WordPress changed the way we make websites. It is the easiest way to create a website catering to a variety of website types and industries. With the ever-growing number of WP websites, you probably use multiple WP run websites daily without even knowing it. Is your website WordPress? If not, why not? WordPress is a great tool for any business. With a good understanding of the platform and regular maintenance, your business can use the tool to its full capacity.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is an open-source website creation platform that enables users to create, customise and develop a website. It caters to a wide range of websites. From blogs to online portfolios and everything in between. No need to be a developer to use WordPress. Beginners to professional developers use the platform. Beginners can build a website with a good website builder. Yes, without having ever coded a single line in their lives. That is not even the best part of the platform. The best part of WordPress is that it’s free to use.

How does WordPress work?

To create a website on the platform, you can choose between the two types of WordPress websites. WordPress.com and WordPress.org.

The main difference between the 2 is:

WordPress.com

When you create a website, WordPress.com will host it. It will appear in your domain name. Example: myblog.wordpress.com.

WordPress.org

You can download the free software and use your server or hosting services. Meaning you need to purchase your domain and hosting/server independently.

Depending on your business or organisational needs, you can choose an option that best suits your needs. There is a wide range of themes and plugins to choose from. These can significantly improve the way you use the platform and the experience your website users have.

Why do WordPress websites need maintenance?

Now that you have a WordPress website, you need to maintain it. There are many reasons why you should keep your website updated. From new features to added security. WordPress core, themes, and plugins such as page builders have regular updates. It is a way of improving their offer to you as the consumer. Having an updated and well-maintained website reduces the risk of being hacked, data leaks, and downtime. Additionally, regularly maintained plugins and themes apply new features and bug fixes frequently. You can upload these to your website and improve the functionality of your website. 

Simple and custom websites

Now, if you have a simple website with no custom development, maintenance is easy. You can maintain your website yourself or join a service like our WordPress Maintenance package to free up your time. But, if you have a custom developed website, you need to have an experienced developer working on your website. The risk of updating your website yourself is experiencing errors, but worse is crashing your website. Both these can happen for various reasons. Anything from clashing plugins to plugins not being compatible with your version for WordPress core. Joining a maintenance package provides security and gives you peace of mind. Ensuring your website is always running at its best. Knowing that if anything goes wrong, you have experienced developers working on your website.

What is WordPress Maintenance?

There are many reasons and benefits to keeping your WordPress website updated. These range from regular upkeep to reducing conflicting plugin functionality and custom code. The type and the current state of your website impact what maintenance is required. Regardless of that, some tasks require completion. That ensures your website is always running smoothly and at its best.

WordPress Maintenance definition:​

WordPress maintenance is the regular upkeep of themes, plugins such as page builders and the WordPress core. It strives to reduce plugin conflicts or errors, website downtime and ensure optimal functioning of all website functions.  It also includes preserving any custom work on a plugin or theme and resolving code conflicts with the updated versions.

Our WordPress Maintenance is made up of vital tasks to keep your website running smoothly. We offer three packages; Basic, Intermediate and Advanced. Each of these packages contains one or more of these tasks:

Tasks

Reports – a report on all work completed

Backups – a backup is made every time before any work commences

Update Plugins automatically – some plugins are easier to update depending on the website. However, there is the risk of plugin conflict or plugin errors, and a developer can mitigate this risk.

Update Themes automatically – a theme on a website with no custom development is easier to update. Have a professional developer update your custom theme to give you peace of mind if errors arise.

Remove unwanted Plugins – Plugins become redundant over time, and this happens for various reasons. Plugins that are no longer maintained, infected with malware, no longer compatible with WordPress core or another plugin includes the functionality of multiple plugins. These plugins slow down your website,  cause conflicts with newer plugins and custom builds, cause website downtime or open your website to hackers.

Update WordPress Core – This ensures your base platform is always running at its best with the latest security updates and features from WordPress.org.

Update to the latest PHP version – This ensures you have the most secure and efficient version on which all WordPress functionality runs. We recommend having a developer do this as it might cause errors on your website.

Update Plugins Manually – customised plugins need a developer to preserve the customisation when updating. It applies to plugins that are customised incorrectly or that does not allow for proper customisation.

Update Themes Manually – customised themes that do not use a child theme require a developer to update to preserve the customisation and prevent errors.

Fix Plugin errors that occur while updating – sometimes things don’t go as planned. For those times, we have this feature in our advanced package.

Fix Theme errors that occur while updating – we aim to keep your website up and running. The best way to do this is to provide the service to fix any theme errors that arise when updating your theme.

These specifically selected services are to ensure your website is always up and running. If you would like to get your own WordPress Maintenance packages click here.

Want to improve your organic traffic to your website? Then SEO is your answer. SEO can help your business rank better and get long-term organic quality traffic to your website. Want to know more than keep reading and find out what is SEO Maintenance.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. As much as SEO is about search engines, it is about people. It is about what you can provide instead of how many articles you have on your website. The key is knowing what information your reader and potential customers want. Good SEO gives your business the ability to provide quality answers to the reader. Which in turn generates more organic traffic. In a nutshell, how do you solve their problem? So how can we solve your problem? With SEO services like content creation and SEO Maintenance.

What is SEO Maintenance?

SEO Maintenance works on the content that you already have on your website. It improves the quality of your content to improve the number of website visitors. Having more content is not the same as having quality content. Sometimes less is more. However, there are SEO rules that your content must follow, and failing to do so negatively affects your business’s online standing. So what can we do for your business? 

We can offer three easy SEO Maintenance Packages. Namely SEO Basic, SEO Intermediate, and SEO Advanced. These packages cover the basic needs of an SEO-friendly article. 

SEO Basic

SEO report
On-Page SEO
Back-end SEO

SEO Intermediate

SEO report
On-Page SEO
Back-end SEO
Image Optimisation

SEO Advanced

SEO report
On-Page SEO
Back-end SEO
Image Optimisation
Content Editing
Edited URL redirect

We designed our SEO packages to make sure your business capitalises on past content and improves your organic traffic long-term. These services get performed on Five articles monthly. The price ranges from R1500 to R3000 per month. Click here to buy one of our SEO Maintenance Packages.

Glossary:

SEO report – include SEO work done
On-Page SEO – checking and correct the SEO rules that need to be adhered to
Back-end SEO – making sure your article appear on brand in search engine results
Image Optimisation – this helps reduce load time and aid the visually impaired
Content Editing – updating facts to the latest information and assist the article to stay on brand
Edited URL redirect – simplifying the URL and redirecting the old URL to eliminate traffic lost

Who can benefit from SEO Maintenance?

SEO Maintenance is for any business or brand that wants to improve its organic traffic. All industries can benefit from good SEO. The reason for this is that organic traffic is the gift that keeps giving. It requires significantly less capital than PPC to drive traffic. Unlike PPC, when you stop spending money on SEO, it will continue sending traffic to your website. Remember, SEO is about what value your business can provide to the consumer.

Want to know more or have any questions? Post your questions in the comment section.