Like any other business, WordPress websites need proper site care and tools to make them function properly. With the many companies out there you have to make sure that you’re getting what you need.
Speed, SEO, and Security are all factors that need constant monitoring. And if you run a custom developed website then you will pay more per month than the regular WordPress themed websites.
You have to consider cost and value when choosing a good company to manage your site.
Table of Contents
- WordPress Maintenace Factors
- Cost of essential plugins per month and per year
- Cost to maintain a custom developed WordPress website
- How much it costs to maintain different types of websites using a site care manager
- Our Website maintenance Plans and pricing
What is WordPress Website Maintenance?
There are three main factors to consider when maintaining a WordPress website:
1. Speed – How fast your website loads will determine how long users spend on it and is even now a factor that google uses to rank websites. Additionally, if you sell on your website it will determine how good it converts.
Google has set the benchmark for websites to load at least 3 seconds. According to www.officialbryangrey.com
53% of visitors will abandon your website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load
This is what is called the bounce rate, and, more than likely, over half of your visitors will leave your site if it does not load in a timely manner.
Tools for improving website speed: W3 Total cache (Caching – Free), WP Rocket (Caching – Premium), Cloudflare (CDN), WP Smush (Image compression).
2. SEO – Whenever your site is matching a search engine’s requirement it will prefer to show it at the top other than others who do not. It is a competition and the best website always wins.
Having great page titles and meta descriptions largely help as this is what is displayed on the search results in google.
Next is the characteristics of your page – Google does a profile check of each website for its: purpose, trustworthiness, credibility, content quality and amount.
Tools for improving SEO: WordPress SEO by Yoast, SEM rush (free trial), Google Keyword Planner, Keyword Tool io (Google Keyword Planner alternative), Broken link checker (use and then uninstall after fixing broken links)
3. Security – Unsecure sites are like key targets for hackers and spammers. Compromising user data is not worth the risk of leaving your security vulnerable.
Securing your site is a matter of learning code, using plugins or hiring a site care manager.
Tools for improving Security: A Good Hosting Company (Siteground), Sucuri (Site Scanning), Updraft Plus (Backup), WordFence (Free Firewall)
WordPress Plugins cost per year
Sidenote: All the tools mentioned below are offered free to our own maintenance clients
Yoast – Feature rich plugins with tools that serve information to search engines that enable better rankings. Yoast has guidelines based on what major search engines need in order to rank your site and extensive guides on how to get the best results.
You’ll be amazed to find that this is the most popular WordPress plugin that is synonymous with WordPress itself.
Free version available
Prices: &=$89 for a single site with discount options
WP Rocket – Caching your site allows your server to load sites faster and provide a better user experience for your visitors. WP-Rocket allows you to also cache your website based users so that they are not required to reload the entire site for each new visit, just the cached version.
Prices: $49 for 1 site, $99 for 3 sites, $249 for unlimited sites
There is no free version of this plugin available. However, this plugin is only a one time purchase with a 14-day money back guarantee.
Smush – Serving your images faster with a dedicated plugin can weigh less on your site than using a plugin with features that you don’t need. WPMU DEV creates a plugin package including Smush which offers unlimited site use after 30 days of trial.
Free version available
Smush Pro Price: 30 Day trial then $49/m for WPMU DEV membership with access to plugin package
Sucuri – Could based firewall lets you add custom rules to block unwanted intruders to your website. Features like hardening, DDoS Prevention, and Virtual patching helps to protect your brand reputation.
Free version available
Price: $199/year-Basic
Sucuri offers both hacking prevention and fixing websites after they are hacked. This plugin is number one on several major WordPress blogs for a reason.
CloudFlare – Having a CDN with 180 data centers worldwide is bound to load your sites faster than most on the web. Combined with a caching plugin and your website will be served in the fastest time possible, just be sure to avoid duplicate functionality.
Free Version available
Price: $20/month
Most CDN’s don’t offer a free version, among the ones that do, Cloudflare holds the people’s choice for best free CDN.
WordFence – Malware scanning and having a firewall are some of the features worth paying for. Block IP’s and unwanted onlookers who may be stressing your server, making it load slower.
Free version available
Prices per license: $99.00/yr – 1 license
Updraft Plus – This backup plugin is light on resources and heavy on value. Purchase one time and then renew if you want to.
Free Version Available
Prices: $70 then $42/yr – up to 2 sites
Updraft plus saves time and allow you to duplicate and test sites before implementing changes.
Maintaining a custom developed website
Custom developed websites generally cost from $200/mo up to $700/mo or more. This is because custom websites generally require a lot more work to maintain than WordPress “themed” websites.
When choosing a WordPress Website manager cheaper doesn’t always mean better. It is always best to choose companies that you can have a partnership with. It is why we have not listed details on our own custom maintenance plans. Instead, we encourage you to reach out so we can speak personally. That way we understand your needs and can tailor our activities to help you meet your goal.
Cost for a “Themed” WordPress website
Personal blogs and Small business – You can find professionals with prices ranging from $49.99 up to $129 per month.
Medium to large business – A good price range to expect in this category is from $150 to $249 per month.
What to look for in Website Care managers
- Personalized support – Communication between customer and company
- Reports – Weekly or daily about progress and things done
- Website Edits
- Premium Plugin access – Saves a whole lot of time and money
- Backups – Daily, weekly or monthly
- Woocommerce management – Normally basic packages don’t give this but it’s worth the plans
- SSL certificates
- Uptime monitoring – Normally automated
- Security scans and malware removal
- Fixing broken links
- Staging websites – To test changes and projects before implementing.
And Finally
You will find any website care plans for the price you want. The problem comes mostly with whether or not they are professional enough to really maintain your web presence. When it comes down to custom websites it’s definitely going to be harder to find expertise but it is not impossible.
