The Complete WordPress Maintenance Guide for 2025

Many WordPress sites get rebuilt every 3 to 5 years because owners skip routine maintenance. That cost is avoidable. Styles do change, and we recommend a visual refresh every 2 to 5 years so your site does not look dated. With steady maintenance, you can update the design without rebuilding the entire site.

Think of maintenance as adding a bedroom instead of moving. You extend the life of what you already have and avoid spending tens of thousands of dollars. With proper ongoing care, your WordPress site can serve your business for many years without a full rebuild.

What Is WordPress Maintenance and Why Does It Matter?

WordPress maintenance is the ongoing process of keeping your website secure, fast, functional, and up-to-date. It’s not a one-time task but a continuous practice that protects your investment and ensures your site performs reliably for your business.

Core WordPress Maintenance Activities

Backup management creates regular copies of your site so you can recover quickly from any disaster. The catch? Backups only matter if they actually work when you need them. Personally, I rank backups and backup management as the most important aspect of managing a wordpress site. If you do nothing else, be sure to make backups of your site with a reliable backup service and make those backups at least once a week. I cannot tell you how many hours we could have saved for some clients who came to us with emergencies who did not have backups of their wordpress site. It will save you time and money in the long run.

Security maintenance keeps your site protected from hackers and malware through regular updates, security audits, and monitoring. This includes updating WordPress core, plugins, and themes to patch vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.

Wordfence logged more than 90 billion malicious login attempts in 2020, about 2,800 per second. In its 2024 annual report, Wordfence also recorded 55 billion password attacks and 54 billion other malicious requests. And in the 2025 Verizon DBIR, exploitation of vulnerabilities accounts for 20% of breaches, up 34% year over year. Routine updates and monitoring keep your WordPress site less vulnerable to these attacks.

Performance optimization ensures your site loads quickly and provides a good user experience. Fast sites convert better. Studies show that a 100-millisecond improvement in site speed can boost conversions by 8.4% for retail sites.

Content and database maintenance removes unnecessary data, fixes broken links, and keeps your site running efficiently as it grows over time.

Uptime monitoring alerts you immediately if your site goes down, minimizing the business impact of any technical issues.

Modern maintenance also includes optimizing for AI search visibility. As users increasingly get answers from AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews instead of traditional search results, your maintenance strategy needs to evolve. Learn more in our complete guide to GEO and AEO optimization.

Why WordPress Sites Need Regular Maintenance

Unlike managed platforms where the provider handles core updates and security, WordPress is an open-source platform that requires active management. This flexibility gives you more control and customization options, but it also means you’re responsible for keeping everything current.

WordPress releases security updates regularly, and the plugin ecosystem (with over 60,000 plugins) creates additional maintenance requirements. Each plugin is developed independently, and compatibility issues can arise when WordPress core updates or when multiple plugins interact.

The complexity of WordPress is also its greatest strength. You can build virtually anything. But that power requires ongoing attention to security, performance, and compatibility.

Why Does WordPress Require More Maintenance Than Shopify or Webflow?

This is an important question, and the honest answer helps you make informed decisions about your platform.

Managed platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and Webflow handle core functionality updates automatically. When you use these platforms, you’re essentially renting a complete system where the platform provider takes responsibility for security patches, server maintenance, and infrastructure updates.

What this means for maintenance time: With managed platforms, we can dedicate more of your monthly retainer hours to work that grows your business: updating content, refreshing product listings, implementing design improvements, and optimizing user experience. You’re not paying us to run updates and compatibility tests.

WordPress maintenance reality: WordPress site management requires a different time allocation. A significant portion of ongoing maintenance involves:

  • Regular plugin updates and compatibility testing
  • WordPress core updates
  • Theme updates and testing
  • Security monitoring and patches
  • Troubleshooting conflicts when updates break functionality

This necessary maintenance work is valuable and important, but it does mean less time in a given month can be devoted to content updates or new features compared to managed platforms.

The bottom line: We maintain all types of websites and love working with WordPress. It’s powerful, flexible, and we’ve been building with it for over 20 years. But we believe in transparency about where your maintenance budget goes. You can read more about the advantages of managed platforms versus WordPress by clicking here.

The Complete WordPress Maintenance Checklist (By Frequency)

Breaking maintenance into daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly tasks makes it manageable and ensures nothing falls through the cracks. Here’s exactly what needs to happen and when.

