Web Design

I’m a web designer and developer and yes it would be great to have that extra income on offering website maintenance plans. 

Why did I choose not to offer web maintenance as a service?

Because I went through hell and back taking over from a previous developer for a site I used to maintain.

The relationship between the site owner and developer didn’t end well.

The owner didn’t know the login to their hosting company, had no control of URLs purchased and the developer wouldn’t release the site to him because of a payment dispute. Needless to say I was stuck playing referee between the two of them. 

The owner also wanted the site moved over to another hosting company. Migrating a site 6 years ago was not an easy thing.

Thank goodness these days there are hosting companies that do this for you or blog posts to guide you. This post by WPBeginner has it all covered.

I got lucky, in my situation the developer felt bad for me and helped with the migration. 

Another Issue Developer Plugins

Plugins for your site in where the developer has the pro package and adds the plugin to the sites they maintain (a pro package allows adding the plugin on a certain amount or unlimited sites for a higher fee, generally this is a yearly fee).

Well what happens when the owner wants to have another developer maintain their site or they want to maintain the site on their own?

Developers aren’t required to pass on access to a premium plugin.

I encountered this issue with another site owner who needed some maintenance to their site. They didn’t know the login for the premier plugin and in order to update it I needed the license number.

So more time taken to reach out to the developer and wait to hear back.

Get Access to Everything That is Used to Run Your Site

If you are working with a web designer or developer to build your site, ask the right questions. A reputable person or firm will lay all that out for you in the discovery call, the contract or the major points of what is included in their services.

For Web Designers Who Offer Maintenance Packages

Many businesses don’t have the time or resources to maintain their own site.

If you’re a business that will offer maintenance services to your clients, make sure you have a clear contract on what is included with your web maintenance packages.

Are you making small content changes and charge for this service. Is there a separate charge for updating WordPress, and plugins?

You want to start your relationship right. Keeping your clients happy turns into referrals for future business. You should create a list of passwords for your client. Be transparent on what happens if the relationship should terminate. 

Don’t be that person and hold back passing on the site to the new web business.

Businesses grow, they might need more than what you offer in your packages.

Or their cousin, niece, nephew or other family member might be breaking into the web design space and want that person to take over the site. It could be a multitude of reasons and in the online space it’s a good idea not to burn bridges.

You never know, they might not mesh with their new designer or web agency and come back to you.

I know of many designers or developers that pass business on to other designers or developers. You don’t want to have a bad review left about you on someone’s FaceBook post or tweeted in Twitter.

And, you wouldn’t want the same thing to happen to you while taking on new web maintenance business.

Outline what will happen upon termination, if the plugins you have are a pro package (plugins allowed on unlimited sites) will it be included in the change over (in my opinion I think clients should purchase all premium plugins needed for their site). 

I have not worked with any WordPress maintenance companies but I did some research for you.

Here are some useful links if you ever need to go that route.

17 Top WordPress Maintenance Services in 2020

WP Tangerine As of this writing WP Tangerine was not included in the review above. I checked them out and they have good ratings. They offer three different packages, with the lowest being $147 per month and a FREE expert site review.

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What are your thoughts about wanting control over your site or having a company or web designer handle it for you?

When starting out and learning the ins and outs of WordPress, the last thing a beginner wants is having their site break because of a bad theme.

A bad theme can also cause your site to be hacked. It will result in hours of wasted time to get it back to normal. It’s important to your business to have a stable theme for your website.

So what are the best themes out there?

Having worked with many themes I’ve had my share of breakdowns when an update went bad. A theme that is kept up to date by the developer is crucial to your website.

You will see many articles on what is best, I believe there is no such thing as best. There are many great themes out there by developers that offer support, are SEO optimized and will be perfect for your business.

In this article I will show you what to look for when searching for a theme and some options to choose from.

An up to date theme

Is your theme compatible with the latest version of WordPress and the plugins you use? You will be alerted if you need to update your theme in WordPress’ back end. For paid plugins, developers will always maintain and keep them up to date. For free plugins WordPress will indicate if updates have been made and when.

What should you look for when researching WordPress themes?

SEO Friendly: An SEO friendly theme is one that is coded and tested for ranking in search engines.

Mobile Responsive: You are able to view the theme on any mobile device, laptops and handhelds.

