Managed WordPress Support

Dedicated Support

Enjoy personal hands-on support if issues arise or you have questions about your website. I’m here for you, which is the number one benefit of having a support plan.

Standard support covers most troubleshooting and resolution of technical issues that are preventing your site from running properly, general questions, and of course if your website is down or hacked - I've got you covered. Support requests must be sent via email and will be responded to within 48 hours or less.

Priority support means you jump to the front of the line when possible and within reason and is a good option for more "mission critical" sites. Non-emergency support requests should be sent via email and will be responded to within 24 hours or less. Emergency support requests can be made via email, phone, or text and responded to as quickly as humanly possible.

Quick Requests

Quick support requests are tasks such as minor content, styling, plugin/widget setting changes, etc. that take around 15 minutes or so on average to complete. This is support that is included beyond routine maintenance, troubleshooting, or if you have general questions, though, a more involved consulting type question would count as a quick request usually if there is some research involved.

Additional hours are billable at my current rate of $125/hr (less any development discount) after any quick requests have been used within the current month.

Quick requests included in your plan do not rollover month to month and cannot be used on sites not covered by your care plan or on things that are not directly related to your website.

Development Discount

For any development work you need done beyond what general support and quick requests cover, I charge up to $125/hr, but typically bill by a lower day or half day rate, less the development discount your plan offers.

Monthly Reporting

Get a detailed monthly WordPress website care report on the 1st of each month documenting your site’s uptime, updates performed, database optimization, backup status, security status, performance analysis, traffic analytics, and SEO ranking data from the previous period. View example report.

Daily Cloud Backups

What if you lost all of your website data? Remote cloud-based backups protects you against data loss. Backups are run daily and I will restore your site immediately if anything goes wrong.

Safe Software Updates

Any software can be vulnerable and so it's important that everything is always up-to-date. Your website will be checked daily for any WordPress core, plugin, or theme updates that are needed and then updates will be performed safely with a backup taken just prior. Not all updates go smoothly, so if issues do arise, I will fix any errors caused or roll-back the updates.

If you have a mission critical or very important money site you would like to have all updates staged for (site cloned, updated, and tested before rolling to production) this extra service can be added to any plan for $100 per month, per site.

Uptime Monitoring

24/7 site uptime monitoring ensures your website is online and error free. If your site goes down, I will be notified and will troubleshoot and fix the issue likely before you even notice.

Security Monitoring

Daily security scans to ensure your site is verified clean from malware and other vulnerabilities. SSL (https) certificate will be setup if not already. In the event your site does become compromised, I will clean it up for you.

Advanced security monitoring means your WordPress setup will be hardened to safe guard against intrusion and DDoS attempts.

Database Optimization

Excess spam comments, old page/post revisions, and an un-optimized database can slow your website down. I clean these daily to ensure your website is running at peak performance.

Keyword Rank Tracking

We determine up to 100 keyword phrases that your website should or you hope to rank for and setup tracking in order compare your rankings over time. Your search visibility will also be tracked and compared to your competitors who are ranking for similar terms.

Analytics Reporting

Analytics will be setup and data will be synced with your monthly report to give us better insights into your traffic, where it’s coming from, and other valuable data. Instead of the default analytics, we can setup and sync Google Analytics data for even better reporting.

Performance Optimization

A fast loading website is not only good for users, but is a critical ranking factor for search engines.

With my Standard and Priority plans, I regularly test your page load time and look for improvement opportunities to ensure your site is loading as quickly as possible.

With my Priority plan, I take a deeper more advanced look at opportunities to increase your page load time.

Who do you recommend for web hosting?

I recommend Cloudways, Flywheel, and WP Engine depending on your needs. I wrote a post about WordPress web hosting companies I personally recommend in 2019 which goes into more detail.

Let's discuss your needs and I can help recommend the host, plan, and server location that is right for you. All support plan clients get free white glove migrations as well.

How many websites are included in a plan?

Each plan as outlined above covers a single site. If you have additional sites you need maintained, we can discuss your needs for each and I can give you a custom bundle rate.

Is there a contract?

There is no contract, you may cancel at any time.

There are no refunds for any unused time.

How am I billed?

Automatic monthly recurring subscription via PayPal is required to get started. You don't need a PayPal account, just a credit/debit card.

Additional development time or small projects not covered by your plan are invoiced separately from your recurring monthly subscription.

Do you offer one-time or as-needed support?

It is extremely important to proactively and properly maintain a website on an ongoing basis. I require any client who wants an ongoing support relationship with me to be subscribed to a Website Care Plan for each website they want supported.

Have a problem now, but not sure if you need ongoing support? Since there is no contract, you can signup for a month to try out my service. I can take care of your immediate issues (within reason) and you'll quickly discover the value in what I offer.

What types of websites do you support?

I can maintain and support any type of website as long as it's on the WordPress platform, whether it's a custom or off-the-shelf theme. I especially love maintaining sites build on the Genesis Framework, which is what I use when creating a new site.

In rare cases, I may have to decline supporting your website based on how it's coded or we can always discuss a rebuild if that is in your best interest.

How do I know if I need a support & maintenance plan?

Is your website is critical to your business? Would you lose money if it was inoperable for any period of time? Do you have a competent person who is responsible for ensuring your website is secure and running properly?

It can be extremely risky to leave your website sitting alone without routine maintenance and oversight. Having a website care plan ensures you have a capable person proactively monitoring your website in case issues arise. It also helps prevent issues from happening in the first place and most importantly you will have someone to reach out to for help if something happens.

Can’t I just do all of this myself?

Keeping your website maintained to a high standard can be time consuming and tedious. It takes you away from what you should be doing, which is running your business. It also takes a lot of experience to do it right. Protect your investment and leave it to me instead. I’m a full-time freelance web designer, front end developer, and WordPress support specialist located in Irvine, CA. I have over 15 years of experience serving small businesses and entrepreneurs no matter where they are located.

Do I need a support plan even if I use a managed WordPress host?

In my opinion, yes. While managed WordPress hosting certainly has some benefits over traditional hosting, they won't give you the type of personalized, hand-on, proactive help that I offer. Consider me as a critical layer of support on top of your managed hosting taking care of things your host won't.

I'm also here as a liaison between you and your host's support staff to help expedite resolution of hosting related issues. I'll quickly jump on chat or submit support tickets on your behalf.