If you’ve created a website with us over the past two years, you’ve likely heard us mention our “WordPress Tune Up” before. But for those who haven’t, it is a service that we provide that can increase your website’s speed, performance and security. Essentially this package aims to make sure your website visitors have a great online experience every time.
What is it?
Over the past few years, we have been building all our new sites on a platform called WordPress. We think it’s fantastic as the sky really is the limit when it comes to the functionality and design that can be incorporated.
While other platforms quickly become out of date as new technology is introduced, WordPress is well supported and updated to accommodate these changes. The practical result? Your website can be adapted over time so it’s always up to date with the latest technology and trends.
However, the only downside is that, to stay up to date, ongoing maintenance is required. When an update is released, it needs to be installed on the site. Not updating the site regularly can lead to issues like slow load time, security threats and could even cause the entire website to crash.
This is why we introduced our WordPress Tune Up as a service. Every six months (or on an as needs basis if you prefer), we can log in, update the platform and install any new functionality that is required. It also gives us an opportunity to clean up the site and make sure it’s performing as well as possible.
Why it’s so important
Performance
A Tune Up ensures that your website is running as quick as possible. We might be happy to wait while our masterpiece of a website loads, but your potential customers and clients might not be. Research has shown that nearly half of web users expect a site to load in 2 seconds and may abandon the site if it doesn’t load within 3 seconds.
If new plugins have been released since your site was launched and they have the potential of improving the performance of your site, this is when we would add it.
While we’re there, we’ll also optimise any new images added to your site and delete any spam comments that may be slowing the site down.
Troubleshooting
Technology is a great thing… but sometimes the speed in which it changes can cause issues. If there has been an update to the WordPress platform or a plugin that is causing issues on your site, this is when we’d troubleshoot the issue.
A perfect example of this relates to Google Map API codes. Around a year ago, adding a map to a WordPress website was as simple as generating an embedding code and inserting it onto the page. Since then, Google has changed the way it does things. We now need to generate what we call an “API Code” that is then added to the settings of your website.
This is quite simple to add to all new websites; however it did mean that some previously created maps stopped working. If your map is on a rarely-visited page of your site, it may be weeks before you even notice that there’s a problem. For those clients who had regular Tune Ups, we could spot these issues and fix them as part of the package.
Security and Firewall
Hackers and spammers are getting smarter every day. They are constantly working on improving their techniques and overcoming the measures we’ve taken to prevent them.
Don’t worry. The good guys are working harder too. When a new security threat is identified, the programmers behind WordPress and reputable plugins will update their products to block the new type of attack. However, not updating your software can leave our website vulnerable to hackers who may have found ways around the basic security techniques.
If you’re interested in knowing more about our WordPress Tune Up package and whether it would benefit your website, contact us anytime.
