Tips to Choose the Right SEO company in Buffalo NY

Graphic Lux shares tips for choosing an SEO company

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Choose the right SEO agency

Amid thousands of SEO agencies in the market today, businesses are spoilt for choice and confused by it as well. Choosing the right SEO company can be the difference between a flourishing or a failing business today. Not only is it important to choose the right SEO company, but it is also imperative that businesses choose an SEO company that is right for them. Graphic Lux, a WordPress design expert, shares tips to choose the right SEO company.

1. Define SEO goals

Before setting out to hire an SEO company, a business should know what it hopes to achieve with SEO. Is the business seeking a sales boost by ranking for certain keywords? Are there concerns regarding the website’s bounce rate? Is the business aiming to increase its conversion rate? Is there a need to build a social media following, create sponsored content, or use other services that go beyond SEO? Knowing which area of online presence needs to be addressed makes SEO decisions much easier. Undergoing a digital marketing analysis by an SEO agency may help identify the area to focus upon.

2. Ethical practices

Researching SEO and understanding how it works helps companies differentiate between ethical and Black Hat SEO practices. Black Hat SEO is a term for unethical optimization practices that generate traffic swiftly and also get a company banned online as swiftly. Shortcuts like buying links, keyword stuffing, and cloaking violate search engine rules and can impact the rankings of a website. A good SEO requires a deep understanding of how search engines work, attention to detail, and constant modifications since Google’s algorithms change almost weekly.

3. Check out reviews

The most honest and unbiased opinion about a company can only originate from reviews. Businesses can check out the testimonials and reviews about an agency online. Sites such as Google, Yelp, and Glassdoor may prove helpful. There are a lot of lists out there but it makes better sense to ask for reference within one’s professional network. Businesses can also request case studies from the agency by calling them up or submitting a form online. A reputable agency can also provide a reference.

 4. Define the KPIs to chart progress

As the goals get defined and options are narrowed down, businesses must ensure that the SEO company they choose to work with has a clearly defined method of working and charting the progress.

Identifying the key performance indicators or KPIs is imperative. The SEO firm must understand and identify the metrics that are important for a business and translate that information into digestible data. Some of the important KPIs to consider may be based on the Organic sessions, Conversion rate, Keyword rankings, Google crawling mistakes, and Page load time.

 5. Effective communication 

Since it takes time and patience to build organic website traffic, businesses need to have a foundation of trust and strong communication with their SEO company. An SEO team that communicates effectively is indispensable for a constructive working relationship. An SEO specialist team must communicate the progress made in terms of the KPIs by analyzing the data and constantly working to improve the effectiveness of the SEO processes.

Why Graphic Lux?

Graphic Lux offers an array of digital services to clients across Buffalo, NY. It is a one-stop-shop for a business’ digital needs:

  • WordPress Website design, consultation, maintenance, and SEO: Graphic Lux specializes in WordPress website design and has over 12 years of experience. It can help build a WordPress custom theme from scratch or take a pre-existing theme and customize it as per client needs. The team also keeps the site running smoothly, without any downtime.
  • Hosting: The team offers the assurance that a website will be online and available for customers and visitors with all its data intact.
  • Brand building: The team can help create a strong brand identity for the client by optimizing the content using visual devices.
  • Dedicated support: With years of experience and unrivaled expertise the Graphic Lux support team will understand the client’s concerns and goals to give them peace of mind.
  • Responsive web design: Graphic Lux is on the cutting edge of designing and delivering responsive web and mobile apps. Its solutions decrease time to market and reduce maintenance costs.
 Tips to choose the Right SEO Company

For more information, email [email protected] or call at (716) 712-4589.

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Professional Web Design Company Seamlessly Merges Design and SEO

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The Role of Search Engine Optimization in Website Design: Tips and tricks

Graphic Lux is a dedicated team of web professionals offering specialized web development services, including WordPress development, website maintenance, SEO content creation, brand building, web hosting, and more. They understand the importance of building an effective web presence to promote healthy business traffic. Web design and SEO professionals tailor every project to maximize customer interaction and satisfaction.

Below, Graphic Lux discusses how web design and search engine optimization work together to create success. Keep reading for the low-down on surprising ways SEO appears throughout quality web design and some tips and tricks used by experts in the field.

