Why you should keep in contact with your website creator
Ever had a toothache? Nothing major, just a niggle. Maybe only when you’re eating something cold? Did you ignore it, hoping it’d go away? Right itself if given enough time?
Or, did you book yourself in with your dentist for what turned out to be a relatively painless visit with a quick diagnosis of exposed dentin and easy treatment with sensitive toothpaste?
What if you had left it? And the pain got worse! When you finally did make your appointment with the dentist, your sore tooth has turned into an abscessed one, and you’re looking at an expensive and painful extraction.
Having and maintaining a website can be much the same. Although one hopes without the literal, physical pain. If there’s something about your site that’s irking you slightly or not quite working how you wanted – it’s usually better to get in touch with your web developer sooner rather than later.
Brush up on regular maintenance
In website – specific terms, it can be as small as ignoring the small “plugin updates” notification in your backend’s top right navigation bar. Your best defence against keeping this from creeping up is with the regular maintenance updates included in Mogul’s Service Level Agreement offering, brushing your website “teeth”, if you will.
If regular check-ups aren’t your thing, even a one-off maintenance update when that notification number creeps up into double digits or starts to trigger your obsessive compulsive tendencies can help. A one off check up allows us to update your plugins to their latest, and most secure versions as well as thoroughly checking to ensure that none of those updates have caused any unexpected issues elsewhere before handing your site back to you all the healthier for it.
The worst thing you could do is to ignore those update notification numbers ticking up in the hopes that they don’t matter or might take care of themselves. As Chris mentioned in his blog about the risks of hacking; over time plugins can be found to have vulnerabilities which can be exploited by the more nefarious among the web’s vast population to gain access to your site or your client’s personal information. Regularly updating your plugins is one of your most effective methods in preventing this from happening to you.
Occasionally, we will be alerted to a plugin’s vulnerable version and will pass this on to you with our recommendation that it’s time for an update. But by no means, are we alerted to all vulnerabilities. Much like your teeth, you should bring your site in for a regular check up – even if nothing’s hurting because proactive care can go a long way to preventing an expensive reactive response after the damage has already been done.
Even if it ain’t broke, you can still get it fixed
In the same way, as you shouldn’t have to put up with the irritation of nocturnal tooth grinding, even though it doesn’t affect your sleep and it only causes minor headaches – there’s an easy solution available if you check in with your dentist. Don’t put up with your website causing headaches either. The solution may be simpler than you think.
Perhaps there’s something about your website’s function that just grates you. It’s not technically broken, nothing’s wrong – there just has to be a better way!?
Does having to copy and paste your blog posts into a newsletter template to send out to your adoring readers get your goat? Surely there’s a faster way to do this? But you’ve not got the time, capacity or interest to look into a solution yourself? Why don’t you check in with your friendly neighbourhood website developer? Chances are, we’ve heard this complaint before and have a simple, speedy solution to offer you; “There’s a plugin for that!” even if we’ve not encountered your specific concern before, we have the expertise in our team to find the best solution for you.
There’s a plugin for that!
Come and say “Hi!”
At the end of the day, much like your dentist, the team at Mogul are humans! And we care about our clients. We’re on this journey together and if you just want to drop us an email to say “Hi!” or stop by the office for a cup of tea and a chinwag we’ll always be delighted to hear from you and to share with you our insights into the latest innovations on the digital scene.
No flossing required!
