The Power of Ongoing Website Maintenance – The Impact of One Hour
Why Website Maintenance with Monthly Developer Time Is a Smart Investment
People who opt for ongoing website maintenance in addition to basic hosting are unlocking one of the most valuable assets a business can have: peace of mind and consistent performance. When you’ve gone through the time, effort, and expense of creating a website, you’re only halfway there. If youโre not actively maintaining it, youโre leaving opportunityโand moneyโon the table.
Think of your website as your most cost-effective, reliable, and hard-working employee. It promotes your business 24/7, generates leads, sells products, answers questions, and reinforces your brandโall without ever taking a break. But like any high-performing tool or team member, it needs upkeep to keep delivering results.
Our Maintenance Pricing (and Why Hosting with Us Makes Sense)
We currently offer basic website hosting for $50/month, and that includes 1 hour of developer time each month for updates or content changes. If you already have hosting elsewhere but still want us to maintain your site, we offer a maintenance-only plan for $40/month. For just $10 more, it makes a lot of sense to let us host and maintain your site in one streamlined solution.
Real Examples of What We Do in a Maintenance Plan
Here’s a look at just a few of the updates weโve completed for clients in the past 30 days under our maintenance package:
- Updating PDF Documents & Menus: For restaurants and local businesses, keeping menus and downloadable materials up to date is essential. Weโve updated both website content and Google Business listings to match new menus.
- Event Management: We post upcoming events andโimportantlyโremove expired ones after they pass. This keeps websites current and clutter-free.
- Price Updates: Whether you have an e-commerce store or just list your service fees online, we handle routine price changes and limited-time sales.
- QR Codes & Custom Graphics: Need a QR code for an event flyer or a graphic with a quote for social media? We can create those within your monthly hour.
- Staff Page Revisions: Employee changes happen. We routinely update staff listings and contact info to reflect your current team.
Behind-the-Scenes Maintenance You Never See (But Definitely Need)
Some of the most important tasks we handle are completely invisibleโbut critical to your siteโs reliability and security:
- Website Audits: We regularly test buttons, navigation, and interactive features to make sure nothing is broken or misaligned.
- SMTP Monitoring: If your website canโt send email (like contact form submissions), we get notified and fix the issueโoften before you even know thereโs a problem.
- SSL Certificate Checks: SSL certificates auto-renew, but sometimes the automation fails. We manually verify every certificate at renewal to avoid โNot Secureโ warnings.
- Domain Renewal Checks: Even when we donโt manage your domain, we keep track of renewal status to help prevent accidental expiration.
- Weekly Backups: We ensure backups are running properlyโweekly for regular sites, and daily for e-commerce. And yes, we check the logs to make sure the backups are actually happening.
The Tools That Power Our Work
Weโve put solid systems in place to stay organized and proactive:
- Asana helps us manage recurring tasks like blog scheduling, certificate renewals, and content updates.
- Zendesk gives our clients a smooth support experience, allowing us to track change requests, assign tasks, and communicate clearly.
- WPMUDEV is our main dashboard for managing WordPress sitesโit lets us handle image compression, SEO audits, security firewalls, and more.
- Hosting Platforms: We primarily use GoDaddy, Hostinger, and Automattic, depending on the websiteโs needs. Each offers strengths for different types of clients.
Whether you need to update a menu, add a staff member, or just want to be sure your website is backed up and secure, our monthly maintenance package ensures you donโt have to think twice. Youโll always have someone watching over your digital storefrontโmaking sure itโs working hard for your business.
Let us take care of the technical stuff, so you can focus on what you do best.
October 2024
Disable XML-RPC
XML-RPC is a system that allows you to post on your WordPress blog using popular weblog clients like Windows Live Writer. Technically, itโs a remote procedure call that uses XML to encode its calls and HTTP as a transport mechanism.
If you are using the WordPress mobile app, want to make connections to services like IFTTT, or want to access and publish your blog remotely, you need XML-RPC enabled. Otherwise, itโs just another portal for hackers to target and exploit.
There have been security concerns with XML-RPC in the past, so we are entirely disabling this feature.
Disable File Manager
WordPress has a file editor built into the system. Anyone accessing your login information can further edit your plugin and theme files and inject malicious code. So, we are disabling the file manager if it hasn’t already been disabled.
Update old security keys
WordPress uses security keys to improve the encryption of information stored in user cookies, making it harder to crack passwords. A non-encrypted password like โusernameโ or โWordPressโ can be easily broken, but a random, unpredictable, encrypted password such as โ88a7da62429ba6ad3cb3c76a09641fcโ takes years to come up with the right combination. I update old security keys on a website every 60 days.
Website Backups
I inspect backups for every website each month to ensure backups are performing correctly.