The Role of Search Engine Optimization in Website Design: Tips and Tricks

Tip #1: Good Overall Design

When most people think about search engine optimization (SEO) for websites, keywords and page content come to mind. While it’s true that much of the work for SEO happens during content creation, SEO also plays a vital role in how that content is displayed.

A well-designed, high-ranking website offers its users pages that are free of clutter and to-the-point. Each page within the website needs to have a clear and easily located purpose. Any necessary interactive elements should be placed and designed in such a way as to be discreet but inviting.

Website development experts have the benefit of knowing what drives quality user interaction on a website. These professionals create eye-catching, clear user interfaces to generate positive visitor experiences, build a successful brand reputation, and improve search engine rankings.

Tip #2: Target the Right Audience

Perhaps one of the most critical components of establishing a high-quality, effective web presence is understanding the needs and desires of the target audience. Successful companies and brands know exactly what their customers look for in a product or service and seek to improve to meet those expectations more effectively.

With so many unique people in the world, it can be a challenge to have a focused perspective on what a customer base needs. Web SEO professionals study consumer habits, web traffic, and other patterns to get a more accurate picture of what people experience and search for.

These experts build web pages and create content that puts the consumer’s needs first and upfront, reducing the number of steps between the customer and the end goal of the interaction.

Tip #3: Keywords, Keywords, Keywords

Keywords are a natural byproduct of having a clear understanding of the target audience or consumer base. Knowing the goals, needs, and wants of website visitors helps web developers single out best-use keywords. Keywords function as a critical part of SEO web design.

SEO content creators use keywords in nearly every web page element or piece of content, including meta descriptions, anchor text, title tags, and more.  Well-placed, tastefully-used keywords help search engines rank a web page’s relevance and usefulness for individual searches. What’s more, keywords help visitors know they’re in the right places for the products or services they need.

Web development and SEO professionals create high-quality, readable SEO content to improve any business page’s ranking. For SEO content to be effective, it must be informative, concise, and well-written.

For more information about SEO and web development, reach out to Graphic Lux today at (716) 712-4589 or follow them on Facebook for more helpful tips

Contact Information:Graphic Lux

1 W Seneca St Suite 29-M18
Buffalo, NY 14203
United States

Matthew Lux
(716) 712-4589
https://graphiclux.com

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Specific SEO Keywords

Graphic Lux explains the different types of SEO keywords

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Types of SEO keywords explained

In the digital era, what sets a business apart from its competitors? The right SEO keywords. Graphic Lux, an SEO services company in Buffalo NY, dives into the various types of SEO keywords that businesses must be aware of as they aim to appear in their potential customer’s searches.

SEO keywords are the words or phrases that people utilize to search for information, products, or services of their interest online. They are the building blocks of search engine optimization. These words or phrases are also used by internet search engines to rank and sort content on the internet.

Businesses must choose keywords for SEO beginning with strategic keyword research. This requires an analysis of the volume of monthly searches and the competitiveness of the businesses’ potential target keywords in terms of search and paid difficulties.

The types of keywords discussed below vary in terms of word length, search volume traffic, and search or paid difficulties. They are defined by the number of words they contain and their role in the web page content. Moreover, they are also shaped by the various stages in the consumer’s purchase journey including Buyer Awareness and Discovery, Consideration, Conversion and Purchase, and Re-engagement.

General Types Of Keywords

1. Short-Tail Keywords

Head keywords or generic keywords usually cover broad search terms that normally attract high volumes of search traffic. With their length of only one to two words, these keywords are high in competitiveness in search ranking.

2. Mid-Tail Keywords

Commonly consisting of two to three words that offer a better description of what the user searches, mid-tail keywords often shift from having a high traffic volume and more competition to having low traffic volume and less competition.

3. Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are the most descriptive and target-specific keywords with four or more words. With typically a low traffic volume and lesser competition compared to the first two types of SEO keywords in SEO, long-tail keywords enable better ranking and easier conversion.

Must-have keywords 

1. Primary Keywords

The main topic or idea on a web page content becomes the primary keyword. Every single page on a website must have a single primary keyword to target. For instance, laptops.

