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Despite the inconvenience, most people understand the need to regularly maintain their computers and other connected devices. Operating systems gets regular updates and patches; Anitvirus & firewall apps download new virus definitions and methods for defending against new types of threats. Your website is no different–the core platform needs regular updates, as do any other plugins or libraries it uses, to keep your website safe from viruses and malicious bots that constantly bombard it, looking for a way in. Still, many website owners ignore their website’s update notices, because they’re afraid that an update may “break” their site, or because they’re too focused on the task-at-hand and see it as an unwelcome distraction.
If you’re on WordPress or another popular CMS platform, there’s a robust community of website developers who have your back and help contribute to your website’s safety in the form of patches and updates. But you’ll only benefit from that advantage if you take the time to regularly download and install the updates. Even when you enable automatic updates, it’s not a “set it and forget it” feature. You should be manually checking your site at least once a week to ensure:
- Core platform, themes, and plugins are up-to-date
- Vulnerability scans are clean
- Backups are running on schedule and being stored off-site
- Broken links are repaired or removed
- Comments and form submissions have been addressed, and spam has been deleted
Most WordPress updates are as simple as clicking a few buttons and waiting about a minute for the process to complete automatically. And the peace of mind you’ll gain from knowing that, even in a worst-case scenario, you’ll have a clean & current backup point to which you can restore your site–that’s definitely worth five minutes of inconvenience each week.
But for people who don’t have the time to update their own site, or are worried about updates and prefer to leave maintenance tasks in the hands of a developer, most web agencies offer maintenance plans that will take care of these maintenance tasks for you. If you find you’re not keeping up your own site, ask your developer about a maintenance plan before something bad happens to your site. The peace of mind is worth the added cost, and many times you’ll get added benefits, discounts or other special treatment if you’re on a plan.
So whether you want to maintain your own site, or want a little help, create & commit to a maintenance plan that will keep your website safe and secure. Your business and your reputation may depend on it.
