WordPress Support: Why Use a Third-Party WordPress Professional?

10th October 2019

WordPress Maintenance WordPress Support

Have you ever thought about using WordPress support for your website?

It can, after all, be challenging to stay on top of all the tasks required to keep your WordPress site running efficiently.

In this post we answer the question; why use a third-party professional for WordPress fixes?

WordPress is used on 34% of all website today. The popularity of it may have led you to think that nothing could ever go wrong with your site. The truth isn’t nearly as rosy, however.

The benefits of using professional WordPress support are many and will mean that your website works better for you and your visitors.

It will also mean that your site, which is ever more crucial to the success of any business, will stay secure and up-to-date.

While you can, of course, take care of WordPress fixes yourself, we take a look at the many benefits to having a professional handle the process.

Security

Online security is an issue for everybody nowadays, and if you run a website, there are many more security threats to deal with.

If your site is insecure, it could lead to data loss or your customers’ information falling into the hands of criminals.

Such a breach of security isn’t going to win you more customers or hold on to the ones you already have. Not only this but if your site is hacked, it can lead to Google removing it from its search engine.

No more online leads, and this could potentially damage your online reputation for some time!

A failure to keep your site up-to-date could lead to these security problems.

The fact that WordPress is so adaptable means that exploits can be found more easily by hackers.

This could be cross-site contamination, SQL injections, loopholes, back doors, malware and other flaws in the software code.

WordPress is frequently coming out with new security fixes, which you need on your site, to address newly discovered breaches. If you miss the patch, a hacker could set their sights on your website’s vulnerabilities.

It isn’t like the threat from security attacks are going away either. Sites have actually seen increases in recent years, with the majority of popular WordPress installations being vulnerable to easy to find gaps in their security.

Large companies have become more aware of these threats, increasing their security budgets to cope and avoid bad publicity if they fall victim to a hacking attempt.

Some malware infections trigger browsers to worn visitors by showing them a warning which prevents them from entering your site.

Such a notice, will leave a lasting impression in the minds of visitors to your website, and clearly not a good one.

Ransomware is another issue to worry about. This is where you will be locked out of your site, and payment will be demanded for you to regain access.

Statistics are difficult to come by for how prevalent this type of attack really is, after all, businesses aren’t keen to admit to such problems with their security.

Ransomware is thought to cost companies billions of pounds a year with attacks estimated to hit a new business every 40 seconds.

Is your WordPress site at risk of being attacked?

The answer is definitely yes, but the bigger question is how great a risk does your particular website face? A large part of it will depend on the version of WordPress you are running and how up-to-date you have kept things.

There could be vulnerabilities in your plugins, or they may be susceptible to brute force attacks. Some themes allow easy access to hackers as they lack the level of security necessary to protect site owners.

Understandably, it is difficult for most website owners to keep a check on all of the different software applications they have running on their WordPress site.

This could lead to problems because you haven’t updated them as quickly as they needed to be. 

Staying Up-to-Date

There are frequent updates to WordPress and the plugins which provide the functionality to your site.

If you don’t stay on top of these updates, there could be problems. The updates could be for security or to fix problems, but whatever the reason, if you fall behind with these software revisions it could break your website.

Statistics show that only 39% of WordPress sites are running the latest version of the platform.

This means that the other 61% are running the platform with more bugs and security flaws than they need to. This causes problems for them and the users of their sites.

WordPress installations usually have many plugins to add important features to the site. These plugins are often updated frequently and should be kept up-to-date on your server to save your site from problems.

Not updating also means you miss out on new features and improvements in performance. These new features could allow you to do more things with your site, adding new capabilities for your visitors.

While updating software should be a simple task, it isn’t always without its problems.

There can be errors and incompatibility issues which hold up or make the process difficult. This could turn a simple update into a broken site with the owner, not knowing how to fix it!

It takes time to stay on top of the updates, and it is easily something which will be put on the back burner for more pressing tasks.

Failing to stay current with your website software could lead to more significant issues.

The costs of such a seemingly simple mistake could lead to your business missing out on sales or losing customers through site errors.

This could also lead to your site giving the wrong impression to visitors and potential customers.

Creating the Right Impression

You, of course, want your business to appear professional. If your website is broken and doesn’t work as it should, this isn’t going to give potential customers a good impression of your operation.

If a business can’t get their website to work correctly, why would a customer put their trust in the company to provide an excellent and reliable service to them? Naturally, they wouldn’t.

With the best will in the world, you can’t be expected to be an expert on the inner workings of WordPress.

This is another benefit of why using a third-party professional for WordPress fixes is such a good idea.