Schema.org Markup: Schema microdata are tags within your HTML that can boost your SEO.

Fast Loading: Page load is crucial to users on your website. If your site is slow to load it is certain that they will leave and move on to another website. 

Well coded: A poorly coded theme can affect your site’s performance. Multi-purpose themes tend to have a ton of code that you don’t need. Here is a great article that dives deep into bloated themes.

Cross Browser Compatibility: Does it work on all browsers? Theme developers will generally mention this in their features. If not you can test the theme on different browsers.

Where should you start?

I narrowed it down to 3 as they are highly recommended based on many articles I have read. I also share what your investment will be.

StudioPress Themes

I currently use StudioPress themes built on the Genesis framework. They have been around since 2010 and their framework is required to run one of their child themes. The Genesis Framework is the “mama theme” and you use a StudioPress child theme for designing your site.

Features:

• The Genesis Framework is committed to security. It is built following all WordPress security standards.
• The code is lightweight and web page load can be measured in milliseconds.
• Built in SEO supports Schema.org code.
• Mobile responsive design built on HTML5, with the ability to deliver audio and video.
• One-Click demo installation for an easy quick-start.
• Customized widgets and layout options.
• Works well with Beaver Builder page builder plugin.
• Documentation for getting started.
• Support for their framework and themes.

Their most recent theme, Navigation Pro offers theme-specific sections and layouts through Atomic Blocks.

There are many industry specific child themes to choose from, so you can quickly get started with a food blog, news blog, digital business or real estate business.

If you do know some CSS, the child themes and your customizations will not be affected when updating to the current Genesis Framework. Their themes are pre-styled for WooCommerce and are Gutenberg ready. 

Investment:

Divi Builder and the Divi Theme

I have worked with Divi in a past project. They offer over 800 premade layouts. The Divi theme works on the Divi Builder and they are 2 separate things. The theme is minimal and you can build a custom website with just the builder. They do make a lot of themes, but most people are drawn to the builder. 

In my experience I have found Divi slow when building a site, and their support slow to respond. There are so many options in their builder that I spent much time learning before getting started. I also found myself throwing in a lot of CSS based on customizations my customer wanted.

Another drawback, if you have used Divi to build a site and wanted to change to a different theme, WARNING – deactivating the Divi builder will result in shortcodes.

In short there are many sites that use Divi and researching further (it has been over a year when I last used Divi), their support has improved and so has the load time of the builder.

Features:

• Rock solid security.
• A large community of Divi plugin developers.
• 800+ premade designs.
• WooCommerce modules that give you the option to customize product pages.
• 24/7 Support

Investment:

Astra Theme

I have not tried the Astra Theme but researching many blogs and their website they look to be a great choice for the beginner just starting out. It is an all in one. I would suggest to stay away from all in ones for fear of them being heavily coded, resulting in a slow website. But, the load time on this theme is super fast. 

The Astra Theme is trusted by beginners and big names in the WordPress industry such as Chris Lema – VP of Liquid Webs, Syed Balkhi – Founder of WPBeginner, and Adam Preiser – Founder of WPCrafter. 

Features:

• Theme is less than 50kb.
• Follows best WordPress coding standards.
• Loads in ½ seconds.
• SEO optimized with inbuilt Schema markups.
• WooCommerce integrated.
• Made to work with various page builders such as Beaver Builder, Elementor, Site Origin etc.
• 24/7 Support.

Investment:

What to do next?

Go to the theme sites I listed above and also Google for reviews on StudioPress, Divi and Astra.

Again there are other good themes out there, if you would like more of a selection to choose from WP Beginner has a great list of both free and paid themes to look into. They research themes based on theme support, reputation and quality of the themes.

So what is Managed WordPress Hosting? Which should you choose, and do you really need it?

Managed WordPress hosting is different then regular hosting in that with managed hosting you are getting expert service on one platform as opposed to all in one hosting that runs several other platforms such as Joomla and Drupal. 

Shared hosting is your website being shared on a server with other websites. It is least expensive thus being a good option for beginning bloggers.

The Benefits of Managed WordPress Hosting

There are many benefits to having your site powered with managed WordPress Hosting.

