97% of WordPress vulnerabilities come from outdated plugins and themes. But most business owners don’t realize their WP website sits like a house with unlocked doors. And when these websites break down, businesses can lose thousands of dollars every hour.
The solution is pretty simple: a regular WordPress maintenance plan. It keeps your site secure, fast, and running smoothly. At Matter Solutions, we’ve seen too many businesses learn this lesson the hard way.
In this article, we’ll cover what a WP maintenance plan should include and why this investment pays off for your business. We’ll also help you pick a good team for the job.
Read on to learn everything you should know about WordPress maintenance plans.
A Core WordPress Maintenance Checklist
WordPress maintenance involves doing specific tasks to keep your site working well. Each job helps catch problems before they cost you money and customers.
Now, let’s take a look at the tasks that should come with your WordPress maintenance plan.
Vital WordPress Security Measures
Unfortunately, hackers attack WordPress sites thousands of times every day. They usually want to steal your data or crash your website. That’s why you need proper security measures in place to protect your site (even Grandma’s knitting blog gets hit, trust us).
Here are the main security processes that keep these bad guys out:
- Software Updates: These updates close security holes that hackers love to attack, and we’re talking about real threats here. So you should apply the newest versions of WordPress, themes, and plugins as soon as they come out.
- Scheduled Backups: It’s important to keep complete copies of your website and store them safely in the cloud. This practice will always give you a clean backup ready to go if hackers attack or updates break something on your site.
- Malware Scanning: Special security tools check every file on your site for bad code and hidden backdoors. The tools assist you with catching threats early before they steal data, send visitors to scam sites, or destroy your website.
Performance and Monthly Tasks
The truth is, security isn’t everything. You also need regular tasks in your plan to keep the site fast. The jobs below clean up the mess that builds up behind the scenes:
- Database Optimization: Clean your website’s database by deleting old drafts, spam comments, and junk data that pile up over time. After you complete these tasks, your pages will load faster and your admin area will work much more smoothly.
- Uptime Monitoring: This service checks your website every few minutes to make sure it stays online for your visitors around the world. You get instant alerts when your site crashes, so you can fix problems in minutes instead of losing hours of business.
Why a Support Plan Helps Your Business
WordPress maintenance plans help your business by stopping expensive disasters, keeping your customers happy, and allowing you to grow faster. Without this kind of protection, one hacker hit can cost you thousands and take weeks to fix (weeks you definitely don’t want to waste).
In other words, professional support protects your money and reputation, which gives you more time to focus on running your business.
It’s time to see how maintenance plans help you do all these things. Keep reading.
Protect Your WordPress Website Investment
Let’s start with some alarming statistics. Cyberattacks cost small businesses an average of $2.98 million in 2024. Even scarier, 60% of companies that get hacked close down within six months. Do you know what that means? One successful attack can wipe out years of hard work.
But wait! Scary time isn’t over just yet. Experts found that there were over 7,966 new ways to hack WordPress sites in 2024 alone (okay, maybe that update reminder deserves some respect now).
Sadly, hackers invent new tricks every single day, and the attacks only grow in number. That steady increase makes regular security updates and malware scans vital for protecting your customer data and business files.
Based on our experience, companies stay safer when they follow a strong maintenance plan. The plan helps them catch problems early and block security threats before the issues reach the core of your site.
Improve Your WordPress Site Performance
Google says 53% of people on phones leave if a site takes over 3 seconds to load. Add just one more second and even more people click away. The fix? Simply clean up your database, monitor your site’s performance, and improve the performance further.
Seriously, when your pages load quickly, your visitors stick around longer and buy more stuff. Not only that, but performance monitoring detects slowdowns before they happen. Plus, fast sites handle the rush better during sales or holiday traffic (a spinning wheel on Black Friday? Hard pass).
Pro-Tip: Set up automatic caching for your site. A caching system stores ready-to-load versions of your pages, so visitors enjoy faster load times every visit.
Boost Visibility on Search Engines
You might not realize it, but regular maintenance boosts several SEO factors at once. For example, Google looks at website speed when ranking pages. So if your site loads fast, you’ll outrank slower competitors and show up higher in search results.
What’s more, security plays a huge role because Google warns people away from hacked websites. A strong security setup keeps your site safe and avoids those warnings. Specifically, steady uptime helps search engines find your content and list it correctly every time.
How to Choose the Right Maintenance Service?
When you choose a WordPress maintenance service, pay attention to their skills and how quickly they respond. You should also assess how they communicate, their prices, and whether they know your local market.
The right team combines technical skills with practical business advice. Even better, you get to talk directly with real WordPress experts instead of customer service reps reading from a script.
Let’s get into more detail about what you should expect from a good maintenance service.
What Does a Great Maintenance Team Offer?
A great maintenance team shares practical strategy advice and connects you directly with WordPress experts. More importantly, they act like business partners who frankly want to see you succeed online (honestly, that’s rare and refreshing).
Imagine launching a new product and knowing your site will run smoothly because your team already thought through the risks. That kind of support feels priceless, doesn’t it?
Here’s what makes the best maintenance teams stand out:
- Proactive Strategy: Expert teams study your website and suggest improvements that go way beyond basic maintenance work. They might spot SEO opportunities, find ways to speed up your site, or recommend security upgrades that help your business flourish.
- Direct Communication: Quality providers connect you straight to WordPress experts without making you go through layers of customer service people first. This approach gets you faster answers, clearer explanations, and zero confusion.
It’s no secret that direct communication saves everyone tons of time. And that’s what you get from capable maintenance teams.
Finding Effective WP Support in MN
Why would you choose a local provider over a company miles away? Well, local teams know your market, work in your time zone, and can meet face-to-face when you need help. It makes support feel faster and more personal.
Take Minnesota, for example. A local team understands regional business patterns, seasonal ups and downs, and how customers behave online. They know how Twin Cities traffic patterns change website usage and how Rochester businesses face surges during Mayo Clinic events.
Now, our team in Central Minnesota has helped HVAC companies through winter rushes and builders during hectic spring construction with their websites. That experience lets us give better advice on traffic spikes and how to get your site ready before the chaos hits.
Pro-Tip: Ask a local provider about their partner network. Many teams in Minnesota collaborate with nearby designers, marketers, and IT experts, so you often gain access to a wider support system than you’d get with a remote company.
Secure Your WordPress Site with Professional Maintenance
Professional WordPress maintenance combines security, speed, and expert support to keep your business on track. It prevents catastrophes, keeps your visitors happy with fast pages, and frees your time to grow revenue. Believe it or not, avoiding one major outage may cover your entire investment.
In this article, we’ve walked through the maintenance tasks, like security updates and database optimization. You’ve also learned how these services protect your business investment and improve search rankings.
If you’re ready to protect your WordPress site, reach out to Matter Solutions today. Our local team understands your market and provides the proactive care your website needs to stay secure, fast, and ready for growth.
