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Should Businesses Maintain Their WordPress Website or Outsource It?

September 16, 2021 by Melody Young

This article will explore the pros and cons of maintaining a WordPress website within a company versus outsourcing it to a managed hosting service provider. For each solution pathway, we will explain how implementing it can fall short of its original vision in practice. We will also identify operational metrics for these shortcomings so that business leaders and managers can make an informed decision about which option is right for their business. The focus of this article is on small to medium-sized companies with 100-200 employees.

WordPress as a CMS

While WordPress started as a blogging platform, it has evolved into a sophisticated application that includes a content management system (CMS) and is the most popular CMS on the web. It is used by small and big corporations alike to set up simple and complex websites and applications. The reasons that make it such a popular CMS are, at least, two-fold:

1. It is free: Setting up a CMS using any programing language is a significant and relatively expensive undertaking. WordPress provides a quality all-in-one CMS without costing much if anything at all.

2. It is open source: This means that any programmer can modify the code on WordPress to suit their needs. It already has tens of thousands of contributors who have created nearly 60,000 plugins to enhance the functionality of websites and allow for more customization. With WordPress, almost any website can be built, from a small blog to an entire online store.

In-House Web Maintenance

For most businesses, in-house maintenance of a WordPress website is about having an individual or a team of experts manage all technical aspects of the site. It includes installing new updates, monitoring potential security breaches, and performing backups of the site. Some businesses choose to have their independent servers as well. To be successful with this strategy, it is considered imperative for an in-house team to receive regular training and updates to be aware of the latest trends and developments.

The Pros:

There are, at least, two significant benefits for business owners to maintain their website via an internal team:

Security and Privacy: Having an in-house team of experts provides companies with greater control over their data and can increase safety. Outsourcing the website management to a third party may make the company’s data vulnerable. It is primarily for this reason that sensitive government agencies choose to maintain their own technical staff and servers.

Timely Responses: When a company needs more functionality or features added to their site, they can do so at any time without waiting days or weeks. Their staff is always available to do the work for them. They are hired for that. In business, time is money, and this can be a real-time saver.

The Cons:

Security, privacy, and responsiveness are, of course, a must for any business to stay competitive in today’s world. In reality, however, achieving those goals for a company website is far from guaranteed, even with an internal team of experts. The following are the most common downsides of self-maintenance.  

Cost: Adding new features, upgrading, and maintaining a website are often more expensive with an in-house team, who must be trained and educated on the latest trends. Not to mention that hiring IT experts is costly as they are in high demand. To keep a company’s website up to date, additional purchases often need to be made, such as security plugins, raising the cost for businesses.

Security: Outdated security systems are a major concern, as they are easier for hackers to infiltrate. It can be challenging to stay current with all changes in WordPress alone, let alone every plugin a business website relies upon. A small business may require more people than it could afford to handle those tasks, raising the potential for a security dilemma: the more people have clearance to work on a website, the greater the risk of an insider threat.

Support: There are many different ways for small businesses to be let down by their in-house team. If there is an error or one plugin is not functioning as expected, it can take days for a developer to find a solution. If the site goes down completely, then it could be weeks before anything is solved. This time-consuming and challenging task may require more than an average IT expert to solve in a timely manner.

Time: In addition to costing more money, completing tasks can take longer within a company because of limited resources. A small team of web developers can be easily overloaded with too many tasks.

Outsourcing Web Maintenance

Outsourcing WordPress maintenance happens when a website owner pays a managed hosting service provider to maintain all the technical aspects of their WordPress website, such as installing updates, daily backups, and security monitoring. Business owners usually outsource WordPress maintenance because they want to focus on their core competencies instead of managing their website’s technical aspects. Like in-house WordPress maintenance, outsourcing has its own set of advantages and disadvantages.

The Pros:

Since not all managed hosting providers are the same, there is no way that the following advantages can apply to all of them. These benefits are what companies with successful experiences have reported about their managed hosting providers:

Cost-Effectiveness: Outsourcing WordPress maintenance is often less costly than developing the expertise internally. With this approach, businesses save money on hiring and training competent IT staff for the job.