Daily Tasks (5 minutes, mostly automated)

Automated backup verification: Confirm your automated backup system ran successfully. Don’t just assume it’s working. Check it periodically to make sure it’s actually working.

Uptime monitoring: Use a service that automatically pings your site every few minutes and alerts you immediately if it goes down. Services like uptime robot and status cake offer free plans that are good for people on a budget. Every minute of downtime costs money, using a service to track your uptime can be valuable.

Security scan review: With security plugins like Wordfence or Sucuri running, regularly reviewing alerts and scan results can help keep your site free from malware.

Weekly Tasks (15-30 minutes)

Check for available updates: Log into your WordPress dashboard and check for WordPress core, plugin, and theme updates. Don’t install them yet. Just note what needs updating.

Review site analytics: Check Google Analytics or your analytics platform for traffic patterns, bounce rates, and any unusual spikes or drops that might indicate problems.

Test critical functionality: For eCommerce sites, complete a test purchase. For lead generation sites, submit a test form. Make sure your site’s core business function works.

Scan for broken links: Internal and external links break over time. Use a plugin or online tool to identify broken links that frustrate visitors and hurt SEO.

If you have comments enabled review and moderate spam: Check for spam comments and remove them. Spam links can hurt your SEO rankings and make your site look unprofessional.

Monthly Tasks (1-2 hours)

Apply updates with testing: This is where your update routine matters most. Here’s the safe way to update:

  1. Verify recent backups exist – Make sure you have a backup from the last 24 hours stored off-site (not on your web server).
  2. Put site in maintenance mode or use staging – This protects visitors from seeing broken functionality while you work.
  3. Update plugins with security fixes first – Check release notes to identify security patches and update those immediately.
  4. Then update the rest – Update remaining plugins one at a time, especially on high-traffic sites.
  5. Quick quality check – Test your homepage, navigation, forms, and checkout to catch obvious problems.
  6. Clear caches and CDN – Turn caching back on and verify a few pages load correctly.
  7. Extensive quality check. Do comprehensive testing of your site if it’s a large complicated site or if you want to make sure you don’t miss any issues.

Know when to roll back: Sometimes updates break things. Decide ahead of time when you’ll roll back so you’re not making judgment calls under pressure. Roll back immediately if:

  • Checkout or forms stop working
  • Error messages appear on key pages
  • The site layout breaks on mobile devices
  • Your admin dashboard becomes inaccessible

Database optimization: Clean up post revisions, spam comments, trash, and orphaned data that accumulates over time. This keeps your database lean and fast.

Security audit: Review user accounts and permissions, check for suspicious admin users, verify security plugin settings, and scan for malware. Our detailed WordPress security audit guide walks through this process step-by-step.

Basic security habits to check monthly:

  • All admin passwords are strong and unique (not reused from other sites)
  • Two-factor authentication (2FA) is enabled for all administrator accounts
  • Remove any user accounts you don’t recognize or no longer need
  • The WordPress file editor is disabled (this prevents hackers from modifying code through the dashboard)

Performance testing: Test your site speed using Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, or Pingdom. Document baseline performance and track improvements over time. If you notice slowdowns, our guide on how to speed up your WordPress site without changing hosts provides actionable solutions.

Speed basics everyone should check:

  • Page caching is turned on (either through your host or a plugin)
  • Images are compressed before uploading (export as WebP when possible)
  • A CDN is enabled to serve images and files faster globally
  • Your homepage loads in under 3 seconds on mobile

Content review: Use Google Search Console and Google Analytics to identify:

  • High-traffic pages with high bounce rates (opportunities for improvement)
  • Pages ranking for keywords but not converting (optimization opportunities)
  • Outdated content that needs refreshing

Plugin housekeeping: Keep your plugin library lean and trustworthy:

  • Remove plugins you’re not actively using (even deactivated plugins can have vulnerabilities)
  • Stick with plugins that have regular updates and many active installs
  • Use one plugin per job instead of overlapping functionality

Accessibility quick check: Make sure everyone can use your site:

  • Tab through your homepage and verify you can see where the focus is
  • Check that links change appearance when you tab to them
  • Verify text has good contrast against backgrounds
  • Confirm images have descriptive alt text

Quarterly Tasks (2-4 hours)

Comprehensive security audit: Go beyond the monthly quick check with a thorough security review including:

  • Full malware scan
  • File integrity verification
  • Security plugin deep dive
  • User permission audit
  • Review of failed login attempts and blocked IPs

Backup restoration test: This is critical but often skipped. Actually restore a backup to a staging environment to verify your backup system works. Here’s how:

  1. Choose a recent backup
  2. Restore it to your staging site (ask your host for a staging environment if you don’t have one)
  3. Test that login works, forms submit, search functions, and checkout completes
  4. Document that the test passed and note the date

Many businesses discover their backups are corrupted only when disaster strikes. Don’t be one of them.

