Personally, I prefer it if someone avoids sugar-coating a situation. I mean, when a house is on fire, then it's not "temporarily ablaze with a physically cozy atmosphere sporting an incrementally harmful situation". No. "It's coming down hot! Call the fire brigade!" Please, call a spade a spade.
It's the same with WordPress websites. Of course, we love WordPress and it comes with many advantages and some disadvantages. If we build you a WordPress webby, we strongly encourage our maintenance SLAs. And with good reason.
Since WordPress is an open source content management system, everyone gets to see what's under the hood. For instance, think of the stark (and I mean this literally) differences between how women are dressed in this week's issue of 'equestrian dressage' versus those in a porn magazine. One of these will earn a lot of money, but I won't risk saying which. But, I digress. Similarly, WordPress leaves nothing to the imagination because everyone knows what's under that bonnet.
How bad can a peek under the bonnet get? Let's stick with car analogies to illustrate my point.
A garage (us) is the service centre for your automobile (your website), which they created using some of the best hot rod parts available at the time of building and has a mean-looking supercharger that would make Dominic Toretto cry. But the garage reminds you about regular monthly maintenance and finetuning. Moreover, they recommend some smash-and-grab windows. But because the car looks so swanky already, you decide to ignore both suggestions. They probably just want more money, right?
So, you drive your car around for a while and park it in your usual parking bay (your hosting company). But one fine day, while the guys at the garage are enjoying a fine cappuccino, someone (a hacker) breaks into your automobile for no reason at all. He takes it for a fun ride in the parking lot, drifting doughnuts of smoke and because you spray-painted the car lime green, he purposefully crashes it into a pillar, rendering it a complete write-off. So now, gas is leaking all over the parking lot and every other car on the same floor (shared hosting platform) is at risk of potentially burning down. The scene is basically set for a Deadpool rescue.
You're upset. You call the garage. You start blaming them for making your car 'easy pickings'. You insist they drop everything and come to the rescue (because Deadpool is fully booked for the next 2 months). But there's nothing to rescue. No backup plan. No backup car. No blueprints. No car rentals. No car keys. Not even the car dice that used to decorate your rearview mirror so elegantly. And also, the garage guys are still enjoying that great cappuccino. You cry. They sip. And someone accidentally slurps a little.
So, dear people, your website might look really great when it goes live and you may still consider it 'too new' to bother, but please hear us: tech changes really fast. There's a reason why tech companies spend billions on upgrading their systems on a daily basis. We've seen grown people sob bitterly on having lost their websites. It's imperative that you seriously look at getting a monthly SLA in place. This includes:
- Invaluable backups
- Software updates
- Security applications
- Website activity and performance monitoring
Connect with us to find out about our monthly rates to look after your WordPress website. You might not see the benefits now, or ever, but you might happily thank us for it later.
Of course, if you believe that a WordPress website doesn't need regular maintenance, that is your prerogative. And though we hope you're right and we're wrong, this article offers fair warning. But just in case some harlequin hacker takes your V8 for a joy ride without your backup plan, then "Don't cry for me Argentina.... "