Ease of Implementation: Companies often find that outsourcing managed WordPress maintenance is more efficient than managing the process in-house, as they can pass the task off onto professionals with years of experience. After all, why reinvent the wheel?

Schedule Flexibility: One advantage of outsourcing WordPress maintenance is working with a service provider that can adjust their schedule around the company’s needs.

Time to Result: Outsourcing managed WordPress maintenance can save time in several ways, including less waiting for software updates and more quickly spotting vulnerabilities that arise. In both cases, the service providers have already been dealing with these issues on their platforms for years, while most companies are still learning how to address them internally. This often results in less downtime.

Adaptability: Companies that outsource WordPress maintenance can also benefit from an agile service provider that adjusts and reacts as needs arise, usually without much bureaucracy in getting it done.

The Cons:

The flip side of the two advantages of in-house WordPress maintenance is widely regarded as the drawbacks of outsourcing WordPress maintenance:

• Security and Privacy: In-house WordPress maintenance can be done on a more secure and private network which, at least in theory, guarantees that the site is secured. With maintenance outsourced to a third party, company security measures may no longer protect their online data.

• Timely Responses: This can be a problem with some managed WordPress hosting providers. They may not always be responsive in a timely manner, which can significantly affect a business website’s uptime.

Reality Dictates

All the pros and cons of each solution need to be supported by real-life situations for a business owner, marketing, or IT director (or other stakeholders) to use when deciding on an option. Though some of the pros and cons discussed above are reported real-life situations from customers, they cannot necessarily be applied to every company.

Reality can turn an advantage into a disadvantage depending on the situation. For example, a company that goes with the in-house maintenance solution may find itself in trouble if its top talent leaves or becomes sick. In that case, they may have to resort back to a third party. The same can be applied to outsourcing: if an external service provider does not respond promptly, the business owner may be forced to find another solution.

Conclusion

Many factors contribute when determining the best solution for maintaining a company’s online presence: cost, staff size, skillsets available within the organization, time needed to focus on other priorities like product development or marketing campaigns. In this article, we discussed some pros and cons as well as operational metrics concerning each option: maintaining a WordPress website by a managed hosting service provider (Outsource) VS doing it within the company (In-House).

While it is ultimately up to a business owner to decide what is best for their company, outsourcing WordPress maintenance to a third party is almost always more cost-effective for small and medium-sized businesses. Though this option can have some disadvantages, its benefits appear to outweigh the drawbacks. One could argue that a company’s time and resources can be better used to develop new products, generating revenue, rather than maintaining their website’s technical aspects.

ENDNOTES:


[1] Saltis, Sam. May 28, 2021. Using WordPress as an Enterprise CMS: 9 Things You Should Know.

[2] Schäferhoff, Nick. December 30, 2019, 25 Famous WordPress Websites That You’ll Definitely Recognize.

[3] Nagar, Tarun. December 18, 2019. What is the Average Cost of Developing a Custom CMS?

[4] Cordoni, Ryan. March 11, 2020. WordPress Plugins: Does Your Site Have Too Many?

[5] Schäferhoff, Nick. December 30, 2019, 25 Famous WordPress Websites That You’ll Definitely Recognize.

[6] Verma, Chetena. Hiring In-house WordPress Developer Vs Outsourcing complete WordPress Development to an Agency: Which is the Best Bet?

[7] John. March 23, 2013: WordPress Developer: In-house Vs. Outsource.

[8] WordSuccor. April 28, 2017.

[9] White, Sarah K. December 31, 2020. The 10 Most In-Demand Tech Jobs For 2021 — And How to Hire For Them.

[10] Coppinger, E., 2017. Maintaining a WordPress site for long-term security. Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing, 5(3), pp.291-302.

[11] Kmirco. Date: Unavailable. In-House Vs Outsourcing IT: How to Make the Right Choice for Your Business

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Why Businesses Must Keep Their WordPress Websites Up to Date

August 18, 2021 by Melody Young

WordPress is no longer just a platform for bloggers but a fully functioning content management system (CMS). The free-to-use CMS powers more than one-third of all websites worldwide. Major corporations such as Etsy, BBC America, PlayStation, The Walt Disney Company are all operating on the WordPress platform.

