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Many small business owners don’t know this: If you don’t maintain your WordPress website, it can break or be broken into. Both could cause major headaches.
Of course, it’s not something web designers like to take about, because that part could cost them the project.
But…
What can go possibly wrong?
After all, WordPress updates itself, right? Yes, it does. But automatic updates don’t always end well. WordPress is very complex, and web designers often install a host of plugins to make it work the way they need it to.
7 Risks of not implementing manual WordPress maintenance:
(In no particular order. My own clients have experienced most of these)
1. Your website can break during automatic updates.
a. Sometimes, glitches occur. Files become corrupt during transfer. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens. When it does, your new installation is incomplete. Depending on which files are not working as they should, the impact can be minor or major.
b. Sometimes the new versions of plugins and themes (templates) can be incompatible with one or more other plugins. In this case, something can stop working completely.
In fact, the final motivation for me starting to offer WordPress maintenance services was exactly that: A client’s website lost its appearance after an automatic update.
Believe it or not, it turned out to be the anti-spam plugin. And no, I have no idea how it works, but the moment I disabled it, the website loaded correctly.
c. Sometimes, when WordPress itself updates, the existing versions of the plugins are not compatible with the new WordPress core, and they stop working. Consider the consequences of that – imagine your contact form plugin stops working, or if something in your e-commerce store stopped working…
d. Paid themes and plugins that are no longer updated: In many cases, especially with WordPress themes (templates), the developers will eventually stop updating those themes to keep up with changes in WordPress.
It’s just business – when sales go down too low, you let the product go. But for you as a website owner…
It means that you wake up one day, and your website simply stopped working. And to fix it, you may need to have it redesigned completely – which not only costs money, but which also takes time.
2. Unnoticed errors from automatic updates.
This one is more subtle, but can be just as harmful to your business and reputation. The website still looks the way it should, but something isn’t working as it should. Maybe it’s a contact form. Maybe it’s a social sharing button. Maybe it’s the checkout button.
3. Complete website failure due to PHP version updates.
WordPress is written in PHP code. Over time, the code evolves. From time to time, a new PHP version is released, and the oldest version is removed from your hosting server. If you fail to update your website for a long time, your WordPress installation may not be able to operate on the newer version of PHP, which can stop your website from working.
Or, of course, it can simply stop some things from working correctly. Things that probably matter to your visitors.
4. It can become impossible to update your website.
In the case of the PHP version causing complete website failure, it also becomes impossible to update the website without (very) expensive help from a developer.
(Because even if you can log in, things don’t work as they should, and the update system may stop working completely too)
In that case, depending on the nature and size of your site, it may be cheaper to just rebuild it from scratch.
5. Increased vulnerability for cyber-attacks.
The older your WordPress installation is – without being updated – the more time hackers have to find exploits. Along with that, the tools that hackers use keep evolving – and eventually, older versions of WordPress cannot withstand such cyber-attacks any more.
Over the years I had to rebuild several websites for clients – after hackers got to them and demanded payment before giving it back.
6. Hackers can hijack your website, or break into it.
Aside from hackers taking your website down, they can hijack it, and point it to a different website. Yes, I fixed one of those too.
Alternatively, they can hack in and steal information from people buying from you, or submitting messages on your contact form.
In one case, when a client’s website was hacked, the hacker added several hundred pages with (totally irrelevant) products for sale. Those pages were indexed in Google, and sent visitors to the hacker’s website.
Fixing that one was above my pay grade, but with proper backups, the owner (a writing client) could simply have wiped everything, and restored the clean version of the website.
7. Your domain can be blacklisted due to hacker activities.
In many cases, hackers break in to simply have a platform from which to send spam messages, or to distribute viruses or malware. Both of these can lead to your domain being blacklisted.
What does that mean for YOU?
Well, imagine you send an email to a client or customer…
And it simply doesn’t arrive.
Or, if it carries on long enough for Google to take note…
Your domain being de-indexed from Google. Permanently.
In conclusion:
While the breakages don’t happen often, they do. And while hackers don’t always get in – especially if your security is good – they sometimes do.
If you have to pay a developer to fix it, it will not only cost you quite a bit, but it will also take your website off the internet for some time.
During which, of course, nobody can find your or contact you.
Not to mention the damage to your reputation – imagine something simple like a contact form not working on an e-commerce website…
What happens if your customers see your website is down?
They start talking. On Facebook.
So you have to ask yourself this:
How much is the total cost – reputational and lost revenue – of having a hacked or broken website?
Then consider this:
What if your website could be back up/fixed in an hour or less, for free?
What would that be worth to you?
Lastly…
Is your WordPress website at risk? Let me help. Click Here for more info.