More about us and WordPress Management
We are a specialist engineering, IT, and security business based on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia.
We have over 23 years experience in providing specialist application development, server support, WordPress support and development, and IT consulting. We have been providing these services to hosting companies and web developers and decided that there are many businesses that could benefit from our expertise within the WordPress niche. Many of these businesses are reliant on web sites developed by designers that have since moved on, or sites developed internally and are now exposed to the army of hackers relentlessly searching for WordPress sites with known vulnerabilities due to lack of diligence. Sounds dramatic? It is far easier to protect a site and its reputation through diligence rather than restore a site at great expense of time and loss of rankings / reputation.
Many businesses entrust their web site design, hosting, and support to the original designer. While many designers have staff with the required skills, the focus is on design including regular site redesigns. Existing clients are low hanging fruit and can expect to be approached regularly for a redesign. We are an IT company and will NEVER pressure you for a redesign. If you want to escape the design sales cycle and have your site care performed by experts who care more about security than a useful plugin or theme, please contact us to discuss your site.
We have recently added Digital Marketing as a service offering to our clients. We added this service as a counter to the relentless spam we receive from digital marketers offering jargon full spam filled emails and phone calls. Our promise to you is that we will work with you to understand your business and offer you full transparency in management of your digital marketing. Our engagement can be as little as an obligation free discussion to an SEO technical audit, analytics integration, or full marketing campaign. We will never spam you or cold call without an invitation first.
We also offer Google Analytics 4 setup and configuration and also migration from Google Analytics to GA4 for existing GA accounts. This service is offered as stand alone and charged based on time. Ecommerce sites are generally more work than blogs or web sites and therefore are quoted based on time required. We also include GA4 setup and integration with SEO or digital marketing to ensure that we can measure changes in performance and report to you.
Please note that we are not in any way related to managewp.com who provide a platform for self management of WordPress sites. We are the Australian holder of the trademark Manage WP® and have the legal right to use the ® mark after the name.
Please contact us to find out what we can do for your site and business.
Why Do I Need WordPress Management?
Your WordPress site may be working perfectly one day and falling apart the next. The reasons for this are based on history and the open nature of the platform.
WordPress is a simple free open platform initially developed to build blogs and has evolved into an open source web site builder platform. In practice many independent WordPress programmers design new functionality as Themes, Plugins, and extensions and openly share their code online. The result is a fast evolving multi-function system – fantastic for businesses wanting a new web site fast – but also a victim of its own success.
While WordPress is a boon to business, allowing fast development, real-time content changes, and a simple interface for anyone who can use a word processing program, the two biggest fundamental challenges are Security and Updates. This is due to the ripple on effect of updates to WordPress core then requiring themes and plugins to follow suit for compatibility. Some developers choose to abandon their plugins and themes rather than fix problems which then causes issues with updates to the WordPress core. Many web sites out there are no longer updated due to these very issues and hackers test for exploits in old versions so that they can turn your website into a tool to carry out their plans.
Wordpress Security
Since all of your websites code is available online, it is also easy for hackers to find security holes in your system. Moreover, every programmer having engaged in prior usage of this code can intentionally plant malicious code into the plugins, themes and updates. For example, you may have a plugin installed that allows you to easily send out newsletters. What can happen however without your knowledge is that your mailing list is exposed and exploited by hackers.
Security is not just about the Wordpress platform, it is also about server exploits that allow hackers to access your online file system or query your database.
For business, safeguarding your data from your competitors and criminal organisations is mandatory and the consequences may be fatal for your business and reputation. These types of attacks are not often visible and therefore not detected until way after the damage is done. In simple cases it may just be that hackers are spamming from your site, in others you may be inadvertently distributing malware, illegal software, or spreading viruses. At very least Google will black ban your site without you even knowing why.
Most businesses are concerned with hacks where the web site is defaced. This type of attack is embarrassing and inconvenient (especially if the site is not backed up) but is low on the scale of damage committed to your business. This type of damage is visible and quickly repaired.
Securing your site is an ongoing exercise to keep ahead of the hackers. Ensuring your hosting provider is secure, updating WordPress core, plugins, and themes, replacing plugins or themes that have been abandoned, locking down email, regular security scans to check files have not been altered or contain exploits, and sharing resources with similarly secured sites are all necessary steps to protect your site.
WordPress Updates
Updating your WordPress core, plugins, and themes when updates are released is critical to ensure the website is not only looking and functioning correctly but the security of you and your customers information is safe. The majority of WordPress sites include plugins and themes from a large array of developers. Each of these has to be compatible with the WordPress version in use and any other interacting plugins / themes. Where these have not been updated, they need to be replaced by a similar secure plugin or theme.
Many site owners become overwhelmed with the sheer volume of updates and subsequent issues and defer updates indefinitely (until the site is hacked or falls over). The downside of this strategy is that your site may become blacklisted which also causes other sites on the same server to suffer the same fate.
Manage WP® Australia will secure your WordPress site and ensure the security of you and your customers information while keeping the online face of your business up to date and working perfectly.