Service 09 of 09
WordPress care & maintenance
Ongoing WordPress care for any site, from a small business brochure site to a busy store, membership site or publication: updates, security, speed and fixes, handled by one developer who already knows your site.
The Problem
Most WordPress sites carry more than they look: a store or booking system, contact and lead forms, memberships, newsletters, events. One plugin update or bot surge can take any of them down, and most businesses don't have a developer on staff.
Generic maintenance plans run updates and send a report. They don't trace why forms stopped submitting or why the events archive times out.
What I Do
I keep core, themes and plugins updated with a backup first, watch uptime and errors, and fix problems at the cause.
I also handle the work that comes up between updates: bot traffic, caching, form and email failures, security clean-ups, DNS and SSL, and small changes your team asks for.
Deliverables
- WordPress core, theme and plugin updates, each with a backup first.
- Uptime and error monitoring.
- Security hardening and reviews of who has admin access.
- Performance work: caching, CDN, database cleanup and Core Web Vitals.
- Fixes and small changes requested by your team.
- A monthly summary of what changed.
Related work
- Global Atlanta: Moved a 30-year-old international business publication off Newspack to a custom GeneratePress build, then stabilized its performance, data and security.
- Adriana Cowdin: Fixed failing subscription renewals and blocked cancellations for an author and coach's WooCommerce store, and built a custom abandoned cart recovery plugin.
- Heritage Hills: Membership, email and store work for the nonprofit that protects Oklahoma City's Heritage Hills historic district, plus an MCP server so AI tools can manage the site.
Questions
Do you look after small or simple sites too?
Yes. A five-page business site needs updates, backups and security as much as a large store does. The monthly scope is set by the site, so small sites aren't paying for work they don't need.
What's included each month?
Updates with backups, uptime and error monitoring, security and performance checks, and time for fixes and small changes. Bigger projects, such as a redesign or migration, are quoted separately.
How quickly will you respond?
Response times, including for urgent issues, are agreed in writing when we start, so you know what to expect before anything goes wrong.
Will you work with our current host?
Most likely. I've worked on Kinsta, SiteGround and GoDaddy Managed WordPress, often with Cloudflare in front.
Can you deal with bots and traffic spikes?
Yes. On Global Atlanta I traced page timeouts to bots crawling event archives and stopped them at Cloudflare, before they reached PHP.
How much does it cost?
A monthly fee, set by the size of your site and what runs on it. I quote it after a look at your setup.
Further reading
Get a quote
Every project is different, so pricing comes after I understand yours. Here's how it goes:
- Tell me what you need. Email me what you want built or what's broken. Links, screenshots and the platform you're on help. I reply to every enquiry within one business day.
- Get a scope and a quote. I reply with questions, then a written scope and a quote. Nothing starts until you agree to it.
- Review on staging. I build or fix on a staging copy, and you review before anything changes on your live site or app.
- Launch and handover. We go live together and you get handover notes. Any bug in work I delivered, reported within 30 days of launch, is fixed free. I can keep looking after it after that.
I reply to every enquiry within one business day. Any bug in work I delivered, reported within 30 days of launch, is fixed free.