Hosting performance review: Evaluate server response times, resource usage, and whether your current hosting plan still meets your needs. Growing sites may need upgraded hosting.

Plugin and theme cleanup: Remove unused plugins and themes entirely. Even deactivated plugins can contain vulnerabilities. Document what you remove in case you need to reference it later.

Documentation update: Update your site documentation including login credentials, plugin purposes, customization notes, and maintenance history. This proves invaluable during emergencies or when transitioning to a new maintenance provider.

Create or update your emergency plan: A one-page “what to do when the site is down” document that includes:

  • Emergency contact numbers (hosting support, your developer, key team members)
  • How to put up a maintenance message
  • Where backups are stored and how to access them
  • Where critical passwords are kept (use a password manager)

Strategic review: Step back and assess whether your site is meeting business goals, what improvements would have the highest impact, and whether any functionality needs updating.

Your Monthly Site Health Report

One of the best maintenance habits is tracking a few key numbers each month. This takes just 10 minutes but shows you’re being proactive and helps catch problems early.

Monthly health report template:

  • Uptime this month: ___ % (should be 99.9% or higher)
  • Updates completed: WordPress core ✓ / ___ plugins / ___ themes
  • Last backup test: ___ (date you verified a restore worked)
  • Page speed score: ___ on mobile (from PageSpeed Insights)
  • Top 3 errors fixed: (list any issues you resolved)
  • Next month’s priorities: (3 things to focus on)

This simple report takes minutes to complete, but provides peace of mind and documentation that maintenance is actually happening.

The 5 Biggest WordPress Maintenance Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)

1. Having Backups But Never Testing Restoration

The mistake: Most people set up automated backups and assume they’re protected. Then disaster strikes and they discover the backups are corrupted, incomplete, or incompatible with their restore process.

The fix: Quarterly, actually restore a backup to a staging site or test environment. This 30-minute exercise could save your business. Document your restoration process so it’s repeatable under pressure.

2. Updating Plugins Without Testing First

The mistake: Clicking “Update All” and hoping nothing breaks. On live production sites, this can cause immediate downtime, broken functionality, or compatibility conflicts that are difficult to diagnose.

The fix: Update plugins one at a time on business-critical sites, testing after each update. Better yet, test all updates on a staging site first, then apply to production only after confirming compatibility. Always update in a low-traffic window (like early morning or late evening).

3. Ignoring Plugin Vulnerability Warnings

The mistake: Seeing security alerts about vulnerable plugins and putting off the update because “the site is working fine.” Hackers actively scan for sites using vulnerable plugins. It’s automated and constant.

The fix: Treat security updates as urgent, not optional. If a plugin has a known vulnerability, update it immediately or temporarily deactivate it until you can update safely.

4. Forgetting About Performance Optimization

The mistake: Focusing only on security and updates while performance gradually degrades. As you add content, images, and plugins, load times creep up until visitors start leaving.

The fix: Monitor performance monthly with actual tests. Set performance budgets (e.g., “under 3 seconds on mobile”) and investigate when you exceed them. Small, regular optimizations are easier than major performance overhauls.

5. Not Having an Emergency Response Plan

The mistake: Waiting until your site is hacked or down to figure out what to do. In emergencies, you make poor decisions under pressure and waste precious recovery time.

The fix: Document your emergency contacts (hosting support, domain registrar, backup access, developer contact information) and basic recovery procedures. Know where your backups are stored and how to access them. Have a plan before you need it.

Essential WordPress Maintenance Tools and Plugins

The right tools make maintenance significantly easier and more reliable. Here are the essential categories and our recommendations based on years of experience.

Backup Solutions

Managed hosting backups: WP Engine, Kinsta, Pressable, and Flywheel include automatic daily backups with easy restoration. This is the easiest solution but ties you to that hosting provider.

Third-party backup services: WP Remote and ManageWP provide centralized backup management across multiple sites with off-site storage. These are ideal if you manage multiple WordPress sites or want independence from your hosting provider.

Backup plugins: UpdraftPlus and BackupBuddy offer control over backup schedule, storage location, and retention policies. These work with any hosting but require more configuration.

