Why it is important that your WordPress site has reliable support

Over the years, WordPress has built a solid reputation as a democratizing force on the web. Thanks to this popular open source platform, almost anyone can build their own website for very little (or no) money.

But as easy as it is to use, the time it takes to maintain, update, troubleshoot, secure, and improve your site can be daunting. If you own a do-it-yourself Web site, you’re likely to fall into one of three camps (or, in some cases, a combination of all three).

Problems faced by site owners

• A site owner who has absolutely no idea what he’s doing. “Hmm, should I hit the “Update WordPress” button or will that break my site? Why is my site being blacklisted by Google? Uh-oh, why did this plugin suddenly stop working? I have a problem with my site and my cheap hosting provider tells me to contact my developer. What should I do now?”
• The site owner whose life is consumed by site maintenance. “Ugh, I spend more time researching how to maintain, troubleshoot and improve my site than I do running my actual business! Is it worth the work I put in?”
• A site owner who wants to take their site to the next level, but isn’t sure how to get there. “What’s the best plugin for this specific feature I need? How can I improve the speed and performance of my site? How can I optimize my site for search engines? What should I do to prevent my site from being hacked?”

If any of these hypothetical site owners sound like Was, it’s probably time to give up and hire a professional. Hiring a dedicated in-house developer is probably a bit of a stretch for many businesses. Especially if you just need someone to update WordPress on a regular basis, manage backups, make minor site updates, liaise with your hosting provider when necessary, and provide timely on-demand site support. This is where a WordPress support agency comes in.

In this article, we’ll take a look at three of the most common challenges WordPress site owners face. And we explain how hiring a WordPress support agency like WPSupport.bg solves these problems.

Challenge #1: Keeping your site secure

WordPress sites make up more than 43% of the top one million sites on the web. It’s also the most widely used content management system on the web, accounting for about 60% of all known sites using the CMS.

Considering how versatile, accessible, and easy to use it is, it’s easy to see why WordPress is so popular. But there is a downside to this popularity.

The sheer volume of WordPress sites is a major reason why cyberattacks are so attractive to hack. As a result, the system is sometimes referred to as the “Microsoft of the web”. And because of its open source nature, some plugins or themes may have vulnerabilities. If hackers manage to exploit a vulnerability in a popular theme or plugin, they can hack thousands of sites at once.

Isn’t WordPress secure?

To be clear, WordPress is not an insecure platform per se. The team that develops and maintains the core software regularly releases updates and responds very quickly to any security threats that arise. However, users need to do their due diligence and maintain their sites properly. This is necessary to ensure that they do not expose themselves (or site visitors) to security risks. This means

• Check plugins and themes carefully before installing them;
• Updating the theme, plugins and core in a timely manner;
• Maintaining the site over a secure connection (SSL);
• Enabling two-factor authentication for site login;
• Limit login attempts to prevent dictionary attacks;
• Backing up the site in case all else fails.

Even with all these precautions in place, bad things can happen. The problem is, most business owners don’t have a lot of free time to stay on top of the latest WordPress cybersecurity threats.

Ask yourself: Are you doing everything you can to protect your site and keep your users safe? What remedies or support do you have to fall back on when the worst happens?

That’s why a WordPress support agency is so valuable. At WPSupport.bg, for example, we go to great lengths to prevent security issues from occurring, and if your site is compromised, we know what to do to get you back on track. This means you can spend less time worrying about whether your site is a security risk and more time managing your business.

Challenge #2: Preventing WordPress updates from impacting site performance

Timely WordPress site updates are critical to ensuring that your site is secure, protected, and performing well, but you need to proceed with caution. Under certain circumstances, the simple act of clicking the “Update” button in your dashboard can completely destroy your site-but why and how?

It all comes down to the open source nature of WordPress.

Open source software development is great for creativity, problem solving, and other innovative technological leaps. In fact, it’s one of the reasons WordPress has become so dominant on the web. If you need a certain type of functionality for your website, someone out there has almost certainly created a plugin that can fulfill that need.

To make matters worse, just as the core WordPress team regularly releases updates, plugin and theme authors have to release their own updates in response. So if you upgrade to a new version of WordPress without first checking for plugin or theme updates, you could break your site.

When and how to update your WordPress website?

Knowing when (and when not) to update your site can be overwhelming for the average WordPress owner – especially considering there are up to three major updates per month! That’s why having a WordPress maintenance agency in your corner gives you the peace of mind that your core, plugins and theme will be updated in a timely and secure manner.

Another reason to hire a dedicated WordPress support partner is that they can manage your backups and help you quickly restore your site if you encounter an update that breaks it. At WPSupport.bg, we create daily backups of our clients’ sites and keep them for up to 90 days. No other hosting company offers a similar backup retention period.

Challenge #3: Getting the WordPress Support You Deserve

If you have managed hosting, you may think that hiring a separate partner to handle WordPress maintenance and support is unnecessary or redundant. After all, don’t many managed WordPress hosting providers already offer maintenance and support services?

Some hosting providers do offer limited technical support for WordPress sites. But the scope and quality of these services are ultimately limited by the realities of scalability. The simple fact is that quality WordPress support is difficult to scale.

To ensure the level of support and quality offered by a dedicated WordPress support agency, hosting providers must commit to building a customer support department of experienced staff who can

(a) can provide a personalized customer experience; and

(b) know how to navigate WordPress

The last point is especially important – simply hiring support staff to monitor phones and inboxes is not enough. WordPress support professionals need to be able to diagnose and resolve customer issues without having to pass them up the chain to someone more experienced (or worse, give up and tell you to “contact your developer for help”).

Finding a good WordPress support agency can be challenging.

In addition to troubleshooting, a WordPress support agency also manages WordPress updates, backups, and site security. What makes WPSupport.bg different from other website maintenance agencies is our personal attention to the client. We regularly advise our clients on how to improve the speed, performance and search visibility of their sites. Large managed hosting providers are not equipped to provide specialized maintenance expertise on a large scale.

We recommend managed hosting to all of our clients who are serious about increasing their digital presence and online revenue. But if you’re looking for a reliable service to maintain your site and provide expert guidance, your best option is to partner with a specialized WordPress support agency.

Simplify the management of your WordPress website

Ready to streamline the management and maintenance of your website so you can focus on growing your business? Learn more about our WordPress site maintenance plans.