They will have the skills and the knowledge to deal with the issues which could take many hours for your average website owner to deal with.

A slow website is another way in which customer and potential customers are put off from using your business.

Visitors expect websites to load fast. If your site doesn’t load within just 3 seconds you could be losing, a staggering, 40% of your visitors. Not only that, but it could also be hurting your search engine rankings as well.

Professional WordPress support for your site should be able to fix the issues which are causing your site to lag.

This should remove barriers which are preventing more customers from joining your client list.

Making Things Easier

You may have chosen WordPress as the platform for your website, in the first place, because of its ease of use. And while it is easier, far easier, than building a site from scratch, it may not be the smooth ride you were initially expecting.

Getting to grips with software like WordPress, if you’re not an expert, can be a real headache. It can be very frustrating dealing with different plugins created by authors who do things in a different way to each other.

When you want to make a change to your site, perhaps adding a new feature or modifying the way your site works, it can seem more trouble than its worth.

If you have professional WordPress support available, they will be able to help make improvements easier. They can also help when you need to update some of the content of your site.

Having an expert deal with these issues will remove the worries which could come with your online presence. Not only that, but it will free you up to work on other parts of your business.

Saving You Time

There simply aren’t enough hours in the day to do all the things you would like to do, which is a common complaint.

This is particularly true if you run a business or have many different things going on in your life.

We could all do without the hassles involved in fixing website issues, but they have to be done.

Making sure your WordPress site is working the way it should, can be a time-consuming job as well as frustrating. What you really have to ask yourself is, could your time be put to better use?

Are there things which you could be doing to improve your company’s profitability?

Fixing issues with your website isn’t going to improve your profitability; working on your business will.

If your website is a means of gaining new customers, it really makes sense to use a third-party professional for WordPress fixes so that you can focus on the more strategic elements of your operation.

Site Backups

Backing up your website can be a tiresome and tedious job. But if you don’t do it, you face the possibility of losing your site if your host has an issue or you do.

Backing up is a fix for your website, which is easy to overlook and put off. It’s something which you always mean to do, but don’t get around to.

It is easy to put off because the risks often seem remote and the threat low, but if you lost your site data, what would the cost be to your business?

It is a bit like taking out insurance for your website but without having to deal with the annoyances of the insurance company or a hefty yearly premium.

But if you have a recent backup, it could save you a fortune, in both costs and customer retention.

The WordPress platform is very popular, and while that is mostly a good thing, it does come with downsides too.

It means that hackers will be more likely to target the platform when writing their scripts. If you fall victim to a hacking attempt, you need a recent backup of your site to recover as quickly as possible.

It isn’t just security issues which could lead to you needing a fresh backup of your site.

Your website host could run into problems with a server failure or errors in their software.

They should have everything backed up themselves, but leaving this up to your web hosting company seems like an unnecessary risk.

You might also cause issues when trying to fix things yourself leading to your site being broken and in need of a backup to restore.

This is why using a third-party professional for WordPress fixes is so important for keeping your site backed up. They can make sure that current backups are available in the event of a disaster to your website, saving you time and money.

Conclusion

Ultimately, using a third-party professional for WordPress fixes is going to improve how your website functions.

It will give your site a more professional appearance which will reflect well on your organisation. This is particularly important as a website is often the first point of contact a customer has with an organisation.

Making sure everything is correct on your WordPress site and keeping everything running smoothly can take up a lot of time.

This is time which you could be using in a better way to improve your business.

Having a third-party step in and deal with the issues and the maintenance of your site will improve how well it runs, which in turn, will enhance your profits.

It will give you peace of mind to know that your website is being taken care of by professionals.

The inevitable problems that will arise when running a website will be somebody else’s to deal with. Let them have the fun of fixing it while you get on and do something more useful or enjoyable.

While it can be easy to see WordPress support as another expense that could be avoided, it can be a major false economy if, or when, your site runs into problems.

Having someone there to stay on top of the fixes needed will ensure your WordPress site continues to do the job it was created for, while removing all the hassles you would normally face.

If your site is important to your business, you should place importance on its maintenance and make sure it is done professionally.

If you are looking for an affordable WordPress support and maintenance service ThriveWP is here for you to take care of all these tasks so you can focus on your business. Leave all the technical stuff to us!

Gavin Pedley

Gavin Pedley

Gavin is the guy behind the award-winning ThriveWP. He has over 18 years of experience creating, developing, hosting and managing WordPress websites.

Gavin regularly shares his expertise via the ThriveWP blog and Youtube channel, where he creates informative and helpful WordPress tutorial videos.

Connect with Gavin on FacebookLinkedin or Twitter.

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