For some people, setting up a website or a blog can be another time sucking chore that they should do, but don’t really want to spend the time to do it. For other people it can be something they don’t know how to do and don’t want to learn.
And once it’s installed the work isn’t over. Not only do you have to put fresh content on it, you have to keep the blog software, plugins, and themes up to date as well.
Keeping your blog up-to-date is work
Keeping it updated can be another, easily forgotten or put off chore. I don’t mean with content, I mean the blogging software, plugins and the theme. WordPress itself is continually being updated and so are the plugins and themes as well. They are constantly adding and/or fixing features, patching security holes, improving the way things work or making the interface easier and more intuitive… well we hope the interface is easier anyway. 😉
And if you aren’t making regular backups and your blog crashes, then all your hard work has been thrown out the window if your backup is old, you might have lost several important changes, or worse you have to reinstall it and start over because you didn’t make a backup like you should have.
Three ways you can deal with these issues
- You can ignore them
- You can do it yourself
- You can have someone else do it
Let’s look at these options a little closer.
You can ignore them
A common tactic. You can keep putting off installing a blog, of course you’re missing out on the advantages of having a blog, but you can just not do it. And once you have a blog you certainly can just ignore the little number that tells you how many updates are available.
This is of course the worst thing you can do. Sure your blog will cruise along… for awhile. You’ll be missing out on bug fixes however. I’ve had sites crash or stop working because the right set of conditions triggered a bug. Updating your blog is the only way to keep that from happening.
The other part of that is eventually your blog will be so out of date that it becomes vulnerable to being hacked in ways that other blogs, updated blogs, are not.
You can do it yourself
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing it yourself. A lot of people do that. I’ve installed and set up quite a few blogs over the years, for myself and for others. It’s not difficult if you know what you’re doing, and you can certainly learn how, but if you are technology-challenged it can be a very frustrating experience.
Once it’s set up, of course you have the potential issues of forgetting to do the updates and backups, or not really knowing how and risking crashing your blog. It’s not uncommon for someone to just do an update and forget to make a backup first.
Ever have a blog crash because you updated it? I have. It’s not fun. It can crash for a variety of reasons ranging from the update was buggy to you just didn’t have enough room on your site. If you didn’t make the backup first then you have to restore it from an older, potentially out-of-date backup and lose everything you’ve done since you made that backup.
And if you didn’t have a backup at all, then you start over. From scratch. It’s been disheartening enough to drive some people out of blogging. Having all your hard work flushed down the drain can be heart wrenching.
All these issues are easily overcome, you just have to do it properly. But if you don’t know how, keep forgetting to do it, or don’t want to do it, then what’s a person to do?
You can have someone else do it
If you’re busy, don’t know how, or just plain don’t want to do it, you can hire someone who knows how to take care of it for you.
Like who? Me. I install blogs and I get them set up and I update them. I have my own sites plus a few other people’s sites that I installed and maintain for them. I make sure there’s regular backups, that their WordPress software is current and I update the themes and plugins as well.
What you get
I will install your blog with the 5 basic pages that every blog should have: an about page, a contact page, a privacy policy, a disclaimer page, and a disclosure page. All you need to provide is the content. I also have a handful of free plugins I’ll install that I consider to be “standard” for most WordPress blogs. If you need the domain name and hosting I can arrange that too.
If you already have a theme I can set it up, otherwise you can use one of the free themes that comes with WordPress or one of the free themes at WordPress.org
If you already have a blog, I offer a maintenance service where I perform regular backups and updates for your blog.
The details and pricing can be found on my WordPress Installation Services page.