other options include the Starter II Plan for $117/month and a basic plan for $197/month. Learn more about WP Tangerine starter plans here.