I like to compare it to changing the oil in your car.
Avoiding website maintenance is just like not having regular oil changes on your vehicle.
Your car wouldn’t operate very well for long if you didn’t regularly maintain it, right?
Well, the same process is true for your private practice website. Your website should always be live, ready for clients and presenting your business in the best light.
WordPress Websites Are Not a “Set and Forget”
If you don’t have website maintenance carried out monthly, you may actually be throwing money out the window.
You see, when visitors go to a website and find things wrong with it, they often don’t stick around.
I know I always bounce off a website if it’s slow or its broken functionality frustrates me.
Unfortunately, many therapy website owners never check their website to see how it’s functioning.
This means that unchecked website issues, security breaches or downtime can lose you potential clients.
The Benefits of Ongoing WordPress Maintenance
Many people don’t realize the benefits of site maintenance:
The website performance – its page load time, protection from hackers, downtime and uptime – is all dependent on the WordPress software and plugins functioning as they should (and on the most recent version).
New updates for all the software running your website are released weekly, sometimes daily, so having the latest versions ensures the best stability and performance of your website.
The website growth, the ability to add new content, ongoing analytics monitoring, and design changes, is all dependent on you, or someone else, making sure all updates to the website are done in a smooth and error-free fashion.
Our WordPress Website Maintenance Workflow
At Private Practice Elevation, we take great care to first backup the website and check the website after our updates for any issues.
Sometimes updates can cause issues with a website. It’s the nature of software updates and many moving parts that make up a website.
Our software keeps a record of plugins we update so if there is ever an issue, we can see what plugin version was changed and revert it back quickly to avoid any downtime or functionality issues.
Also included in our monthly maintenance report are the website performance and security scans.
If in the event we ever catch a plugin issue, we can let you know right away what the solution would be.
If you’re also on one of our support plans, we can create a support ticket right away and address it before you ever know there’s a problem.
The Dangers of Do It Yourself WordPress Website Maintenance
Maintaining your private practice website yourself could cost you more than you may think.
If you just update from within your WordPress admin, you wouldn’t have a record of what was done.
If an update to one of your plugins created an issue a few weeks later, it would be difficult to know what changed and how you should revert back without restoring a very old backup.
This means you could lose any content changes or design updates you’ve made since that last backup.
It Costs More to Fix A Website Than to Maintain It
Inexperience and neglect can damage the look and functionality of your private practice website.
We’ve unfortunately worked with clients who have invested thousands of dollars in their website project, only to ignore regular maintenance after the launch.
It often ends up in us receiving a frantic email wondering why something is broken on the website and then paying hundreds for us to diagnose and fix the problem. True story!
So, when something on your website breaks, you have a choice to make.
One, you try and fix it yourself, in which case you may do further damage if you’re not entirely sure what you’re doing.
Or two, you can then pay the price for someone experienced to fix it.
Just like your car, it costs more to fix it than it does to maintain it properly!
Regular oil changes help keep your car running properly. And regular website maintenance helps keep your therapy website running properly.
Let Us Keep Your Private Practice Website Working Properly
Helping your therapy clients overcome their challenges is what you know best.
Keeping up with all the WordPress updates and the latest security patches is what we know best.
Would you try to build your dream house without an architect? Then why try to maintain your own website if you’re not a web professional?
Also, why try and maintain your website if you don’t enjoy it.
At Private Practice Elevation, we’re all about making sure you can focus on the tasks you love in your business.
By securing an experienced web professional to update and maintain your site properly you are actually saving potential lost clients and visitors.
You’re also getting precious time back that can be focused on your clients and growing your private practice.
If you’re interested in receiving maintenance or support on your private practice website, visit our care plans page to learn how we can keep your site in proper working order.