There’s a point where your business/venture/blog needs WordPress maintenance. But maybe you are unsure if it’s worth the investment.
Here’s when you shouldn’t pay for WordPress website maintenance
You don’t need WordPress maintenance if:
- Your website adds no financial or intrinsic value to your life.
- You have a high tolerance for digital headaches or enjoy fixing broken WordPress sites (in which case, hit me up, and maybe I’ll hire you).
- You don’t understand why you need WordPress maintenance in the first place.
- Organic SEO isn’t very important to you.
- Fixing broken/hacked sites sounds like fun (or at least seems like a healthy challenge).
- Your website isn’t part of your sales cycle.
Here’s when you should buy WordPress maintenance
- Your business earns revenue from e-commerce.
- Your business would go belly-up if your website disappeared.
- Your website is critical to your sales cycle.
- You understand the reasons for and value that professional WordPress maintenance brings to your business.
- You have money or a budget to invest in your website.
- Increasing your website’s value is important to your business.
- Organic SEO is important to your business.
- You would be embarrassed or lose money/job/faith if your website got hacked.
Things Commonly Included in WordPress Maintenance
Here are some things commonly-included in WordPress maintenance memberships:
- Validated WordPress Backups & Updates
- Phone & Email support
- How-to training videos
- E-commerce support
- Image, text, video additions to website
- Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Google Webmaster Tools, Google Local, etc. integrations.
- Email support & maintenance
- Landing page design & build
How much should I pay for WordPress maintenance?
Costs of WordPress maintenance vary greatly based on:
- Location of support team (Pakistani developers charge less per hour than Canadian people with the same skill set)
- Skill of support team (Do you need to talk to a beginner or a senior-level developer?)
- Access you’ll have to the support team (Will you have someone to call, or will you be put in the queue?)
- The scope of the support (Do you need monthly updates, or will you be requiring daily/weekly blog posts, updates, etc?)
- Speed of response & delivery (Do you need a bunch of stuff done yesterday? Or can you wait a week for that picture to be updated?)
In general, you can expect to pay between $75-300/month for basic WordPress Virtual Assistant memberships from companies like WP Curve, Valet, The Mighty Mo!, etc. These primary value of these services is basic content-editing: image swaps, posting blogs, updating colors, menu updates, etc.
WordPress Maintenance & Support
For more advanced support, SEO Security, hosting support, e-commerce support, and code maintenance, you’ll spend more money. Why the big variance in pricing? Because when you get to this complexity (or if you need e-commerce support of any kind), you need more expertise/time to get stuff done.
If you have a marketing site with common functionality (web form, advanced user tracking, etc.), you can probably count on paying between $200-400/month on website maintenance. If you have an e-commerce site, you can expect to start at around $300/month and go up from there depending on the need.
Where to find reliable WordPress Maintenance
As you’ve probably noticed, there are millions of people promising WordPress maintenance, but how do you sort the good from the bad? Here are some questions I’d ask:
- How do I ask for support? For example, we offer unlimited email and phone support on all our unlimited WordPress Support memberships. Some companies will require you to submit a web form, use web chat, get support via Facebook chat, sms, etc. So figure out how you want to interact, and go with a company that supports your preferred method of communicating.
- Will you know me by my voice? If you prefer your team has a deep understanding of your website, then you’ll need to hire a smaller company. For example, WP Curve serves thousands of websites, and it’s unlikely you’ll get the same support person twice. This might not be a big deal to you if you need support once or twice a year, but if you will be submitting daily, weekly, or monthly support needs, it can be a headache. Freelancers, solopreneurs, & small businesses like The Mighty Mo! serve fewer customers and therefore will provide more intuitive support to you.
- How quickly will you complete my to-dos? We aim for 1 business day completion on all to-dos, and other companies have similar guidelines. Some companies will not promise this – be wary if turnaround is a concern.
That’s all for now. Let me know your experiences, links, services you recommend, and ideas for how to improve this article.
Further Reading
Contact me if you have questions.
From Toby’s Blog
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