WordPress maintenance contract - further information

Ensure the security and sustained performance of your website. Contact us for an individual offer for the maintenance, upkeep and optimization of your WordPress website.

We carry out WordPress maintenance at regular intervals - once a month. We routinely carry out the most important steps to ensure that your website remains protected against malware and hacker attacks.

Why a WordPress maintenance contract?

After the launch/relaunch of your website, you should seriously consider commissioning WordPress maintenance. WordPress itself, the plugins used and also the theme receive updates at regular intervals.

These updates are published regularly to close known security gaps, improve performance (loading speed) or to publish new features.

With a professional maintenance plan, we ensure that these updates are carried out regularly (monthly). Regular WordPress maintenance ensures maximum security and performance for your website. In addition, our WordPress Agency in Zurich and Basel our customers with a maintenance contract E-mail Support for WordPress with very fast response times. E-mail support is available Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

What happens without a professional WordPress maintenance contract?

A maintenance contract for your WordPress site is primarily there for security. By regularly updating the WordPress core and all plugins and themes, we always keep the program code up to date.

This closes known security gaps and protects your website from the worst. Below you will find a list of some of the consequences of not having a WordPress maintenance contract.

• Malware
• Redirection to spam websites
• Viruses
• Unnoticed SSL errors
• Unnoticed uptime failures
• Unnoticed high loading times and thus loss of Google rankings
• Shutdown of your website by the provider
• Injection of dubious comments
• Hacker attacks
• Injection of spam links
• Loss of data (backups)

How often should you maintain WordPress?

Updating WordPress, themes and plugins through our update service is an important way to close security gaps, fix bugs, improve the overall performance of your website and keep everything up to date with the latest technology. Here are some general guidelines for the update frequency of themes and plugins as well as the core WordPress update:

WordPress Core Updates:

WordPress core updates should be carried out as soon as possible when new updates are available. New versions may include security improvements and new features. In many cases, you can enable automatic updates for minor updates to ensure that you are always up to date.

Plugin updates:

Check regularly whether updates are available for your installed plugins. This can vary depending on the plugin and developer, but as a rule you should check for plugin updates at least once a month. Important security updates should be installed as soon as possible through our update service to keep WordPress websites up to date.

Theme updates:

As with plugins, you should also check for theme updates for your WordPress website. Update themes to benefit from bug fixes, security improvements and new features. The update frequency depends on the theme and its developers.

Why would someone hack me?

There are several reasons why someone might try to hack a website, including a WordPress website. Here are some of the most common motives:

Data theft:

A common motive for hackers is the theft of sensitive data. This can be personal information, financial data, login data or other confidential information. The stolen data can then be used for fraudulent purposes or for sale on the darknet.

Ransomware:

Some hackers try to hack websites to spread ransomware. They encrypt files or block access to the website and then demand a ransom to restore access.

Spamming:

Hacked websites are sometimes used for spam purposes. Hackers can place spam content, links or advertisements on your website to generate traffic or promote other illegal activities.

Botnet construction:

Some hackers hack websites to integrate them into a botnet. A botnet is a network of infected computers or websites controlled by an attacker. These networks are often used for distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks or other malicious activities.

Political motives:

Sometimes websites are hacked for political reasons. An attacker could be trying to spread a political message, steal information or affect the availability of a website for political reasons.

Research into security vulnerabilities:

Hackers can hack websites to identify security gaps and vulnerabilities in software or configurations. This information can then be used for further attacks or for sale on the darknet.

Competitive advantage:

In some cases, competitors or rival groups hack websites to obtain competitively sensitive information or to damage the target's reputation.

The joy of chaos:

Some hackers have no clear financial or political incentive; they simply hack for fun, to demonstrate their skills or to cause chaos.

To protect yourself from hacker attacks, it is important to implement good security practices. This includes regular software updates, using strong passwords, monitoring security protocols and implementing security solutions such as firewalls and antivirus programs.

How does the WordPress security scan work?

Vulnerability Scanning

A security scan often involves scanning your website for known vulnerabilities and weaknesses. This can be done by automated tools or services that use a database of known vulnerabilities to identify potential risks.

Malware Scanning

The scan often also includes a search for malware or malicious code fragments on your website. Malware scanners check files and the code of your website for suspicious or malicious content.

File verification

A security scan can also include a check of the integrity of your website files. If files have been modified or added, this may indicate a compromise.

Anomaly detection

Some security tools use advanced analysis techniques to identify anomalies in your website's behavior. This can include unusual access, traffic spikes or other suspicious activity.

