Website Care
A website is a thing you own, not a thing you finished.
WordPress needs updating, backing up and watching. Left alone for a year it becomes a security incident with a countdown on it. Care is the plan that keeps that from being your problem.
Why this exists
What actually happens to an unmaintained site.
None of this is hypothetical. All four are things I have been called in to fix, usually by someone who did not know anything was wrong until a customer told them.
MONTH 3
A plugin breaks a page
An auto-update conflicts with your theme and the contact form stops sending. Nobody notices because there is no error, just silence. You assume business is slow.
MONTH 8
An old plugin gets exploited
Known vulnerabilities in outdated WordPress plugins are published publicly and scanned for automatically. It is not personal, and it does not require anyone to target you.
MONTH 9
Google flags the site
Injected spam pages get indexed under your domain. Chrome starts showing a warning. Your rankings drop and the cleanup costs more than two years of Care.
ANY MONTH
There is no backup
Most cheap hosts keep backups for a few days at most, on the same server. If the problem started three weeks ago, the restore point you need no longer exists.
What I actually do
Every month, whether anything breaks or not.
Most of this you will never see, which is the point. You will hear from me when something needs a decision, not for a status update nobody reads.
Updates, applied and checked
WordPress core, theme and plugins updated on a staging copy first, then pushed live once I have confirmed nothing broke. Automatic updates on a live site are how sites break quietly.
Off-site backups
A full backup of files and database every day, stored somewhere that is not your server, kept for 30 days. A backup on the same machine as the site is not a backup.
Security monitoring
Malware scanning, a firewall, login rate limiting and file change detection. If something does get in, I find out from a scan rather than from you.
Uptime checks
Your site pinged every few minutes. If it goes down I get a text, usually before anyone tries to visit. Finding out about downtime three days later is the actual failure.
Thirty minutes of edits
New hours, a price change, swapping photos, adding a staff member, fixing a typo. Email me and it gets done. It does not roll over, so use it or ignore it.
A one-page report
Uptime, what got updated, anything blocked, and how the site is performing. One page, no dashboard login, no forty-tab PDF.
Pricing
Two options. Both month to month.
The only difference is whether I manage the hosting as well. Either way the accounts stay in your name.
Care
You keep your hosting and handle the bill. I look after everything on the site itself.
- Weekly updates, tested on staging
- Daily off-site backups, 30-day history
- Security scanning and firewall
- Uptime monitoring
- 30 minutes of edits a month
- Monthly one-page report
Care + Hosting
I handle the hosting too. One bill, one number to call, and nobody to argue with about whose fault an outage was.
- Everything in Care, plus
- Managed hosting, set up and tuned
- SSL certificate handled and renewed
- Staging site for testing changes
- Account stays in your name, on your card
- Remove my access whenever you want
Managing it does not mean owning it.
Even on the hosting plan, the account is created in your name with your email as the owner and your card on file. I am added as a collaborator, which you can revoke in about thirty seconds without asking me. Ask for an export any time and you get it within one business day, free, and I will migrate you to a new host for nothing. There is no exit fee and no hostage situation, because an agency that owns your infrastructure is a landlord rather than a partner.
Questions
The ones worth asking.
Do I need this if you did not build my site?
Yes, and those are often the sites that need it most. I will do a free once-over first to check the site is in a state worth maintaining. If it is a mess underneath, I will tell you that rather than quietly charging you $99 a month to maintain a mess.
What if something breaks outside your update window?
Tell me and I fix it. Emergency fixes are included, not billed separately. The uptime monitor usually means I know before you do.
What counts against my 30 minutes?
Content changes. Text, images, hours, prices, adding a page, swapping a PDF. It does not cover new design work, new functionality or a redesign, which get quoted separately. If a request runs slightly over I am not going to nickel and dime you about it.
Can I cancel?
Any time, with 30 days notice, no fee. On the hosting plan I will hand over full ownership of the hosting account or migrate you elsewhere at no charge.
Is this required if you build my website?
No, and I will not pretend otherwise. It is strongly recommended, and the Growth Website package includes the first month free so you can see what it is. Plenty of clients handle their own updates perfectly well. The ones who do not are the ones I end up rescuing.
What does Real Local Authority include?
Website Care is bundled into the Authority tier at no extra cost. If you are on Authority you already have this.