Critical feature: Whatever solution you choose, ensure backups are stored off-site (separate from your web server) and that you can restore them independently without relying on your hosting provider.

Security Tools

Wordfence Security (free and premium versions): Real-time firewall, malware scanning, login security, and two-factor authentication. We typically use this as the primary security plugin.

Sucuri Security (free scanner, paid cleaning): Excellent malware scanning and hardening features. We often run this alongside Wordfence for complementary protection.

Solid Security (formerly iThemes Security): User-friendly security hardening with good defaults for beginners.

Security consideration: Security plugins catch most threats but work best combined with quality hosting that provides server-level security including WAF (Web Application Firewall) and DDoS protection.

Performance Optimization

NitroPack: All-in-one optimization service that combines caching, image optimization, CDN, and code cleanup. Consistently delivers 90+ PageSpeed scores with minimal configuration. Especially powerful for sites that need quick performance improvements without technical expertise.

WP Rocket: Premium caching plugin ($59/year) that’s user-friendly and effective. Good choice if you want control over caching but don’t need NitroPack’s full optimization suite.

Smush or Imagify: Image compression plugins that automatically optimize images as you upload them. Essential for any site with photos or graphics.

Cloudflare: Free CDN and DDoS protection with global content distribution. Works with any hosting and provides meaningful speed improvements.

For detailed performance optimization strategies, see our comprehensive guide on speeding up your WordPress site without changing hosts.

Monitoring and Reporting

Uptime monitoring: UptimeRobot (free) or Pingdom monitors your site 24/7 and alerts you immediately when it goes down. The faster you know about problems, the less business impact they cause.

Google Search Console: Free tool that reports search performance, indexing issues, security problems, and mobile usability. Essential for any business relying on organic search traffic.

Google Analytics: Track visitor behavior, traffic sources, and conversion patterns. Understanding how people use your site helps prioritize maintenance and improvements.

DIY WordPress Maintenance vs. Hiring Professionals

This is one of the most common questions we hear, and the answer depends on your specific situation. Let’s look at both options honestly.

When DIY Maintenance Makes Sense

You should consider handling your own maintenance if:

  • You run a personal blog, hobby site, or low-traffic website where downtime doesn’t cost money
  • You genuinely enjoy technical work and want to learn WordPress deeply
  • Your budget is extremely limited (under $150/month available for professional service)
  • You have a simple site with few plugins and no custom functionality
  • Your site doesn’t handle eCommerce, customer data, or business-critical functions
  • You have time available and consider it a valuable learning investment

The DIY reality check: Plan for 2-8 hours monthly depending on site complexity, plus additional time when problems arise. You’ll need to stay current on WordPress security bulletins, learn troubleshooting skills, and be available to handle emergencies. The learning curve is real. Expect to make some mistakes along the way.

When Professional Maintenance Makes Sense

You should consider professional maintenance if:

  • Your website generates revenue, leads, or is critical to your business operations
  • Downtime directly costs you money (even an hour offline is expensive)
  • You run an eCommerce site handling payments and customer data
  • Your site has custom plugins, complex functionality, or multiple integrations
  • Your time is more valuable spent on business growth rather than technical work
  • You want peace of mind knowing experts are monitoring your site proactively
  • You need guaranteed response times for emergency situations
  • You lack technical expertise and don’t want to learn through costly mistakes

What Professional WordPress Maintenance Typically Includes

Understanding what you get with professional maintenance helps you evaluate the value:

Core website management:

  • Security monitoring and threat prevention
  • WordPress core, plugin, and theme updates with testing
  • Regular backups with verified integrity
  • Performance optimization and monitoring
  • Uptime monitoring with immediate response
  • SSL certificate management

Development and technical support:

  • Custom plugin adjustments and feature enhancements
  • Integration troubleshooting with third-party systems
  • Plugin customization for your specific needs
  • Technical consultation and planning
  • Regular status reporting
  • Site health monitoring and performance audits

Content and design support:

  • Content updates (team members, services, contact information)
  • Page layout adjustments using existing designs
  • Image optimization for performance
  • Basic design tweaks and improvements
  • New page creation using templates
  • Navigation and menu updates

Emergency support:

  • Priority response for critical issues
  • After-hours availability for urgent problems
  • Security breach response and cleanup
  • Disaster recovery and site restoration

 

WordPress Maintenance Costs: What You Should Expect to Pay

Understanding typical pricing helps you budget appropriately and evaluate whether offers are realistic.

