Blog
Website Maintenance for WordPress Users
Website Maintenance for WordPress Users
If you’ve got a website then you’ll want to keep it updated, so that is in working order. Red Desk is offering a new website maintenance service to small businesses who don’t have the time or knowledge to keep their website maintained. So, what can we do for you?
Updating Plugins
Red Desk can log into your website once a week, once every two weeks or once a month (depending on the complexity) to ensure that plugins are updated to the latest version. If we spot something that hasn’t updated correctly, we will monitor this find solutions when required. Keeping plugins updated is the simplest way to ensure that your website stays secure and is performing at its best.
Website Backups
We can check how your website is backed up and ensure that this is done via your webhost and via a plugin. Having your website backed up gives you peace of mind in case if you accidentally delete something (or change your mind), a theme or other plugin harms your site or you get hacked.
Add-On Services
Every now and again you may wish to make some additional changes to your website. On top of monthly maintenance, we can offer the following:
- Small website changes – we can refresh the wording on your website, change, add or remove images.
- Installing SSL certificates (https) – we can ensure your website has the padlock symbol and then install a plugin like Really Simple SSL to ensure the redirection from http to https once the SSL certificate is activated
- News/blogs – we can update your blogs or news with items written by yourself or we do offer a content writing service
- Domain transfer – if you are wishing to transfer your domains from one hosting company to another then we can manage this process for you including updating the DNS records
- Transfer of ownership – if the website hosting account is in a web designer’s name and you wish to gain control yourself then we can assist with the transfer of ownership
- Liaising with IT company – we can talk to them about additional requirements that might be needed
- Social Media – we can link your social media feeds to your website, we do offer a social media management service
Web Design
We work alongside a web developer, so can happily recommend someone if you decide to redesign your website. She will also be on hand for complicated tasks.
If you are interested in outsourcing your website maintenance to Red Desk, please do get in touch with mel@reddesk.co.uk for a quote.
Get In Touch
Ways to BackUp Your WordPress Website
Ways to BackUp Your WordPress Website
We’ve recently been in discussion with a few small businesses regarding their WordPress websites and some maintenance tasks. We 
thought we’d share our insights with you in this article.
WordPress Plugins for Backup
The simplest way to backup your website is via a plugin. This means that your website can be completely restored if something goes wrong: if you delete something, a theme or other plugin harms your site or you get hacked.
UpdraftPlus seems to be a popular option for backing up WordPress sites. In fact, it is the world’s highest ranking and most popular scheduled backup plugin, with over three million websites currently using it. You can backup your files and databases to the cloud (Dropbox, Google Drive and more). Reassuringly you can also restore to a previous version in case you update a bad plugin or your website gets hacked. It’s pretty simple: Install UpdraftPlus and activate it, in settings go to the UpdraftPlus tab, click backup now. This plugin is free, although a premium paid-for version is available for more advanced functions.
Other WordPress backup plugins include Jetpack and BackWpup. Do your research and see what others favour.
Website Host Backups
As part of your webhosting service, your website should be backed up. Depending on the webhost and package you opt for, the options will vary from backups of 6 days data for recovery at various restoration points during this period to daily backups that the webhosting company will hold up to a month. SiteGround is a popular choice.
Manual backup
If you feel that a manual, hands-on approach is more dependable then you will need to log into your C-Panel (ask your web developer for the login details and how to access this). Under files, select file manager and find the public_html folder in the left-hand panel, expand it and select the folder with your website’s name on it. Right click and compress, select Zip archive and compress files. You’ll now be able to download this to a secure location of your choice.
The advantages of backing up the website yourself is that you will always have the latest version to hand. The disadvantages are that it just takes so long!
Red Desk’s advice
It is advisable to ensure your website is backed up multiple ways so restoration can be guaranteed. Therefore, check your webhost does back your site, how long they keep the files and how to access them if you need them. Also pick a plugin you are comfortable with (or manual backup if you fancy it) for those times when you need to restore your website to a point before the earliest website backup.
You might also be interested in our article “A Guide To Webhosting”.
Red Desk can provide website services from maintenance through to content writing and social media management. If you would like to know more then please get in touch with mel@reddesk.co.uk
Get In Touch
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.