Authentication check

Security scans can also check the authentication level to ensure that secure passwords are used and that there is no unauthorized access.

WordPress core and plugin updates

A secure scan can also check whether your WordPress core and installed plugins are up to date. Outdated software can cause security vulnerabilities that can be fixed by our update service.

Firewall configuration

A security scan can check the configuration of your firewall to ensure that it is set up appropriately to keep out malicious traffic.

There are several tools and services that can perform security scans for WordPress websites. Some popular tools and services include Wordfence, Sucuri, SecuPress, and others. Some web hosting providers also offer integrated security features and scans.

It's important to note that regular security scans are only one part of a comprehensive security strategy for your website. Other security best practices include using strong passwords, regular backups, restricting user permissions and monitoring security logs.

Do you offer a guarantee against hackers and attacks?

It is important to emphasize that there are no absolute guarantees against hacker attacks in the area of information security. The security of websites, including WordPress websites, is complex and 100% security is not possible.

Dedicated recovery efforts

Nevertheless, we would like to assure our customers that in the event of a hacker attack, we will do everything in our power to restore the website as quickly as possible. Our dedicated recovery efforts are aimed at minimizing the impact of attacks.

Free restoration

Our priority is the satisfaction of our customers. Therefore, in the event of a hacker attack, we offer to restore the website as quickly as possible and free of charge. We understand the urgency of such situations and do everything we can to make the recovery process smooth and efficient.

Shared responsibility

It is important to note that website security is a shared responsibility. In addition to our efforts to secure and restore the website, it is advisable to follow best security practices and implement security policies to minimize the risk of attacks.

Are there discounts for multiple WordPress websites?

Maintaining a WordPress site often requires customization and attention, especially when it comes to specific requirements or customizations. The effort can differ from website to website, even if they run on the same platform as WordPress.

Different sizes and requirements

A WordPress installation can vary considerably in terms of size, functionality and hosting requirements. A small website with basic functions may require less effort than an extensive e-commerce website with many individual functions.

Flexibility and customization

A maintenance contract should be flexible and tailored to the specific needs of a website. Flat-rate pricing for multiple websites could lead to a lack of flexibility and may not meet the individual needs of each website.

Additional services

A WordPress website may require various additional services, such as the integration of third-party tools, the updating of individual plugins or the customization of WordPress web design-elements. Such additional requirements can increase the effort and therefore the WordPress website costs influence.

Quality preservation

The quality of maintenance services should always be guaranteed. Flat-rate offers for several websites could run the risk of quality suffering if the focus is placed more on quantity than quality.

Customer service

The provision of individual customer service and effective communication with customers are crucial elements for the success of maintenance contracts. With too many customers, these aspects could be neglected.

However, it's important to emphasize that these are not rigid rules, and companies may well offer discounts or special offers for multiple websites depending on their business model and resources. If you are considering such offers, make sure they are well thought out and flexible enough to accommodate the individual requirements of each WordPress website.

WordPress maintenance contract as protection against malware

The most devastating thing for a company is certainly redirection to websites with adult content. This is often not noticed by the site owner for a long time, as the malware only has an effect on special smartphones, for example.

Your WordPress website often works perfectly on a PC or Mac - but if you visit it with an iPhone or special Android devices, you will be redirected to dubious websites.

The latter two points can be somewhat more harmless but still damaging to your business. The injection of dubious comments promoting drugs, for example, or the injection of advertising links into your company website can annoy visitors and severely disrupt the perception of your company.

With professional WordPress maintenance, you receive daily scans for malware and viruses for your WordPress installation and can therefore be sure that there will be no such disruptive noises.

However, should a script take on a life of its own, we can restore your site to its original state (before the malware infection) by regularly creating backups.

Professional maintenance of your WordPress site protects you from malware. Just like a PC/Mac, your website can also be infected with malware. The most common effects of malware on your WordPress site are:

• Redirects to websites with adult content
• Injection of dubious comments
• Injection of advertising links

WordPress maintenance protects against unnoticed website downtime

Are you aware of how often your website "goes down"? Depending on the SLA (Service Level Agreement) with your provider, your server may experience outages, which of course are not communicated directly by the provider.

Server outages occur more frequently, especially with shared hosting. This means that your WordPress installation is unavailable to your customers for the duration of the outage. Valuable visitors, leads and sales are lost.

Such failures can also occur with dedicated or managed server contracts. As part of professional WordPress maintenance, an "uptime monitoring" is set up. This is a script that constantly checks the availability of your website and immediately sounds the alarm (by email) in the event of an outage.

