Gym membership for your site

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“Help! I did something wrong and now my site has vanished, like into thin air.”
We have often received panic calls or skype calls from a past client, panic easily heard in their voice, declaring the above. We then have to assure them that all is not lost (unless they really managed to do the near impossible and totally annihilate their site – this is not common though and managing this deserves a not so cheerful high five for this feat) and we can undo what they mistakenly managed to do.
There are various factors that can contribute towards a site “vanishing” some are that they tried to upgrade a plugin incorrectly, didn’t do a little housekeeping in the backend, didn’t backup their site and maybe even tried to incorporate a new plugin that was detrimental to their wordpress version.
When I first entered the world of website development I was mature (30ish), newly divorced and thinking that I would never catch on – it all seemed so foreign, difficult and my brain had been in mommy mode for so long and hadn’t been exercised properly for what seemed ages. After I had acquired some new skills I was keen to exercise them with abandon. I was warned though that having a little knowledge was sometimes more harmful than having none – you got yourself a little too much confidence and get thinking you could “just fiddle a bit and see what happens.”
What happens is that you totally exterminate a website of a new client that had been entrusted to you and your newly found enthusiasm and skill set. What happened was that I had just discovered free plugins and I was not about to let this discovery go unutilised. I used those babies to their fullest and whilst doing this uploaded a “bad boy” that made my site vanish.

“Um, Don, I may have made a teeny tiny oopsie, you think you could scoot on over here and undo it please?” Ok maybe I didn’t word it quite that calmly and instead involved sweating buckets, tears in my eyes and all colour had disappeared from my face but that’s semantics and not important.
The result was that I learned that you can’t just go uploading freely, it does involve holding back a bit and just because it’s free it doesn’t mean it has to be used. Knowing a little bit of something means holding back too – there is a reason it takes time to become skilled in your chosen field and practicing restraint is pretty important.

As with using restraint with plugins and cleaning the backend of your site regularly also comes the knowledge that nothing created can be expected to last forever without regular attention and maintenance. We try to impart this to our clients in the hope they realise that even though we offer them a lovely, efficient site at project completion, maintaining this site is vital to keep it lovely and efficient. You wouldn’t expect anything else from life without this mind-set – why then your site?

WPZA offers our clients just that – keeping your site lovely, efficient and healthy.

Like a gym membership that you pay monthly to maintain your body and keep it strong, healthy and looking good, so does WPZA – a gym membership for your site.

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