There are some exciting changes in store for websites on Professional Web Solutions hosting!

 

Here at Professional Web Solutions, our highest priority is ensuring our customers receive the best quality service when it comes to their website. We’re excited to announce that we’re upgrading our business structure in big ways, which are sure to be extremely valuable to many busy website owners.

 

What We’re Changing, and Why

 

As technology moves forward, so must business. Specifically, the PWS servers are receiving an upgrade to allow us to provide better quality website hosting. The new servers will increase the performance of site loading times, as well as prevent downtime becoming as issue. If the servers were left the way they were, before long nearly every site would experience downtime and therefore, for most clients, lost revenue; having them upgraded is the next logical step in our business’s progression.

 

The Risk of Being Online

Of course, as technology moves forward, so too does the amount of cyber crime happening. Over time there have only ever been an increase in malware injections and spam email intrusions. Here’s some stats to break down just how much of an issue security is:

  • 46% of WordPress sites have malware
  • 87% of websites have mid-level weaknesses
  • 98% of WordPress vulnerabilities are related to insecure plugins
  • One attack is made every 39 seconds across the web
  • The average website is attacked 44 times per day
  • There are at least 18.5 million sites infected with malware at any given time

Pretty scary stuff, huh? According to studies into the types of hacks going on every day, the most vulnerable sites belong to small businesses, not only due to their low security but also because there are just so many out there.

 

Security: Could You Do It?

One simple way of giving your website the best chance of fending off malware is keeping up to date with core and plugin updates. While preparing the server upgrade we found a disturbing fact- of the sites we host, around 96% of them were not being updated regularly. Updating a website as often as possible is imperative, as the updates contain vital security patches as well as maintain general performance. As the updates weren’t being applied, we have found a large number of sites infested with malware and viruses, putting not only their data but their client’s data at risk.
As well as this, many sites were running on an unsupported version of PHP. PHP is a coding language first created in 1995 and is the basis for many Content Management Systems, including WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. Any version before 7.1 is no longer receiving security updates- we found 40% of the site on our hosting were running on PHP 5.6, which stopped being supported December 2018.
Websites are a significant investment to a business, and usually have the important function of generating revenue along with increasing your brand recognition. When you spend that much on something designed to make you money, isn’t it worth looking after it?

 

Looking After Your Investment

Let’s say you buy a brand new car for $39,990. You don’t drive it once or twice and put it in the garage to rust, or ignore the engine light until the oil it came with is a distant memory- you look after it. Not only with fuel and the occasional tire pump- cars require servicing, oil changes and more ongoing costs we have the time to discuss. You’ve spent money on something to increase the quality of your lifestyle, and you want to get the most out of that you can.
In the exact same thought process, creating a website isn’t a once-off payment that generates income passively. You’ve spent money on something to increase the quality of your business, so sitting back when it comes to maintenance and security is the equivalent of watching the rust slowly creep along your car’s body.
If you’re a website owner, and you’re not keeping up to date, there’s probably a very good reason- you just don’t have the time. Maintaining a website is hard work, and without a certain degree of knowledge on the topic it’s easy to mess things up. Taking this weight off your shoulders is the main focus of this next step.
Our plan is to begin moving all our sites to the newest version (PHP 7.3) as soon as possible. In our mission to provide the best quality website maintenance service, we’ve not only upgraded our hosting servers with increased specs and greater performance, but rolled out an entirely new structure for hosting sites in the first place. Previously our business model was very delivery-oriented; we created an amazing site for you, the business owner, and you took it from there. The change we’re making to this model is something we’re very excited about, and we’re sure you will be too.

 

The Change: Care Plans

In light of these new (and quite shocking) statistics regarding the sites we host, we have decided to exclusively host clients on our brand-new Care Plans.
The basic premise of our Care Plans is this: on an ongoing basis, we provide not only the hosting, SSL and domain, but regular updates, increased security, content changes and many other valuable changes. Rather than having a site that sat and slowly accumulated pending updates, malware and dust (not to mention a low ROI), our clients will now have  a top-of-the-line site capable of increased revenue and better performance.
The Plans are split into three tiers: Sustain, Grow and Dominate. The size, type and complexity of your website will determine which plan is right for you.
It’s important to us that these Care Plans become the centre of the business model, to allow us to focus as much energy as possible on our most valued customers. We want our client base to comprise those individuals that truly care about their online presence, and see the value in a well-maintained website. 

“The secret of change is to focus all your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

– Socrates

Do You Know Your Website?

Let’s take a minute to go through some basic questions that a website owner should know the answers to. Do you check your plugin updates dashboard every day, in case a new one has been released? When a security patch is released for a plugin hackers specifically target sites without the update, as they now have a better idea of how to get in.Are you running the current version of WordPress? Multiple patches are released every month, and are usually security related.What’s your security system like, to protect you from malware and spam? If you’re not sure, chances are you don’t have one or it’s outdated, and your site already has malware.Do you take a backup of your site every night before bed, just in case it goes down tomorrow and you have no idea why? Especially if you’re not tech savvy enough to troubleshoot issues, being able to restore your site is very important. Is your site running fast enough to keep up with the traffic it receives? A slow site is as useful as a bad one- nobody’s buying your product or calling you for a quote when they can’t load your homepage.
If any of these questions have you confused or worried, chances are your site isn’t fending off its regular security threats as well as it could. If you’re a legacy client of PWS don’t worry- we’ve been backing up your site for you, in case you need to restore it. If that question made you wonder what would happen if you lost your site tomorrow, you should probably think about increasing the focus on your website.

Below you can find a link to download the Care Plan Information brochure, with a full list of what our plans include. We’re confident that you will see the value in having a reliable support service at your back, making sure your website is always secure, functional and live.