Does my website need maintenance?

Yes, a WordPress website needs ongoing maintenance. Not necessarily a paid plan, but regular care. A website is not a piece of furniture that you set up once and then leave alone, least of all if it runs on WordPress. Still, I hear the question again and again, and it is a fair one: does my site really need this, or is it just a subscription someone wants to sell me?

I will try to give an honest answer here. Not every site needs a maintenance plan. But every WordPress site needs care, and it is worth understanding exactly what happens when that care is missing.

What happens to a neglected WordPress site

WordPress is the most widely used website software in the world. That is handy, because there is a ready-made plugin for almost anything. But that very popularity also makes WordPress sites a favorite target for automated attacks. For attackers it pays off to look for holes that exist on millions of sites at the same time.

Here is how it works in practice. Security holes are constantly being discovered in WordPress itself, in plugins and in themes. The developers close these holes with an update. But once the update is public, every attacker also knows where the hole was. Anyone who does not install the update leaves a known, open door standing from that moment on. And automated programs search around the clock for exactly these doors.

What happens next is rarely dramatic at first. A hijacked site is often not visibly destroyed but quietly abused: for sending spam, for redirects to shady shops, for hidden links that ruin your Google ranking. Sometimes you only notice when Google flags the site as unsafe or the host blocks it. Cleaning up then costs considerably more than the care would have cost.

Alongside that there is the creeping problem: a site gets slower over time. The database fills up with junk data, images get uploaded at full resolution, old plugins drag ballast along. A site that is never looked after becomes noticeably slower over the years. And slow sites lose visitors long before anyone complains.

The third point is unspectacular but common: updates interfere with each other. One plugin update breaks another, especially with page builders and WooCommerce shops. Anyone who simply clicks “update everything” without looking closely is then suddenly faced with a contact form that no longer sends mail, or a checkout that breaks off.

Maintenance covers three levels, not just updates

When I talk about maintenance, I do not just mean clicking the update button. There are three levels that belong together.

The technical level: installing software updates, in the right order and with a look afterwards to check whether everything still works. Securing the login, measuring speed and fine-tuning it, optimizing images.

The backup level: automated backups, daily and with several versions kept, so that you can go back further than yesterday. What matters is not only that backups happen, but that someone has actually tried a restore once. A backup nobody has ever restored is a hope, not a backup.

The availability level: an automatic check that regularly looks whether the site answers and sends me a message when it does not. So that the customer is not the one telling me their site has been offline for hours.

What my maintenance plan includes

My maintenance plan starts at CHF 79 per month, billed annually, with the hosting on my server included. The exact rate depends on the technology and scope of your site, I look after a small company presence differently than a shop with order processing. Included are:

• Updates to the website technology, installed and checked before going live.
• Daily backups with several versions kept, whose restore I have verified.
• Function check after changes: forms, links and buttons are checked after every update.
• An automatic availability check every five minutes that sends me a message in the event of an outage.
• One point of contact: you write to me, I get back to you. No tickets, no hotline waiting loop.

And an honest note about the commitments. I promise a response within one business day, Monday to Friday during office hours. If the site goes down at night, I get a message as a rule and take care of it on the next business day. I will say this openly too: the check runs on my own server. If the whole machine or its network connection goes down, it can no longer report anything. That is also why I do not quote an availability figure I have not measured myself. And I deliberately give no 24/7 promise. As a one-person operation that would simply not be honest, and I would rather sell you a commitment I can keep than a nice number on paper. The details are on the WordPress maintenance page.

When you can also do it yourself

Now the part you rarely hear from someone who sells the plan. You can absolutely handle WordPress maintenance yourself, and in some cases that is also sensible.

If you are technically inclined, log in regularly and are willing to stick to a fixed rhythm, you do not need a plan. In concrete terms that means: set up an automated external backup and a free monitoring service in advance that notifies you by mail in the event of an outage. And then with every update do not click everything blindly, but first back up, install, and afterwards go through the important functions (contact form, order, login). It is not rocket science, it is discipline.

This makes sense above all for a simple site without a shop and without critical functions, where a few hours of downtime hurt no one. If the site is just your business card and you enjoy tinkering with it yourself anyway: do it yourself.

It looks different as soon as money runs through the site, that is with a shop or with a contact form that brings in orders. Or when you simply have no time and no desire to look after it every month. Then outsourced maintenance is not a luxury but the cheaper option, measured against the risk and the hours you would otherwise invest yourself.

The honest short version

Every WordPress site needs care. Not every one needs a paid plan. The question is not whether maintenance has to happen, but who does it and whether you can reliably manage it yourself.

If you are unsure which of the two cases you are in: write me a short note about what your site runs on and what business comes in through it. Then I will tell you honestly whether a plan is worth it or whether a short guide and a clean rhythm are enough for you.