Advantages of Managed WordPress Hosting

Service: Staff is highly knowledgeable with WordPress. And you are supported 24/7. Many hosting companies that are not Managed WordPress Hosts generally only offer email support which can mean a few days before you get serviced.

Security: With the best security in place by having managed hosting, malware and hacking attempts are prevented. You generally don’t need an additional security plugin with managed hosting.

Speed: Speed is one of the most important needs for a website. If your site is slow, users are gone. Managed hosting keeps your site moving fast. Which helps with your ranking higher in Google.

Daily Backups: Daily backups are part of WordPress Managed Hosting. There is no need for a backup plugin. Depending on your host they are generally performed daily and you also have the option to create additional backups.

Automatic Updates: With WordPress constantly being updated, managed hosting will automatically update to the latest version. And if you choose you can have your plugins set to automatic updates also.

Disadvantages of Managed WordPress Hosting

I can only think of 2 disadvantages.

1 being cost.

But if you weigh the pros and cons of managed versus shared you would be coming out ahead financially.

The many things that are taken care of on the backend of your website with managed hosting saves so much time, thus saving you money and allowing you the time to run your business.

Another is that you can only run WordPress with managed hosting.

So really, are there any disadvantages? 

Choosing a Hosting Company

SiteGround

SiteGround is the company I use. They are trusted by over 2,000,000 domains.

They have 3 plans to choose from:

All plans include:

Automated WordPress installation, superb customer support, 24/7 Chat available,FREE SSL, Daily backups, FREE CDN, FREE email, Unlimited databases, 100% renewable energy and unmetered traffic.

With their free SiteGround migrator plugin you can easily transfer your site from another hosting company. Or you have the option of having one of SiteGrounds experts transfer your site.

Security is managed by automatically updating through their server firewall. With their dedicated team of security experts continuously write security patches and enhancements, they constantly monitor and prevent attacks.

Their free SG Optimizer plugin pumps powerful caching, optimizing images at the front-end, PHP version control and more. Built on the Google Cloud platform dramatically increases the speed of your WordPress website.

WP Engine
WP Engine is another top Managed WordPress Hosting provider. I have worked with WP Engine through a previous client of mine.

They have 3 plans to choose from and Custom hosting for larger businesses:

All plans include:

A big deal with WP Engine is that they acquired StudioPress back in 2018. The Genesis Framework is highly regarded as the best WordPress Framework out there. And all 35+ StudioPress themes are included with all plans.

Also included is 24/7 chat support, Dev/Stage/Prod Environments, transferrable sites, PHP 7.4 ready, Evercache, global cdn, automated SSL Certificates, SSH Gateway, auto migration for moving from your old host to WP Engine.

They offer a local development tool for working on your WordPress website locally (on your computer) and then when ready you would deploy your site back to staging and production. You can also pull a copy of a live site to local for developing. One big thing You have the ability to share a link with customers from local for previewing their site.

They handle all major wordpress updates and test minor updates. Users have commented on increased speed by switching to WP Engine.

They take security very seriously with detecting and blocking malicious behavior.

And with their page performance tool you can see which pages are getting the most traffic and which need help.

BlueHost
And finally based on many reviews, BlueHost is also a top Managed WordPress Hosting company. I have not used them but they are popular with many WordPress users.

They have 3 plans to choose from:

All plans include:

Unlimited websites, unlimited web storage, staging environment, no traffic limits, instant WordPress install, FREE SSL, SPAM protection, CDN enabled, 24/7 customer support, SSD disk space, advanced security.

They feature SSDs (solid state drives) which optimized loading times and fewer customers per server.

They have a single dashboard for their all-in-one marketing center.

Do you really need Managed WordPress Hosting?

For the technical person that wants control of the security and optimization of their own site will likely prefer to not have their site running with managed hosting.

Managed hosting providers block installation of certain plugins and keep users out of certain areas in the back end.

Many will say if you are just starting out you don’t need managed hosting.

I disagree. For the beginner who isn’t technically savvy, managed WordPress hosting will save you loads of time should anything go wrong with your site. These plans have support readily available to you at any given time.

Again, managed hosting is more expensive but the peace of mind you get with this type of hosting outweighs the cost.

So what do I do? What is this website about? This is yet another WordPress blog on tips, tricks, and reviews.

