Updates Are Boring (That’s Why We Do Them For You)
Let’s be absolutely real for a second. There is nothing—and I mean nothing—sexy about a software update. Watching a little progress bar crawl across your screen while you pray your entire digital existence doesn’t crash? That is not why you started a business. You started your company to serve your community, to build amazing things, and to make a profit!
But here is the hard truth: the internet is a living, breathing beast. It changes every single day. If you ignore it, it bites back. We see it all the time here at Gulf Coast Web Net. A business owner invests in a beautiful, custom digital presence with a company that doesn’t do the maintenance, launches it with fanfare, and then… ghost town. Six months later, the site is sluggish, links are broken, and there is a scary warning message popping up for visitors.
Why? Because maintenance is boring. It’s tedious. It’s technical. And frankly, it scares people. But guess what? We absolutely live for this stuff! While you might dread the “Update Available” notification, our crew gets excited because we know exactly what it means: better security, faster speeds, and a smoother experience for your customers.
That is exactly why our website maintenance packages are designed to take the weight off your shoulders. You run the business; we keep the engine running.
The High Cost of “Setting and Forgetting”
We get it. You invested a significant chunk of change into a custom design. You didn’t buy some cheap, off-the-shelf solution; you paid for craftsmanship. It’s natural to feel like, “Hey, I paid for it, it should just work forever, right?”
Unfortunately, the web doesn’t work like a painting on a wall. It’s more like a high-performance sports car. You wouldn’t drive a Ferrari for three years without changing the oil or checking the tires, would you? If you did, that expensive engine would seize up, and you’d be looking at a repair bill that costs more than a small house.
The same logic applies to your website. Without regular care, three things happen, and none of them are good:
- Performance Dives: As databases get clogged and software gets outdated, your site slows down. Google hates slow sites. Customers hate slow sites. You lose money.
- Functionality Breaks: That contact form you rely on for leads? It might stop sending emails because of a server update you missed. Suddenly, your phone stops ringing.
- The “Rebuild” Nightmare: Eventually, the site becomes so outdated that it can’t be updated anymore. It has to be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch. That is a massive, avoidable expense.
Our website maintenance packages are the insurance policy for your custom design investment. It’s a fraction of the cost of a rebuild, and it keeps your digital storefront shining like new.
Fear of the “Hack” (It’s Real, But We’ve Got You)
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: Security. It keeps business owners up at night. You hear the horror stories about data breaches, malware, and sites getting held for ransom. It’s terrifying!
Here is the reality: hackers use automated bots to crawl the web 24/7 looking for vulnerabilities. They aren’t specifically targeting you; they are targeting weakness. An outdated plugin or an unpatched core file is like leaving your front door wide open with a neon sign saying “Free Stuff Inside.”
This is where our technical enthusiasm kicks into high gear! We don’t just update your site; we fortify it. Our team monitors security threats in real-time. When a vulnerability is discovered in the wild, we are patching it before the bad guys even know where to look.
Imagine the peace of mind knowing that while you are sleeping, or on vacation, or closing a big deal, a team of experts is standing guard over your digital assets. We handle the backups, the firewalls, and the malware scans. If something does go wrong (because the internet is unpredictable), we have a restore point ready to go instantly. No panic. No lost data. Just business as usual.
Time is Your Most Valuable Asset
Let’s do some quick math. How long does it take you to log in, run a backup, check for updates, read the changelogs to make sure nothing conflicts, run the updates, and then test every page of your site to ensure nothing broke?
Two hours? Four hours? A whole day if something goes wrong and you have to troubleshoot?
Now, what is your hourly rate? How much is your time worth when you are doing what you do best—managing your team, serving clients, or developing new products? I bet it’s a lot more than the cost of a maintenance plan.
DIY maintenance is a productivity killer. It pulls you out of your zone of genius and forces you to play IT manager. It’s frustrating, and frankly, it’s a waste of your talent. When you sign up for our website maintenance packages, you are buying back your time. You are buying the freedom to ignore those technical notifications because you know we’ve already handled it.
What Does a Pro Maintenance Package Look Like?
We aren’t talking about just clicking an “Update” button. When our crew manages your site, we are executing a comprehensive health strategy. We treat your website with the reverence it deserves as a primary revenue generator for your business.
1. The Safety Net (Backups)
Before we touch anything, we back everything up. We take off-site backups, meaning if your server melts down, we have a copy safe and sound elsewhere. This is non-negotiable.
2. The Controlled Update
We don’t update on a live site during peak hours. We test updates in a staging environment (a clone of your site) first. We check for conflicts. Does the new gallery plugin break the layout? Does the security patch conflict with the payment gateway? We break it in the lab so it doesn’t break in the real world.
3. Performance Tuning
Maintenance isn’t just about preventing bad things; it’s about optimizing good things. We clear out database bloat, optimize images that might be slowing down your load times, and check your hosting environment specs. We want your site to be faster today than it was yesterday.
4. Real Human Support
This is the Gulf Coast Web Net difference. You aren’t submitting a ticket to a robot. You are talking to our team. If you have a question, need a small content tweak, or just want to ask about a new feature, we are here. We are your partners, not just a faceless vendor.
Let Us Be The Nerds So You Can Be The Boss
Look, we know updates are boring to you. That is totally fine! Accounting might be boring to a chef, and cooking might be confusing to an accountant. The world works because we specialize.
Our specialization is making sure your web presence is bulletproof, lightning-fast, and always online. We love the technical details. We get a kick out of seeing a perfect security score. We high-five when we shave 0.5 seconds off a load time.
Don’t let the fear of security breaches or the annoyance of technical chores slow you down. Stop treating your website like a static billboard and start treating it like the dynamic business asset it is. Protect your investment. Save your time. Sleep better at night.
Check out our website maintenance packages today. Let’s handle the boring stuff so you can get back to being awesome!
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 you’re not actively maintaining it, you’re leaving opportunity—and money—on 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 brand—all 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 we’ve 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. We’ve updated both website content and Google Business listings to match new menus.
- Event Management: We post upcoming events and—importantly—remove 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 invisible—but critical to your site’s 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 can’t send email (like contact form submissions), we get notified and fix the issue—often before you even know there’s a problem.
- SSL Certificate Checks: SSL certificates auto-renew, but sometimes the automation fails. We manually verify every certificate at renewal to avoid “Not Secure” warnings.
- Domain Renewal Checks: Even when we don’t manage your domain, we keep track of renewal status to help prevent accidental expiration.
- Weekly Backups: We ensure backups are running properly—weekly 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
We’ve 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 sites—it lets us handle image compression, SEO audits, security firewalls, and more.
- Hosting Platforms: We primarily use GoDaddy, Hostinger, and Automattic, depending on the website’s 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 don’t have to think twice. You’ll always have someone watching over your digital storefront—making sure it’s 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, it’s 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, it’s 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 “username” or “WordPress” can be easily broken, but a random, unpredictable, encrypted password such as “88a7da62429ba6ad3cb3c76a09641fc” 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.