However, stuffing the keyword is not advised for the search engines, especially Google, will most likely penalize the web page for it. Consult an SEO expert to identify the right primary keyword for each web page.

2. LSI Keywords (Latent Semantic Indexing)

These are related keywords that search engine systems view as semantically related to primary keywords. These are various sets of words surrounding a topic that consumers type in search engines.

Essentially, a web page must have a single primary keyword and at least three or more LSI keywords to maintain a variety in target keywords, avoid keyword stuffing and cover a wide range of search terms used for a particular topic.

Industry & Business Specific SEO Keywords 

These keywords are targeted specifically to the industry, its target customers, or the market.

 1. Market Segment Keywords

These are keywords that are related to general industries, brands, or products. Customers usually use a broader terminology for their product research, which is also the first stage of their purchase journey.

2. Customer-Defining Keywords

These keywords are used by a subset of the audience or customers to define a very specific need and user. For instance, laptops for professional graphic designers.

 3. Branded Keywords

Branded keywords, as the name suggests, are specific to a specific brand that a customer is searching for. It may include a brand’s name along with specific product descriptions, or a product name, or a product type.

 4. Product Keywords

These keywords are typically used by e-commerce retail stores of products from different manufacturers in a particular niche. These are search terms that specifically seek certain products and services of a company. For instance, MacBook Pro laptop specs.

 5. Competitor Keywords

Researching the keywords being used by competition is a good practice that ensures that a brand can target similar buyer interests and potential customers who are yet to become aware of the brand or its website. Being aware of a competitor’s top products and keywords can help a brand understand the target audience’s needs and generate fresh ideas for SEO strategy.

 6. Geo-Targeted Keywords

These types of keywords target a specific country, state, city, or neighborhood. They are essential for local businesses looking to reach users in their local area. Moreover, these keywords are typed by users who are looking for physical stores or service locations near them. For example, Microsoft laptop shops in Buffalo, NY.

 Buyer Intent Keywords

Buyer intent terms show the searcher’s intent to buy or purchase a product or service. These can be used across the customer purchase cycle and may not mean a purchase right away. These keywords are very important in SEO as they help identify the stage of the purchase journey that a customer is currently in, also called a funnel.

 1. Informational keywords

These keywords are used in a buyer’s awareness stage of the journey. They often use informational keywords with an awareness of a problem and the intent to know or learn about a possible solution.

 2. Navigational keywords

Searchers use navigational keywords in the consideration phase of the buyer journey. They are researching different brands and visiting different websites to identify the best solution to their problem.

 3. Transactional keywords

This type of keyword is used by searchers who are in the conversion phase of their journey. The research is complete, the solution has been identified, and they are looking for the right place to purchase the product or service.

Researching the right keywords in SEO and analyzing them is a massive and ongoing task. Graphic Lux can simplify these processes for organizations with its team of SEO keyword research specialists.

Why Graphic Lux?

Graphic Lux offers an array of digital services to clients across Buffalo, NY. It is a one-stop-shop for a business’ digital needs:

  • WordPress Website design, consultation, maintenance, and SEO: Graphic Lux specializes in WordPress website design and has over 12 years of experience. It can help build a WordPress custom theme from scratch or take a pre-existing theme and customize it as per client needs. The team also keeps the site running smoothly, without any downtime.
  • Hosting: The team offers the assurance that a website will be online and available for customers and visitors with all its data intact.
  • Brand building: The team can help create a strong brand identity for the client by optimizing the content using visual devices.
  • Dedicated support: With years of experience and unrivaled expertise the Graphic Lux support team will understand the client’s concerns and goals to give them peace of mind.
  • Responsive web design: Graphic Lux is on the cutting edge of designing and delivering responsive web and mobile apps. Its solutions decrease time to market and reduce maintenance costs.

For more information, email [email protected] or call at (716) 712-4589.

Contact Information:Graphic Lux

1 W Seneca St Suite 29-M18
Buffalo, NY 14203
United States

Matthew Lux
(716) 712-4589
https://graphiclux.com

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Gutenberg Wordpress Release

WordPress 5.0 is coming soon. What’s going to happen?

WordPress 5.0 is about to be released with a brand new content editor named “Gutenberg”. The content editor is the tool you use when you want to change the content of your website from within the administration section of WordPress, otherwise known as the Dashboard.

