Why You Should Have a WordPress Maintenance Plan

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Should I have a WordPress Maintenance Plan?  Yes!  This article explores the reasons why and type of maintenance plan you should get for your WordPress website.

Why a WordPress Maintainance Plan?

WordPress is an awesome content management system.  So awesome, that alot of people around the World are using it.  This makes it a target for hackers.  There are measures that should be taken to mitigate the risk of your site being hacked.  Not only that, but you’ll often have quick updates, wonder why your website, “is slow today”, or want someone to provide you with expert interpretation of you Google Analytics traffic data.

Why do people want to hack my website?

There are lots of reasons.  It could be that it’s a competitor wanting to ruin your business or sabotage your great Google ranking.  It could be another webmaster wanting insert links back to their site in your site.  They do this to “steal” the “Google Juice” you have built up over the years with social media and your popularity.  Or, it could be a re-direction hack where they just want to “steal” your traffic.

How do people hack my website?

Well generally, it’s not exactly people.  It’s robots that someone sends out to look for vulnerabilities in your WordPress installation.  It could be improperly secured files on your server, poor passwords, using the default “admin” username, or exploiting known vulnerabilities in outdated WordPress versions and/or plugin versions.

What happens if my website gets hacked?

It really depends on the severity.  Some hacks are minor and can be fixed in a few hours.  However, sometimes it’s difficult to determine exactly what the hacker did and you need to just start over from scratch!  This is when it helps to have a back up.  If you have a particularly bad hack, maybe they use your PHP mail server to send out spam.  In which case, you’re hosting provider will either give you a warning or just kick you off the server.

How do I prevent my site from getting hacked?

This is where a WordPress maintenance plan comes in.  If you developer offers the service you can have them do regular, off-site back ups of your website, regularly update both the core WordPress files and all the plugins and themes used to build your site.  In addition, key WordPress files need to be locked down.  Limiting login attempts, monitoring failed logins and banning IP addresses of attackers should also be services included in a WordPress maintenance plan.

iGo Sales and Marketing Offers WordPress Maintenance Plans!

If you’d like to feel more secure about your WordPress website and know that every step is being taken to secure it and maintain backups.  Please contact us.  We’d be happy to take a look at your site and recommend a plan that suits you.

 

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