Have you wondered if it would be worth it to have a professional maintain your WordPress website? One of the nice things about using WordPress is that it is user-friendly. However, when it comes to regular and more in-depth website maintenance, and when the time spent troubleshooting problems takes away from time running your business, then here are some reasons why it would be ideal and cost-effective to hire a professional.

When hiring a professional you have access to someone who has up-to-date information on evolving WordPress trends, is aware of new standards such as GDPR requirements and SSL requirements, can troubleshoot theme and plugin conflicts, can manage ongoing site maintenance, and monitoring which will give you peace of mind.  

WordPress websites can look like they are a set it and forget it environment, especially when enabling the auto-update features. However, some things to keep in mind are it’s hard to keep up with design trends and keyword discoverability on the web, and things change with new standards and requirements needed to keep your website in compliance. Like all things on the internet, WordPress is always evolving and regularly goes through some massive changes and updates. If you have a business that depends on your website, it needs to be:

  • User-friendly for your customers or audience,
  • Functions well at all times,
  • Pleasing to the eye,
  • Easy to navigate.

If navigating through all that WordPress has to offer sounds overwhelming to you, and you feel your time could be spent doing more important things then here are five reasons to turn these tasks over to the professionals.  

Evolving WordPress Trends

If your website looks like it hasn’t been updated since 2010, it might turn your potential customers off. A professional knows what’s trending if competition in your market is fierce.

Do you have hours to research keywords that will drive traffic to your site or would you prefer utilizing an expert who knows how to make your site more visible on Google searches? They will know the best SEO (Search Engine Optimization) practices to help optimize discoverability with keywords. That way you don’t have to try machine gun tactics of including all the keywords to see what works and wind up missing the mark like a Stormtrooper.

If you have never searched for plugins to add to your website, you should try it once just for fun. Actually, it’s not fun. Especially if you don’t have a lot of experience shopping for plugins. There’s so much available for almost any feature you may want to add. Some are free, some are not. Unless you have access to a friend that’s a plugin guru, this is one of those situations where hiring a professional can save you a lot of trial and error.

Keeping up with New Standards

How does your website look on a mobile phone? A majority of people these days look up information on mobile phones. Not every theme adapts to a mobile version. You will still find websites today that are unable to adjust to the mobile phone format. When that happens, parts of the site become inaccessible or unreadable.

Even when your website is based in the United States, if your site provides goods or services to anyone from the EU then your site must comply with the GDPR requirements. EU citizens’ data privacy is protected by this act. People were scrambling to make sure their websites were compliant when this went into effect in 2018. Now you see popups about Cookies everywhere.

If you offer something that’s for sale on your website, there are SSL requirements that must be incorporated into the site. SSL certificates allow sensitive information such as credit card numbers and login credentials to be transmitted securely. Customers will feel more secure making purchases knowing that their information is protected. The SSL certificate needs to be integrated into the website. A professional can make sure your website is compliant.

Troubleshooting Theme and Plugin Conflicts

If you have an older WordPress theme, you may need help with updates to the website and with plugins. No matter the age of the theme or plugins, sometimes automatic updates don’t work, or they work but aren’t compatible with other plugins or the theme – causing unwanted behavior or even a broken site. Sometimes the error messages can be vague. Sometimes updates go awry and could be easily missed if you aren’t paying close attention. A professional is there to make sure everything continues to work smoothly.

Ongoing Site Maintenance and Monitoring

It’s surprising how easy it is for something on your website to go sideways. Sometimes an update will clash with a site’s configuration. Or a photo gallery plugin will only work with a newer version of WordPress than what is currently installed. Hiring a professional means that they can review and test any updates before applying them. Troubleshooting can be very time-consuming and frustrating. Even if you have general knowledge of how to work with WordPress, sometimes problems can become extremely complicated to where you have to strip the site down to the basics and put it back together again.

Technical support can vary quite a bit when trying to get a response from some theme and plugin authors. When you hire someone with a higher level of technical knowledge to navigate through these problems, they can more effectively communicate what’s happening with those authors and resolve the issues quickly.

Peace of Mind

When you hire someone to update and maintain your site, you will have peace of mind knowing that things will continue to run smoothly while you focus on other more important aspects of your business.

Is it Worth it?

It’s surprising how much time a little task can take when it’s not something you work with every day. What worked well last year in WordPress may not be the case today. With the addition of best SEO practices bringing you more traffic to your site and time saved not dealing with website issues, this service can more than pay for itself.

Thrive Offers the WordPress Help You’ve Been Waiting for

Thrive offers this service and more. With our WordPress maintenance package, we keep your website updated with the latest version of WordPress and plugins, take care of any plugin conflicts as they arise, and keep your WordPress website secure. Feel free to contact us at Thrive with any questions or to request a free quote for your website today.


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