I will be taking you on a journey of building your business online. Any business. Every business needs a website. But many starting out don’t have the bookoo bucks to pay someone and for it.

Besides getting all that, I will also be teaching you how to DIY your site. What theme to choose, the essential plugins you need and reviews on them. 

And some tips on social media and copy. What I’ve tried and the results I get.

A little about me. I’ve been in the online space for about 6 years. Creating websites here and there, a self taught DIYer of design and web.

I then fell in love with teaching – so now I’m going to give you guidance on building your website.

Why are you failing at building your WordPress website?

Partly because there is a shit ton of information out there telling you to do this, and to do that. This is the best hosting company. The best plugins, the best WordPress theme. Page builders, blocks, the list goes on.

And you know something? Many of them are right. There are so many choices. Great choices, but for the beginner this can be too much to take in at once.

How do I teach you the non-techy beginner with all the choices out there?

The below will easily get you started on your WordPress journey.

These are the top 3 things you need to get started:

1. WordPress Managed Hosting
   This means your website is exclusive to WordPress. With general hosting (sites that run on different platforms, Drupal, Joomla) there isn’t a way for your website to run effectively with all the different types of software. With managed hosting being exclusive to WordPress; security, updates, speed, daily backups and uptime is included in your plan. You get better support with WordPress managed hosting because these types of hosting companies know everything about the platform.
2. A Stable WordPress Theme
   This can be a time consuming process finding the right theme. But what you need to look for is a theme that is mobile optimized (your site viewable on all devices), secure, fast, and well supported. 
3. Stable Plugins
   With 57,116 plugins (and counting) on WordPress.org where do you start? A good tip, only use the plugins you need, make sure they are the most downloaded, most supported, and have the best reviews.

Ok so how do I design my site?

Based on what WordPress theme you choose, your design is already done for you. You would need to add your colors, logo and replace the theme images with your own. And with WordPress being block based it is so much easier to design than in previous versions.

A good resource to start with is Canva. They have images, graphics, a color palette generator and a photo editor. They offer a free or paid plan. Great if you don’t have the bucks for programs like Adobe Photoshop.

Getting started with copywriting

Now let’s talk about adding content to your site. I’m not a writer and as of this writing I’m struggling to get this 1st post up. I got my site together, I planned it out and then I’m like oh shit I need content.

I kind of thought it might just come to me, you know like the Copy Gods from above would guide me on a short journey of writing bad ass content on my site.

No dice. So I started researching all copy websites, copywriters, copy downloads, joined summits around copy. And it is overwhelming I must say. But great place to start is with Copyhackers. MANY freebies and tutorials.

Search Engine Optimization

Then there is SEO. Search Engine Optimization. I’m not going to give you the easy way to get to the first page of google at the very top because there is no easy way.

And don’t you dare buy in to anyone telling you for a price that they can guarantee you get to the top of google in 1 day. Or a few hours. They’re lying. They just want your money. Period end of story.

It’s work and it’s time. Google changes their algorithms all the time.

There are few things you can do to help Google find you:

Make sure your site is mobile responsive. This is where having a well coded theme comes into play. It will be mobile ready so you don’t have to worry about this. Google ranks mobile responsive sites higher.

Search intent. It is the “Why” of keywords a user uses when looking for something. 

There are 3 types of search intent:

1. Informational Searches – A user is wanting to know about a particular topic. Example: “How do I make gluten-free chocolate chip cookies?”
2. Transactional Searches – This is when a user is ready to buy. Example: “The best paint for a porch.” 
3. Navigational Searches – This is when a user knows a particular brand and it is generally a 1 or 2 word search. Example: Lysol

One more tip, keywords stuffed in your content isn’t going to get you anywhere either. A quote from Google on that:

“Filling pages with keywords results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site’s ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.”

Stay with me.

For starters I put this guide together on getting started with WordPress, 5 Steps to Launch. Access [thrive_2step id=’1399′]here[/thrive_2step]!

And if you’re open to sticking around, I’ll have other stuff that I will bring to this online world to help you.

To stay in the know you can get on my list. I will be emailing about once a week. Announcing current blog posts, links of interest and putting out videos of WordPress tips that I hope you will find interesting.

Any requests? Please comment below. 

Grazie!