If such outages occur frequently, you should consider changing your provider or at least your hosting package. With a maintenance contract for your WordPress site, you create the basis for the highest possible availability of your website.

WordPress maintenance contract as protection against unnoticed SSL errors

SSL has been the new standard on the web for some time now. This means that your website must be accessible using the HTTPS protocol and not, as previously, the HTTP protocol.

All content - including images, embedded videos, etc. - must be loaded using HTTPS. As part of a professional WordPress maintenance contract, we regularly check your WordPress installation for incorrectly integrated resources.

As soon as even one resource (usually images) is loaded using HTTP, the browser displays an error. With some browsers, this is limited to an error message in the address bar, but other browsers block the visit to the website completely and require explicit consent for the visit.

This inevitably leads to a high bounce rate, as visitors will return to Google in droves. As a result, you will not only lose valuable visitors, leads and sales, but also your search engine rankings.

Google has long measured the bounce rate based on people returning to Google searches. It is statistically verifiable that your rankings deteriorate due to the increased bounce rate. Google uses this value as a key figure for the user experience with your website and acts accordingly.

Therefore, ensure more security in terms of SSL with a WordPress maintenance contract.

Avoid your website being blocked by the provider - with professional WordPress maintenance

It can be devastating for your company if your website is shut down overnight. However, this is exactly what can happen if regular updates are not carried out as part of WordPress maintenance.

Every hosting provider has its own guidelines regarding the security of its servers. In principle, hosting providers also carry out regular scans of their WordPress installations to protect them from security vulnerabilities caused by outdated CMS versions, for example.

If outdated files are discovered that pose a security risk, the hoster usually blocks access to these files. If entire directories are affected, they will also be blocked and your website will no longer be accessible.

Hosting providers usually react very quickly and rigorously here, as the good reputation of the hoster is at stake. If your server address ends up on a blacklist, this can have a devastating effect on the other websites on this server.

The corresponding directory will only be unlocked again once the necessary updates and cleanups have been carried out by our update service. WordPress maintenance helps you to avoid such failures, as the WordPress core, all plugins and themes are updated to the latest version every month.

Recognize high loading times in good time thanks to WordPress maintenance plan

Long loading times are the number one factor for a high bounce rate. According to a study by Google the bounce rate increases significantly in correlation with the loading time of your website. As a result, you not only lose valuable and interested visitors, but also your rankings in the long term.

As part of a WordPress maintenance contract, we set up monitoring for your loading times. This involves regularly checking the loading times of your WordPress installation and raising the alarm (by email) in the event of significant deviations.

The causes of increased loading times can be of various kinds. They often occur in connection with high loads in shared hosting.

Once the cause has been identified, a recommendation for a package change or a different hosting provider can be made.

Regular maintenance protects against the complete loss of your website

The worst-case scenario for a website is the complete loss of the website and all customer data. This can be caused by malicious scripts or viruses, for example.

But former employees, for example, who still have access, can also perform such an act.

As soon as maintenance is carried out by our WordPress Developer regular backups of your entire website are created automatically. For this purpose, the website, including the database, is usually backed up completely at night and stored on two different external servers. This gives you the absolute security of having a backup of your entire system in the event of a worst-case scenario.

The backup can be restored within a few minutes of the disaster becoming known. However, regular backups are not only very useful in extreme cases.

Even if, for example, changes are made to various templates or stylesheets of a WordPress installation and these destroy the display of the website, a backup can be a lifesaver in an emergency. Therefore, protect your WordPress site with regular maintenance.

Regular maintenance protects against hacker attacks

It is not only government agencies or large companies that are affected by hacker attacks. In fact, it is often the websites of SMEs and especially WordPress websites that have been hacked become.

This is usually done automatically by scripts that exploit known security vulnerabilities. These scripts usually run on servers in Eastern Bloc countries and can therefore be detected during WordPress maintenance using the IP access filters.

The aim of these scripts is usually to inject advertising links or banners into the content of the website. Similar to malware, this can happen automatically without a human having to log into your WordPress installation.

Protect your WordPress website with a professional maintenance plan and the firewall it contains, which automatically blocks access by such scripts and is always kept up to date with the latest international blacklists.

Premium licenses as an additional benefit of WordPress maintenance

Almost every website relies on various plugins that extend the functions of WordPress. Paid plugins are often used for this purpose, which entail annual license fees.

The license fees can be paid as part of the WordPress maintenance with your WordPress Freelancer as the costs of so-called multi-licenses are spread across all contractual partners. In the end, you save the entire annual costs for paid plugins such as caching, forms, image compression or multilingualism.

This positive side effect partially reduces the actual costs for WordPress maintenance