DIY Maintenance Costs

Time investment: 2-8 hours monthly depending on site complexity and your business needs

Premium tools and plugins:

  • Security plugins (premium versions): $100-300/year
  • Backup solutions: $50-200/year
  • Performance optimization tools: $100-400/year
  • Monitoring services: $50-200/year
  • Total tools cost: $300-1,100/year or $25-90/month

Hidden costs:

  • Learning curve time
  • Emergency troubleshooting
  • Stress during security incidents
  • Potential recovery costs from mistakes

Entry-Level Professional Plans ($300-1000/month)

Typical inclusions:

  • WordPress core, plugin, and theme updates
  • Daily automated backups
  • Security monitoring and malware scans
  • Uptime monitoring
  • Email support during business hours

Best for:

  • Small business websites
  • Blogs and informational sites
  • Simple sites with 5-15 plugins
  • Sites with straightforward functionality

Limitations:

  • Limited customization or development work
  • Typically does not include content updates

Mid-Tier Professional Plans ($1000-2000/month)

Typical inclusions:

  • Everything in entry-level plans, plus:
  • Content updates (reasonable monthly allocation)
  • Performance optimization
  • Minor functionality improvements
  • Basic development work included
  • Staging site testing
  • Monthly touch base meetings

Best for:

  • Active business websites
  • Growing eCommerce sites
  • Sites requiring regular content updates
  • Sites with 15-30 plugins

Premium/Enterprise Plans ($2000+/month)

Typical inclusions:

  • Everything in mid-tier plans, plus:
  • Significant development hours included
  • Comprehensive performance optimization
  • Custom development and integrations
  • Marketing and Technical Consulting
  • Multiple sites management

Best for:

  • Large eCommerce operations
  • Enterprise websites
  • Mission-critical applications
  • Agencies managing client sites
  • Complex sites with extensive custom functionality
  • Sites with 30+ plugins or heavy customization

Red Flags When Evaluating Maintenance Providers

Warning signs to watch for:

  • Promises of “guaranteed never hacked” (no one can guarantee this)
  • Unrealistically low pricing (under $75/month for comprehensive service from a professional US-based agency)
  • Lack of clear service description
  • No emergency response protocol
  • Doesn’t ask about backups before starting work
  • Pressures immediate purchase without discovery conversation
  • Can’t explain their process clearly

Good signs to look for:

  • Asks good questions about your business and goals
  • Provides clear service descriptions and expectations
  • Shows WordPress expertise with case studies or testimonials
  • Discusses prevention, not just problem-fixing
  • Transparent pricing
  • Explains backup and emergency procedures
  • Offers references or portfolio

Frequently Asked Questions About WordPress Maintenance

How often should I update WordPress, plugins, and themes?

Security updates should be applied immediately, ideally within 48-72 hours of release. Feature updates for WordPress core, plugins, and themes can be applied monthly on a scheduled maintenance day, always with testing. The key is consistency. Regular updates are safer than letting updates pile up for months.

What happens if I skip WordPress maintenance?

Without regular maintenance, your site becomes increasingly vulnerable to security breaches, malware infections, and technical failures. Performance degrades as databases become bloated and code becomes outdated. Eventually, compatibility issues multiply until the site requires emergency intervention or complete rebuilding, which costs far more than preventive maintenance.

Can I do WordPress maintenance myself if I’m not technical?

Yes, but it requires commitment to learning. Basic maintenance (updates, backups, security monitoring) is manageable for non-technical users willing to follow guides carefully. However, troubleshooting problems when updates break things requires technical knowledge. Most non-technical business owners find professional maintenance more reliable and less stressful.

How long does WordPress maintenance take each month?

DIY maintenance typically requires 2-8 hours monthly depending on site complexity. Simple blogs might need 2 hours, while complex eCommerce sites could need 8+ hours. This doesn’t include time spent troubleshooting problems or learning new skills.

What’s included in professional WordPress maintenance?

Professional maintenance typically includes security monitoring, updates with testing, regular backups, uptime monitoring, performance optimization, and support for issues. Many plans also include content updates, minor development work, and emergency response. Specific inclusions vary by provider and pricing tier. Always clarify what’s included before signing up.

How much should WordPress maintenance cost?

Expect to pay $300-1000/month for basic maintenance from a professional US-based agency, $1000-2000/month for comprehensive service including support and minor development, and $2000+/month for enterprise-level service with emergency response and significant development time. DIY maintenance costs less upfront but requires your time investment. Note that prices below $75/month often come from offshore providers or highly automated services with limited support.

