Your website is just a lot of files on a big shared computer, your server. A WordPress website uses a standard set of files that gives you access to a dashboard. The dashboard makes it easier to create pages, posts and update your website. You need to keep your WordPress files updated to prevent your website from vulnerabilities and malicious people.
Plugins can be seen as mini-programs or apps that add features to your site. Every WordPress website uses plugins that need to be updated too. Not updating your plugins leads to bugs and security issues.
Here are 5 important reasons why your website needs a maintenance plan:
User experience
Website speed
The speed of your website is an important factor. Think about it. How long are you waiting for a website to load? Most people leave your website after a couple of seconds already. Here are a couple of reasons why your websites speed needs to be maintained and optimized:
- Website speed is the first impression
- Site speed is a Google ranking factor for 10 years
- Your users expect a fast site
- Slow websites have fewer conversions
Your site speed affects your user experience, search ranking, sales and conversions. It’s worth to invest in optimization and monitoring to keep your website fast.
Updating design & content
Users can already judge a business, and it’s credibility while looking at their website design. Websites that are recently updated are assigned with more credibility. The content needs to be updated, and the themes and plugins can be outdated and have issues. 404 and 403 errors or broken links are bad for the user experience and can lead to people leaving your site.
Above we mentioned the website speed is the first impression. A bad website gives a bad impression on your customers. It can be considered unprofessional and less trustworthy.
Hackers
WordPress is the most used CMS on the internet. It’s not only popular for website owners but also hackers. It’s targeted a lot by hackers or viruses. Hackers can put bugs in some plugins. This makes them able to get your database credentials and create admin accounts on vulnerable sites. If you discover this too late, it could mean a path of destruction for the website owner.
Luckily WordPress is very vigilant about hackers, next to the regular updates they release a new version once a threat is detected. This is why it’s important to have a WordPress maintenance and update plan for your site. This plan takes care of your website and makes sure it’s up to date.
WordPress is open source. This means everyone can edit the code to create their own product with it. Whenever WordPress releases a new version to tackle an issue, the whole world can be aware of this issue. Older versions are getting more open for attacks. This is the main reason to keep your WordPress updated.
Risk losing everything
Some hackers aim to take over your website and computer. Malicious software programmed by hackers – malware is one of the most common reasons for data loss. Not updating your site could lead to losing some or all of your data. Sometimes there isn’t an update to protect you from issues, server failures or human error. All of these things can result in data loss for your website. Building your website back up from scratch is very frustrating and costs you time and money.
We recommend you to include uptime monitoring, round the clock security and regular backups in your maintenance plan. This way your site can easily and quickly be restored on an earlier version when something happens—no data losses or downtime.
No maintenance can be more expensive
An outdated is less attractive for potential customers and for sure not good for your business. Think about all the potential security threats and data losses that could happen if you don’t maintain your website. Most likely, you need to hire a professional to fix the issues. These services are costly compared to a WordPress maintenance plan. You need to be preventive and keep your site healthy to avoid having all of this trouble.
Also, read what does a good WordPress maintenance plan look like? When you’re looking for a maintenance plan.