WordPress is open-source software, meaning that it can be modified and expanded upon by any skilled programmer. As a completely customizable CMS, whether through theme or plugin customization, WordPress upgrades and publishes point releases every few months to address security vulnerabilities or bugs.

Those updates pose a significant challenge for businesses whose websites are dependent on WordPress as they need to maintain their website up to date. It is imperative for businesses with at least 100 employees to update their WordPress sites, not just for security reasons but also to maintain a competitive edge in an increasingly competitive marketplace. A fast and responsive website is not just a nice-to-have anymore; it is an expected feature that all businesses need in order to achieve higher customer satisfaction and, in turn, increased sales and conversions. Updating a WordPress site can also help improve search engine optimization (SEO) and, in turn, increase organic traffic to web pages.

What is a WordPress Site Update?

It is a process of updating a WordPress-based website without losing any data or content, by backing up its content on an external storage device, such as a hard drive, before upgrading. Updating a WordPress site may include installing the latest versions of the system’s programming language (PHP), the system’s core files, plugins, and themes. Developers provide new updates for at least three major reasons: fixing bugs, security issues, and making the site more user-friendly.

Critical Reasons for Updating a Business Website

Experts have identified the following reasons for businesses with at least 100 employees to keep their WordPress sites up to date:

INCREASED SECURITY: The latest updates often fix vulnerabilities that hackers try to use against businesses. Research has shown that websites running outdated software are more likely to get hacked than their up-to-date counterparts. In 2020, hackers managed to compromise thousands of WordPress-powered websites because of a vulnerability in a plugin called File Manager. To avoid that vulnerability, users had to update their plugins to the latest version.

INCREASED SPEED: Updating WordPress’s programing language (PHP) is necessary to maintain a website’s optimal speed. By updating their WordPress site with newer PHP versions, business owners can make their website faster, which results in higher SEO Ranking and better user experience.

COMPATIBILITY: There is compatibility on both the backend and the front end of a WordPress website. Backend compatibility is about ensuring that all plugins and themes work seamlessly together. The front-end part provides a better user experience on the website since updates are sometimes necessary to optimize a website to run on different browsers such as Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. Chrome is the world’s most popular browser used by nearly 64% of internet users.  

LEGAL COMPLIANCE: Ever since the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law came into effect in 2018, website owners in Europe and beyond have been given a whole new set of new responsibilities. At the heart of them is the need to comply with controls over personal data. By keeping their WordPress website up to date, business owners ensure they are GDPR compliant and their customers’ data protected.

A SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE: If one plugin or theme breaks on a website, it can lead to the system crashing completely. Keeping WordPress updated will help prevent this undesirable outcome because there is a new and quick fix every time a problem arises.

NEW FEATURES: By keeping a WordPress website up-to-date, companies and organizations ensure their websites will have new features that often enhance design and functionality. For example, WordPress 5.0 introduced the block editor, and WordPress 5.3 included accessibility, UI, and block improvements.

The Solution Pathways

Now that the importance of keeping a WordPress website up-to-date has been explained, it is time to examine the different paths a business can take to achieve that goal. WordPress experts have identified the following five solution pathways:

Pathway One: Internal WordPress Experts:

Some businesses maintain an in-house team of experts to handle all security patches and updates. This solution is often more expensive and time-intensive, but it does allow business owners to control all aspects of their website from within. Large corporations and sensitive government agencies usually opt for this option because they can afford it and want to avoid potential security risks associated with outside vendors.

Pathway Two: Using Auto-Updates:

With the release of WordPress 5.5 in August 2020, the CMS provided a new feature designed to automatically update all plugins and themes. The addition was initially welcomed with enthusiasm by both WordPress users and developers since it provided hope that the tedious task of manually updating individual WordPress plugins would be eliminated. However, that did not exactly happen, and experts now warn against using the feature altogether after it led to many websites breaking down due to conflicting updates and/or incompatibility issues. Others remain supportive of the new feature, considering the trade-offs worth it.

