Hosting Recommendations

These recommendations are based on our experiences managing many client websites across a number of hosting providers:

GoDaddy: Managed WordPress Plan

• Excellent customer service, ease of access
• Includes malware scans, SSL certificate included, domain hosting can be included, daily backups and restoration, staging sites

https://www.godaddy.com/hosting/wordpress-hosting

Siteground Managed WordPress

• Excellent customer service, ease of access
• Includes malware scans, SSL certificate included, domain hosting can be included, daily backups and restoration, staging sites

https://www.siteground.com/wordpress-hosting.htm

WPEngine: Managed WordPress Plan

• Excellent customer service, ease of access
• Includes malware scans, SSL certificate included, domain hosting can be included, daily backups and restoration, staging sites

https://wpengine.com/plans/

Kinsta

Visit Kinsta site

Website Maintenance

Having an online presence makes you vulnerable to malware, software and browser update issues etc

Web maintenance is systematic software update process that is completed regularly to keep your site performing well and as secure as possible. As I’m sure you are aware, all websites have vulnerabilities, and keeping everything updated regularly is a way to protect your investment and professional image.

I perform maintenance in a controlled environment (the staging site), in case any of the updates are not compatible with your site (because plugins and themes can have conflicts that can crash a site of produce undesirable results).

Here’s an overview of what I do to all the different pieces of software (wordpress, theme, plugins, PHP, etc) that make up your site:

• Staging site created to test updates (staging site allows me to restore sections or pages individually if needed from the date of creation)
• Back up of site (a site backup is different than a staging site… it allows me to restore the complete site – not parts of the site – if necessary)
• Update all plugins
• Update theme
• Update WordPress version
• Update server PHP when needed (through hosting account)
• Moderate comments (when applicable)
• Troubleshooting any plugin or software conflicts (usually comeleted by turning each plugin on/off to find the offending plugin)
• When all has been tested and proven to work well as a system, the updates are then pushed to the lice site
• Check analytics settings
• Fresh backup created within the site files (in addition to hosting backup for intentional redundant backup)
• Remove extra staging sites and backups (to clear up space in hosting account)

Having a maintenance plan with me also ensures that your site becomes the priority if you experience any technical problems and need immediate assistance.

Note that ALL backups of your site files live on the hosting server. I do not download your site files and do not have a copy locally. The reason that I do not keep website files locally is because I manage approximately 120 websites, and it I were to download a file that had malicious code, it would affect all files on my server. So, as a means to protect your site and the sites (and files) of all clients, we rely on the hosting company to maintain all site files. So, having backups at he hosting level is an important service, because it’s an insurance plan. The redundancy is intentional.