As one of the leading online marketing agencies based in the Golden State, we take pride in delivering innovative solutions for our clients. After all, as the saying goes – ‘California is for dreamers’ – and we work with some of the most creative minds in the country. However, even the most original of ideas won’t amount to much if it doesn’t appeal to the masses because of poor presentation. This is just one of the reasons we use WordPress when we custom build websites as it’s the most popular content management system (CMS) in the world, and for good reason.
What Makes WordPress so Special?
Originally released back in 2003 as an open source content management system which is still the case today, WordPress quickly rose to prominence in the online community. It’s ease of use, flexible platform, myriad of features and consistent adaptations helped it to quickly outgrow archaic competitors which is why there are now over 32 million installations worldwide and counting. It’s still considered the ‘go to’ platform for most small to large businesses and is used by the likes of Sony Music, MTV News, the New York Times, Mercedes and even bands like the Rolling Stones to name a few.
The main drawing card of WordPress is the professional flexibility to provide a business with custom online solutions to dominate the competition online. WordPress does this without any limitation whatsoever while maintaining the ability for the customer to edit their site along with many other effective features that result in a businesses success. The WordPress Vanta Studio advantage is that we only implement the finest, tested and premium plug-in’s (Add-on’s to WordPress to make it even better) to ensure that your website is as powerful as it is beautiful. Because our WordPress websites are packed with SEO friendly web development practices, it’s much easier for Google to crawl, websites are indexed almost immediately once they go live and are much more likely to rank higher in search results than your competitors. WordPress is also “future proof” which goes to say that it’s a technology that will last for years to come as updates are constantly rolling out to ensure your website is on top of the game due to its popularity.
So Why Use a Professional Service for WordPress Management?
With power comes responsibility. The truth is being that WordPress websites although powerful require professional management for them to work right. Vanta Studios create unique WordPress websites that perform like a supercar. However, those who own supercars (ones with amazingly successful WordPress sites of course), will know that if you don’t keep on top of maintenance or handle it incorrectly – the end result is going to be either costly or catastrophic. This isn’t an over-exaggeration. As updates roll out for your WordPress site and you go to update them, sometimes updates don’t work with other updated features and the result is a website crash. This is not a result of a poorly built website, this is the result of a powerful website with many features that need professional management when updating.
If Updating my Website Can Result in Issues, Why Update it At All?
Updates come out for many reasons. Firstly, is that of security. Much like your computer or phone, if you don’t update it, over time the ability to fight of hackers is more of a threat. This is even more important in reference to a website that is live and constantly working on your business’s behalf. If you don’t update every single high-end plug-in, theme and WordPress version immediately, your website will get hacked with time among other issues.
Secondly, updates are important to ensure your website is using the latest in web development. How your customers view your website from which devices to different web browsers change, so should your website change or update to keep up with technology. Thirdly, both Google and Anti Security take note of the non-updated WordPress websites resulting in a few very negative things. Learn more about our Los Angeles WordPress Web Design.
For example, we had a new client that was reporting that people could not pull up her website. We did some digging. Her WordPress version had not been updated in 6 months. As a result, Anti Security blacklisted her website because it’s common knowledge that a un-updated website can easily be hacked and endanger users viewing the website. Did she loose business? Surely.
Even worse, Google knows when websites are out of date, they view it the same way as anti-virus software, an out of date website will be hacked in only a matter of time, therefore Google does not want to endanger their users and is less likely to rank your website in search results.
What Does Google Think?
One of the primary reasons for the downfall of so many internet marketers and online businesses is the countless changes to Google’s algorithms (that and the easy mistake of becoming complacent). Sure, there are other search engines, but more than 90% of all searches come through the Silicon Valley giant. Since 2003 there have been more than 72 significant algorithm updates that have changed the way websites rank. We are constantly striving to stay ahead of the game to ensure our clients’ websites not only comply with the latest standards, but are bug free, attractive and easy to use on all devices. This is only possible with professional WordPress management.
Plugins and Other Reasons a Management Service will Benefit You
When discussing bugs, there will always come a time when the theme of a website or one of the many important plugins required to run it becomes incompatible. This can either be due to a new or out of date plugin or the roll out of a WordPress update that clashes for a reason that can be hard to diagnose. This happens surprisingly often considering there are more than 54,000 plugins available – many of which are vital for just a few of the following reasons:
- Security – The last thing you want is to be hacked, or to have important client or personal information stolen.
- Speed – Special caching and other relevant plugins increase the speed of your website to help it rank and perform better.
- SEO – Ever changing Google algorithms require the best search engine optimization plugins.
- Page Builders – Certain premium page builders are necessary to make your site look unique, but can turn the pages into gibberish if they clash with an update.
- Contact Forms and Live Chat – If your customers can’t reach you easily, they will very quickly go elsewhere.
As an added fact, more than 50% of visitors will leave a website or abandon a purchase if a site takes too long to load – in many cases this is if the page is not up within five seconds. If for any reason your website is completely down, it could take some time to troubleshoot the problem; all the while scaring away new customers and frustrating existing ones. Lack of updates on a website or worse, compromised security can result in poor load times and hurt your online reputation with Google and then more importantly your customers.
Is it Really Worth Doing it Yourself?
If you are serious about your business (we certainly are), you have to consider if the risk of going offline or losing customers is worth the relatively low cost of the professional management service we offer. It’s more than possible to do it yourself, but not only will you have the peace of mind of knowing your business is both hosted and managed by a dedicated company that has your back 24/7, you can focus on what you do best – building your business and improving your products and services. If you still want to try it for yourself, here is a guide on how to: how to maintain and or improve your website seo We of course highly recommend you go with professional WordPress management, either us or someone else. However, if you shop around, you will see we are the lowest price and have a strong reputation of helping business succeed. To learn more about our WordPress management service, contact us today by filling out our form and we’ll get back to you right away, or get in touch by calling (424) 259-3748.
Choose Vanta Studios and Thrive!