Pathway Three: Use Plugins:

This solution pathway is similar to the previous one, but this one depends on a plugin such as WP Engine Smart Plugin Manager.  The plugin is designed to automatically update all the plugins on a WordPress site. What makes this solution preferable to WordPress’s auto-update feature is that it creates a backup of the site before attempting to update the plugins on a test version of it, lowering the risk of fatal errors. If the testing fails, then the update will usually abort. However, if everything goes as expected, it will update the live site’s plugins. The problem identified with this solution for business owners is that it can take a while for the backup to finish, and when it fails to update the site, which happens often, an expert is needed to manually begin the process.

Pathway Four: Hiring Freelancers:

Some businesses are hiring freelancers to maintain their website. The main advantage of this solution pathway is that it is relatively easy to find WordPress experts on platforms such as Fiverr and Upwork for a low price. This solution might be ideal for small personal websites, but when it comes to businesses, there are a couple of disadvantages that they need to be aware of:

1) Relying on an outsider who may not be as knowledgeable about the website’s specific needs and plugins.

2) Security is always a concern when it comes to freelancers since they are given unfettered access to the site’s backend and all the settings that go along with it.

Pathway Five: Hiring a WordPress Managed Hosting Service:

The last method to keeping a company’s WordPress website up to date is by hiring a managed hosting service, which is an outsourced, offsite company that will take over the day-to-day management of the website – updating WordPress when a new version is released and maintaining security patches. This option is widely considered the most secure and reliable because:

1) The website will be managed by established IT companies with reputations at stake.

2) They have the capacity to back up large amounts of data and can usually handle any type of website.

3) They manually maintain their servers instead of relying on automated security measures to protect the website.

4) Instead of shared hosting services, which are often quickly overwhelmed when there are too many websites on one server, some managed hosting service providers offer dedicated cloud-based hosting solutions, which scale to accommodate the growing needs of a business website.

In conclusion, to stay competitive, businesses with at least 100 employees must not overlook the importance of keeping their WordPress website up to date. In addition to protecting the website from potential hackers, keeping a website up to date allows them to scale with the needs of a growing business, leading to improved SEO, potentially higher conversion rates, and keeping in line with the latest website design trends. This article offered business owners five solution pathways to keep their WordPress website up to date. They included having IT experts within their company, leveraging WordPress’s Auto-Update feature, using auto-updating plugins, hiring a freelancer or a managed hosting service provider. The decision to keep WordPress updated will ultimately come down to business owners balancing the costs and benefits of upgrading their website.

ENDNOTES


[i] Valk, Joost D. March 15, 2019, One-Third Of The Web

[ii] Schäferhoff, Nick. December 30, 2019, 25 Famous WordPress Websites That You’ll Definitely Recognize

[iii ]Smith, Melissa.  June 12, 2020, Website security: What updates should you be making to your WordPress site — and how often?

[iv] Duò, Matteo. April 21, 2021, WordPress SEO: 58 Tips to Grow Organic Traffic by More Than 123% in 12 Months

[v] Coppinger, E., 2017. Maintaining a WordPress site for long-term security. Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing, 5(3), pp.291-302.

[vi] Goodin, Dan. September 3, 2020. A Critical Flaw Is Affecting Thousands of WordPress Sites.

[vii] J, Nick. December 18, 2020. Why is it Important to Keep Your PHP Version Updated?

[viii] Stat Counter: May 2020 – May 2021. Browser Market Share Worldwide.

[ix] Satariano, Adam. May 24, 2018. G.D.P.R., a New Privacy Law, Makes Europe World’s Leading Tech Watchdog

[x] Editorial Staff. December 3, 2020. Why You Should Always Use the Latest Version of WordPress.

[xi] Malware News. WordPress Auto-Updates: What do you have to lose?

[xii] Martella, Jacob. August 4, 2020. Why you shouldn’t use the new WordPress auto updates feature.

[xiii] Karkovack, Eric. Aug 24, 2020. Should You Use WordPress Auto Updates?

[xiv] WP Engine. June 1, 2021. Smart Plugin Manager.

[xv] Ionescu, Sabina. APRIL 12, 2021.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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