Website Maintenance

Website maintenance for Richmond, BC businesses

Software updates, backups, security and timely content changes for Richmond business websites, so the site still works, and still tells the truth, after the next plugin release or the next storm.

  • WordPress updates
  • Off-site backups
  • Security
  • Urgent notices
  • Form checks
A website health dashboard on a laptop at night, with a backup drive beside it

A website should change as fast as your business does

Richmond businesses adjust their hours and offers more often than most owners notice. A Steveston seafood seller may put spot prawns on the front page each May and take them off again by July. A business near the night market keeps long evenings from late April through September, then winds down. A roofer’s phone gets busier when the autumn rain returns. Each change belongs on the website as well as the Google listing, and a site that lags behind tells customers nobody is paying attention.

Then come the notices that cannot wait. Richmond sits about a metre above sea level behind its dykes, and a flood warning, a storm or a power cut can close a shop or move appointments at short notice. When that happens, many customers check your website first. A clear banner posted promptly is a courtesy they remember.

Underneath, the software needs its own care. A WordPress site combines a core system, a theme and a set of plugins from different authors, each updated on its own schedule. Leave them for a season and something eventually breaks: a booking widget that fails on phones, or a form that reports “sent” while the messages disappear. Maintenance catches both kinds of drift before they cost you inquiries.

  • 1 m average elevation above sea level, behind dykes
  • Apr–Sept Richmond Night Market season
  • May–Jun usual spot prawn season in Steveston
Illustration of a shield next to a checklist and a small graph of site uptime

Search demand

Searches made once something has broken

Website upkeep has no Richmond-specific suggestions, so most of these are general Google searches, plus one seasonal local search that shows why content needs regular attention.

Search term Intent Why it matters
wordpress maintenance High An owner ready to hand the routine to someone else.
website maintenance cost Research Planning upkeep as a regular line in the budget.
wordpress contact form not sending email Urgent Inquiries have been vanishing, possibly for weeks.
wordpress site hacked Urgent Strange pages, odd redirects or a warning from Google.
ssl certificate expired Urgent Visitors meet a security warning instead of your home page.
wordpress plugin update broke site Urgent An automatic update has left a page blank or broken.
richmond night market hours Medium Asked again every spring; nearby businesses need their own hours current too.

Prevention costs less than repair

Almost every search in that list is typed after the damage is done, when the repair bill lands on top of the weeks of lost inquiries. Regular upkeep moves the cost earlier, where it is smaller and predictable. For Richmond sites we add a quick-notice routine: when weather, a flood warning or an outage changes your plans, tell us and a clear message goes up on the site as soon as we can manage it.

Silent problems

Five faults worth checking for on a Richmond business site

Any of these can run for months while the site looks perfectly normal.

  1. 01

    Old hours and expired offers

    Last season’s menu, a promotion that ended months ago, holiday hours still showing in March. Visitors read it as a sign the business may have closed, and they go elsewhere.

  2. 02

    A form whose messages never arrive

    The page confirms every submission, but the email is caught as spam or rejected by your mail server. Sending through a proper mail service and testing monthly closes the gap.

  3. 03

    A language switch leading nowhere

    On multilingual sites, an update or a renamed page can leave the link to the Chinese or Korean version pointing at a missing page. English readers never notice; everyone else lands on an error.

  4. 04

    Nobody knows who holds the domain

    The person who built the site has moved on, the hosting login is lost and the domain renews to an inbox no one reads. We trace each account and move it into your name.

  5. 05

    Spam injected through an old plugin

    An outdated plugin lets someone add hidden pages or links that Google sees and visitors do not. Rankings slip, and nothing looks wrong from the front of the site.

Layers that need care

Four parts of a site, each with its own rhythm

They update independently and fail in different ways, so each one gets a separate routine.

01

WordPress core

Security fixes applied quickly

Security releases go on shortly after they appear. Major versions wait until the plugins you rely on support them.

