WordPress Website Maintenance

Packages are paid in advance for one year.
Contact me for payment options.

Feel free to compare other WordPress maintenance providers. Their basic package prices start at an average of $68/month (Based on a survey of 7 providers)

Detailed description of maintenance services

Updates

All plans include proactive updates to the WordPress Core files, Framework, Theme and Plug-ins. Why is this important? See F.A.Q. section below.

Backups

Offsite backups to an external server (different from where your website lives). This is like backing up in case the hard drive in your computer or phone dies. Why is this important? See F.A.Q. section below.

Security

The following is a detailed list of all additional security measures that are included. Why is this important? See F.A.Q. section below.

• One-click “Secure Site” WordPress security check
• Ban bad users
• Block specific IP addresses and user agents from accessing the site
• 404 Detection
• Hide Login & Admin URL
• Change WordPress salts & keys
• Away Mode
• Database Backups
• File Change Detection
• Remove Windows Live Write header information
• Remove RSD header info
• Remove update notifications from specific user roles
• Remove login error messages
• Rename ‘admin’ account
• Change ID on user with ID 1
• Change WordPress database table prefix
• Change wp-content path
• Force SSL for any post, page, or admin page
• Turn off file editing in WordPress admin
• Reduce Comment Spam
• Local brute force protection
• Network brute force protection
• XML-RPC brute force protection
• Security logs
• Email Notifications & Digest Emails
• Customizable lockout messages
• Strong Password Enforcement
• File Permission Check
• Malware Scan
• Dashboard Widget
• Google reCAPTCHA Integration
• Two-Factor Authentication
• Settings Import & Export
• WordPress Core Online File Comparison
• Scheduled Malware Scanning
• User Action Logging
• Temporary Privilege Escalation
• WP-CLI Integration
• Password Expiration
• Private Ticketed Support
• WordPress User Security Check

Reports

You will receive reports so you know exactly what is going with your website. Reports include the following:

Site Overview
(WordPress Version, Posts, New Comments, Plugins Installed and Active, Themes Installed, Users and Uptime/Downtime/Response Time)

Site Actions
(Plugin updates, Theme Updates, Security – Number of times protected from attack)

Click to view screenshot of a sample report

Analytics

Analytics can help you understand a lot about the traffic and visitors to your site. We can then customize your site to be more effective.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

We can take your analytics and apply that knowledge to help visitors find your website.

Broken Link Audits

Sometimes links to pages, files and graphics can get broken. We can run an audit and fix them.

Site Speed Audits

Site speed is important. We can run and audit and make changes if necessary.

Cloud-based Virus Scanning

There are many tools for virus scanning. To be extra super duper proactive there are cloud-based options available.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do I need a maintenance plan?

Let’s answer that question with more questions!

• What would happen if your site went down for an hour, a day or weeks on end?
• What would you do if you got locked out of your site and couldn’t make changes?
• How would it look if your website visitors were redirected to a discount drug or porn website?
• What would it cost to rebuild your website from scratch?
• Do you have the time or know how to properly update, backup and protect your website?

None of us want to worry about that stuff happening. That’s where website maintenance comes in. Being proactive with updates, backups and additional security is the first line of defense.

• Updates are important because they provide security patches and avoid compatibility conflicts.
• Offsite backups are like backing up your computer or phone to an external hard drive.
• Additional security measures can stop hackers. A hacked site could take countless hours to fix if it’s even possible to fix at all. Restoring from good backups is the most reliable option in case your site gets hacked.

Why does it cost extra?

If you have just come to me with a Word Press website that someone else built, they may not have told you that your site needs to be updated. In many cases it was simply not being updated on a regular basis which left your site more vulnerable. Going forward your site will be more secure because I will be updating your site daily when updates are available, backing up regularly and adding many extra layers of security.

Where is the value?

By staying on a schedule and providing services like virus scanning, broken link checking, speed checks and reporting, your site will be much more secure and reduce the likelihood of problems and extra or unnecessary charges to fix them. The underlying value is piece of mind that your site is properly protected.

If you look at other website maintenance providers, the average basic packages start at $68/month. My goal is to provide similar services at a much more affordable rate.

What if we want to do updates in-house to save money?

Sure. You can update these yourself with Administration access privileges.

A word of caution: When updating the WordPress core, themes, frameworks and plugins, it is possible for things to go wrong. You can get locked out and your site can go down. It happens – I know. When this happens you need to know what to do. It gets complicated real fast. One of the benefits of a maintenance plan is that I will stick to a schedule to make sure vital updates are done within 24 hours (or even within a few minutes of updates becoming available) to keep your site functioning and secure. From experience I know that my clients tend to ignore critical updates for months at a time, which leaves their sites open to attack from many sources. If you insist on making updates yourself, you need know how to fix problems and be prepared to log into your hosting account and know how to restore your site from a previous backup.

What is not included?

Anything not listed in the packages including things – like content-related updates, changing themes, custom site design, new site functionality requests and anything requiring special programming.