Should I use managed WordPress hosting or a maintenance service?

Managed WordPress hosting provides infrastructure-level maintenance (server updates, basic security, automatic WordPress updates) but typically doesn’t include ongoing support, content updates, or troubleshooting. Maintenance services provide hands-on management, support, and development work but don’t control your hosting infrastructure. Many businesses benefit from both: managed hosting for infrastructure plus a maintenance service for ongoing support. For more on this topic, see our article comparing managed platforms like Shopify and Webflow to WordPress.

How do I know if my WordPress backups actually work?

The only way to know for certain is to test restoration. Quarterly, restore a backup to a staging site or test environment and verify everything works correctly. Check that pages load, forms submit, images display, and functionality works as expected. Many businesses discover backup problems only when disaster strikes. Don’t be one of them.

What should I do if my WordPress site gets hacked?

Immediately contact your hosting provider and a WordPress security professional. Don’t attempt cleanup yourself unless you have specific security expertise. You might inadvertently destroy evidence or make the situation worse. Change all passwords, review user accounts, and preserve any security logs. Once cleaned, implement stronger security measures to prevent reinfection. Our WordPress security audit guide includes detailed steps for preventing and responding to security breaches.

Is WordPress maintenance really necessary for a small business website?

Yes, website size doesn’t determine maintenance needs. A small site that generates $3,000/month in revenue needs maintenance just as much as a larger site. The question isn’t whether to do maintenance, but whether to do it yourself or hire professionals. The cost of one security breach or day of downtime typically exceeds a year of professional maintenance.

Quick Reference: Copy-Paste Checklists

Use these simple checklists to stay on track with your maintenance routine.

Pre-Update Checklist (5 Steps)

  1. ✓ Confirm yesterday’s backup exists off-site
  2. ✓ Turn on maintenance mode or use staging
  3. ✓ Update: security-patched plugins → other plugins → theme → WordPress core
  4. ✓ Quick QA: homepage, menu, search, forms, checkout
  5. ✓ Clear caches/CDN, recheck a few pages on mobile

Rollback Triggers

Roll back immediately if:

  • ✗ Checkout or forms fail
  • ✗ Error pages or logs spike
  • ✗ Key layout breaks on mobile

If any happen, roll back immediately and log the issue.

Monthly Site Health Report (One Page)

  • Uptime: ___ %
  • Updates done: core / plugins / themes
  • Backup: last test restore on ___ (pass/fail)
  • Speed: PageSpeed mobile score ___; slowest page: ___
  • Errors fixed: top 3
  • Next month: top 3 actions

Taking Action: Your WordPress Maintenance Next Steps

Don’t try to implement everything at once. Consistent small improvements beat sporadic heroic efforts that end in burnout.

If you’re starting from scratch:

  1. Set up automated daily backups (this is non-negotiable)
  2. Install a security plugin and configure it properly
  3. Create a recurring calendar reminder for monthly maintenance
  4. Document your current WordPress, plugin, and theme versions
  5. Schedule your first comprehensive security audit

If you’re doing maintenance inconsistently:

  1. Audit where you are now (when did you last update? when did you last test backups?)
  2. Get everything current (all updates, full security audit)
  3. Create a realistic maintenance schedule you’ll actually follow
  4. Set up monitoring tools so you know when problems occur
  5. Consider whether professional help would reduce stress and risk

If you’re evaluating professional maintenance:

  1. Calculate your time’s actual cost for DIY maintenance
  2. Assess your site’s business criticality and downtime cost
  3. Contact us for a conversation about your specific situation
  4. Ask potential providers the questions outlined in this guide
  5. Compare total cost of ownership including your time and stress

Remember: The goal isn’t perfection. It’s consistent, sustainable maintenance that protects your investment and supports your business goals. Whether you do it yourself or hire professionals, the important thing is that it actually happens regularly.

Your WordPress site is a business asset that deserves the same care and attention you give to your other investments. Regular maintenance isn’t an expense. It’s insurance against costly emergencies and an investment in extending your site’s useful life.

About MantyWeb

We’re George and Jill Manty, and we’ve built MantyWeb on a simple principle: be the easiest part of our clients’ day. Since 2009, we’ve specialized in website development and maintenance, helping agencies and businesses extend the life of their websites through strategic incremental development.

If you’re interested in how we might help with your WordPress maintenance needs, we’d love to hear from you.

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