02

Theme and plugins

Backed up before every update

The source of most breakages and most break-ins. Plugins you no longer use are removed entirely, not just switched off and forgotten.

03

Server software

Upgraded with your agreement

The PHP version your host runs ages too. Old versions are slower, lose security support, and eventually get upgraded by the host on its own timetable if nobody plans ahead.

04

Domain, DNS and certificate

Renewals tracked

Rarely touched, but when one lapses your website and email can go dark together. We record who owns each, in which account, and when it renews.

The work

What upkeep includes

01

Updates with a safety net

Core, theme and plugins updated on a regular schedule, with a fresh backup first and the key pages checked on a phone afterwards.

02

Backups kept elsewhere

Copies of your files and database stored away from your host, with occasional test restores to prove they work.

03

Security basics

Malware scanning, login protection, stale user accounts removed, and urgent patches applied when a plugin flaw is published.

04

Uptime alerts

An automated check visits your home page every few minutes and alerts a real person if it fails.

05

Monthly form and booking tests

Every form and booking tool tried with a dummy inquiry each month, checking that it actually lands with you.

06

Content changes on request

New hours, seasonal products, a closure notice, a staff change: send it over and it goes live, in each language version you supply.

Done carefully

Who holds the keys

Rules we keep for every client, written down so you can hold us to them.

How we work
Your hosting, your domain and your administrator login stay in your hands. We use our own account, which you can remove at any time.

Looking after a site never requires you to give up ownership of it. Routine upkeep is included in our monthly plans. A site that is badly out of date, or has already been hacked, needs a one-time catch-up first, quoted before any work begins.

Your access
Always kept
Backups
Held away from your host
Extra work
Quoted first
Ask us about your business
A laptop and a notebook on a desk beside a window streaked with rain
  • No locking you out by resetting your passwords.
  • No updates run without a backup in place.
  • No bill for anything you never agreed to.
  • No pirated “premium” plugins, a common way in for malware.

How we work

How we work, step by step

Four steps that take a Richmond business from hard to find to first in line.

  1. 01

    Find the gaps

    We review your website and Business Profile and check where you rank from several parts of Richmond.

  2. 02

    Pick the targets

    We choose the searches worth winning and give each one a single, focused page.

  3. 03

    Make the changes

    Profile, site, content and listing improvements, starting with whatever will move results most.

  4. 04

    Measure and adjust

    A plain monthly report on calls, messages and rankings, and the plan for the month ahead.

Questions

Website maintenance questions from Richmond owners

What does maintenance cost?

Routine upkeep is included in our monthly plans, Starter $300, Growth $500 and Pro $700, all in Canadian dollars and with no long-term contract. A neglected or hacked site needs a one-time catch-up, quoted after we have looked at it.

Can you post an urgent closure notice for us?

Yes. Send us the details and we put a clear notice on the site as soon as we can, and remind you to update your Google listing too. When you reopen, the notice comes down.

We have English and Chinese versions of our site. Do you look after both?

Yes. Updates, backups and link checks cover every language version. Text changes in a language other than English are placed exactly as your team or translator supplies them.

Someone else built our site and has since moved on. Can you look after it?

In most cases. The first step is an inventory: which platform and plugins it uses, whose accounts hold the domain and hosting, and what is unsafe or out of date. From that we agree a plan and a price for any catch-up.

We think the site was hacked. What happens next?

Treat it as a one-time repair. We find and remove the injected code, close the weakness that let it in, restore clean files from a backup where possible and, if Google has flagged the site, request a review once it is clean.

Do your plans include hosting?

No. Hosting is billed to you directly by the provider and stays in your name, which keeps you in control. We are happy to suggest a dependable host and handle the technical side with you.

Further reading

From the blog

Further reading on this subject for Richmond business owners.

Related services

Each one stands alone, and most clients start with a single service.

Industries we do this for

Each industry here is searched differently, so each page has its own research.

See where you stand in Richmond

Find out, free, how you rank from Steveston to City Centre, who is ahead of you and which changes matter most.

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