Are WordPress maintenance services misguiding you from real maintenance?

Almost 30% of all the websites are running on WordPress today. And for healthy and secure WordPress sites require regular support and attention. In short, proper WordPress maintenance and support like updated core files of CMS and enforcing all the required security measures. Even keeping auto-update of WordPress files and plugins doesn’t help much. Most of the times it breaks the site’s functionalities, or themes.

Mostly small business owners try to update the site by themselves to save costs. And it is just fine to do repairs on your product if you know what you are doing. But understanding the limit is very important here. Creating more problems while solving one is very easy when you have limited experience in that field.

Don’t forget, even if you would be saving on costs by doing it all by yourself, you are paying with your precious time. Your time could have been used to promote your business or improve performance or whatnot. So the best idea is to go for a dedicated, experienced counsel for all the maintenance worries. But, are all these maintenance plans even good for you? What makes a WordPress maintenance plan the best support plan?

So here are the few pointers you can use to find what makes a WordPress maintenance plan the best support plan.

1. The maintenance plan does not mean updating core files, plugins, themes, and just backing up a website from time to time. It means keeping an eye on every little detail, which makes this website what it should be and never let the performance go down.
2. Also, WordPress core, plugins, and theme file should never be updated right away when available without checking twice, if the current site’s theme files, plugins, and custom scripts are all compatible with the latest updates.
3. In any good maintenance plan, all the regular updates of the site will always be taken care of without delay. Any tasks related to the maintenance should get enlisted and followed timely, depending on if it is a daily, weekly, or monthly task.
4. The important things to keep a check among other maintenance stuff are the 404 errors, directory permissions, and broken links. Most of the WordPress maintenance plans available on the internet, do not have any of these pre-checks in their plans. These errors if persisted can significantly affect the search engine rankings.
5. Sometimes media files get corrupt because of the new updates or any other technical reasons. So a service provider should always keep an eye for the broken media links or media files and repair it instantly.
6. Backing up a website is not enough. It should get encrypted as well after backup because a backup of a website is just a copy of an original site and if it gets stolen, it can be misused.
7. Notification mailing and new post intimations are an important task for any website to keep in touch with their subscribers and viewers. Hence, for a service provider, it is necessary to monitor the mailing server, replies, deliverability, and responses from time to time to make sure it is working perfectly.
8. Checking broken links in the mobile version of the website or AMP pages to along with the main site after every update is a good practice.
9. Rechecking the website thoroughly for loopholes and mal codes(bad plugins or scripts) after a Malware or malicious code cleanup is an important step to prevent future reoccurrence of such things. The best security practice is prevention.
10. Continuous checking of spam and malicious references to a website is also a part of a good WordPress care plan and disavowing links is indeed another part of it.