Why You Need a Care Plan

Why a Care Plan Is Essential for Your WordPress Website

Remember all the hard work that went into creating your WordPress Website? You made sure the design was appealing and easy to navigate. You pored over every syllable of copy to make sure your brand message and unique value was clear. You ensured the site took visitors on a journey to convert them from leads into prospects and prospects into customers.

Make sure you protect the investment of money, time, and energy that went into your site by signing up for a care plan.

What Is a Care Plan? 

A care plan is a stack of services that keep your site online, running properly, current, and secure for a flat monthly fee. Let’s start with an analogy.

Think of your website as a house. The WordPress core software is the “bones” of your house – the foundation and other load-bearing structures. Additional pieces of code plugged into that core software adds functions (e.g., running water) and decorations (e.g., color scheme) to the house.

A care plan is kind of like a butler for your website. It takes care of the “house” as it exists, performing maintenance and making minor changes. Staying with that analogy, here are some examples of what your care plan does for you.

• (Scans for and keeps security threats away.)
• Changes your air filters. (Cleans out the spam.)
• Declutters and organizes. (Tidies your files, ensuring smooth operation.)
• Ensures your décor is current, not dated. (Updates software.)
• Locks the doors. (Keeps hackers and malware out.)

Basically, the butler (your care plan) cleans up messes and performs minor maintenance to keep everything running smoothly.

Why You Must Have a Care Plan

Even though you can’t see the “moving parts” (the software) of your website, they can break down (or someone else can break them) like everything else.

Keeps Your WordPress Site Running

For example, not only is the core WordPress software updated periodically, so is the code for each and every one of your plugins. When those updates are made, there’s the possibility that one or more components of your site will no longer be compatible with one another. And guess what happens then. Your site can stop functioning properly or even go down completely. Any time your website isn’t working, you’re losing business.

Keeps Your Website Secure

Also, when your site isn’t fully up to speed, you’re at greater risk of being breached by a hacker or malware. Cyberattacks have always been a danger, and these attacks have significantly increased since the pandemic began, as more people are online and working remotely. Maintaining your site keeps your data secure.

Further, there are myriad other things that can interfere with your site’s performance. You need the peace of mind that comes with knowing your site is always online and fully operating as you designed it to.

A Final Note on Having a Care Plan 

Okay, full disclosure: You actually do not need to buy a care plan. You can maintain your site on your own! But you still need a care plan. So, you’d need to come up with a routine care plan for your site, and then you’ll have to execute all the steps in that plan yourself.  (HINT: This will take time and energy that you should be devoting to your “genius zone” in your business. Plus, if something does go wrong, and you don’t have the expertise to sort it out, it will be lots more expensive to hire someone to fix it than it would have been to hire someone to maintain it.)

What’s Included in a WordPress Website Care Plan

Care plan options vary in the number and level of services provided. Different care plan tiers are available, and you select the tier that suits your budget and the needs of your website. For example, a freelance service provider may only need a basic care plan, whereas a business with a sizable online store will likely require additional maintenance.

At Raney Day Design, we offer three care plan options to suit your needs. Our Silver Care Plan includes the following services:

• Software Updates
• Uptime & Security Monitoring
• Spam Management
• Optimize Google Analytics Reporting
• Enterprise Grade Network Security
• Performance Optimization
• Detailed reporting (monthly)
• Site Backups
• Monthly Support Time (30 minutes)
• Access to Video Training
• Premium WordPress Hosting
• Access to Quarterly Webinars
• Email Support Ticket Desk

Our Gold and Platinum Care Plans include more frequent backups and reporting, additional support time, and other services such as strategy calls with our team, site rank reporting, and keyword monitoring.

What’s Not Included in a WordPress Care Plan?

Let’s go back to the house analogy. The care plan – or “butler” – is designed to keep what you have running like clockwork. A butler can maintain a home and even maybe do some small household projects, like painting a room. But you wouldn’t ask him or her to undertake a major project, such as rewiring the whole house or building an addition. Major projects are outside of the butler’s role in the house.

Care plans handle routine tasks like monitoring security, and they also include support time for web developers to fix any problems, as well as to make “small household” changes. Larger projects are beyond the scope of the care plan, even if support time is available. Here are some more house/website examples to illustrate what would and would not fall within the scope of the care plan.

• If you need to replace a faucet (e.g., revise a contact form on an existing page to ensure a steady flow of prospects onto your email list), that IS within the scope of the care plan.
• On the other hand, if you want to add a patio for entertaining (e.g., create a member community on your site), that’s beyond the care plan agreement. Building the addition isn’t cosmetic; it’s structural. Therefore, it’s a new project.
• If you wanted to hang some new pictures on the walls (e.g., update your headshots and other photos), that also falls under your care plan support time.
• But if you hoped to knock down some walls (e.g., overhaul the site structure or theme), that falls outside your care plan. (Hint: It’s a project. 😊)

Do You Have a Care Plan?

Your website will eventually malfunction, breakdown, or experience a security breach if it’s not routinely maintained. So, if you don’t have a care plan, get one! Of course, you may want to “clean house” yourself – and that’s fine! Just make sure you have a solid plan.

On the other hand, why not hire a professional “butler” to make sure it’s done right and handled like clockwork – all while saving you time! (Time you can spend in genious zone for your business!) We’d be tickled (dark) pink to help you keep your “house” in perfect working order. 

Raney Day Design didn’t build your “house”? No problem! We provide care plan services for existing business websites all the time. We just want as many businesses as possible to get found online because their websites work for them like well-oiled machines. 

Free Evaluation

If you might be ready to go pro and hire a “butler,” drop your details in the form below for a free site evaluation. We’ll send you a report filled with actionable advice to improve your site!