This new WordPress version is a major one and will include this new content editor which is still under active development. Even if our team follows WordPress-related news on a daily basis when it comes to this new functionality, many questions remain unanswered. For instance, we don’t know exactly what changes this new version will officially contain and what solutions will be chosen in regards to the various problems reported so far by the WordPress Test Team.

As WordPress experts, we strive to be proactive and are contacting you about our strategy for this upcoming update. Our goal is to minimize the risks with regards to your website and to ensure the update remains problem-free.

When WordPress 5.0 comes out:

  • We will not update your website for a few weeks. This version will not fix security issues and may cause issues due to the new editor, we will let the braver ones install this update and report back any bugs. When a minor update will be released by the WordPress team, we will wait until our team determines this version to be stable before considering any update to your website. This will also provide more time to theme and plugin developers to adjust as required.
  • When a minor version will be considered stable, we will plan the update of your site. As each client’s site isn’t configured the same way and offers different functionality, it’s impossible to predict the impact this update will have. It is possible for us to test this new WordPress release on a separate copy of your site to make sure it’s compatible. If you’re interested in this option, please contact us now to plan accordingly.
  • Should your site experience compatibility issues with the new editor, our team will start by deactivating the new editor and reactivate the “classic editor” (which is the one you are using now). Your website will still be fully functional and our team will help you evaluate what will be needed to fix the problems encountered.

We follow the evolution of WordPress 5.0 on a daily basis and have your best interests at heart.

If you have any questions about the upcoming release of WordPress 5.0, do not hesitate to communicate with us and we will gladly assist you.

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Gutenberg

Gutenberg, and Planning for WordPress 5.0

There has been a lot of conversation within the WordPress community that is causing developers near and far to plan and strategize for the after-effects of the Gutenberg release. Gutenberg is a MAJOR new feature that has been in development for over a year, Gutenberg is coming with the release of WordPress 5.0 and is the largest initiative that has been merged into the core of the open-source project. Here’s some details on Gutenberg and how Graphic Lux is planning for it.

What is Gutenberg?

“Gutenberg is newly developed, block-oriented editor.  WordPress already supports a large amount of “blocks”, but doesn’t surface them very well, nor does it give them much in the way of layout options. By embracing the blocky nature of rich post content, we will surface the blocks that already exist, as well as provide more advanced layout options for each of them.

Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage. The idea combines concepts of what in WordPress today we achieve with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience.” – Read more about this here.

To get an idea of what Gutenberg looks like and how it affects the way users will interact with it, we recommend watching this demonstration of the tool from December’s WordCamp US.

What does Graphic Lux think of Gutenberg?

We love WordPress because of its solid foundation that it has for all web development projects. The WordPress Core software allows us the ability to extend and customize for every website development project we have. Gutenberg is an exciting new way to create and manage content in WordPress. This new feature ships with some great core blocks and, of course, we can easily extend Gutenberg to give our clients a truly customized experience that fits their needs exactly. We are very excited about the future of WordPress including the new content experience provided by Gutenberg.  That being said, we usually like to see things like these work themselves out before we start implementing anything.

Will Gutenberg affect your WordPress website?

This is a hard question to answer because each of our clients’ websites are different in how they work and how they are built.  We do believe that 99% of our clients’ will see no issues but we do want everyone to be aware and to actively watch when WordPress 5.0 comes out to review their websites and submit a support ticket if there are any issues.

If you have a WordPress Care/Maintenance Plan with us, we can quickly roll-back any issues caused when Gutenberg is launched by pushing out your site’s latest nightly backup. This will put your site back to the way it was until work can be done to align Gutenberg’s changes with your theme. Whether you have a care/maintenance plan or not, we’re here to help if Gutenberg affects how your site looks or works. Let us know by submitting a support ticket, and we’ll have a repair estimate ready for you right away. Big changes to software platforms like WordPress can sometimes seem a little bit daunting, but here at Graphic Lux, we’re excited and ready to help make this a smooth, positive transition.

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Did WordPress's Automatic Update Break Your Site?

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Have you ever opened your email and saw a message like this?

If you haven’t seen this email, then most likely you have something like define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', false ); in your wp-config.php file which will disable WordPress’s automatic updates.   If you have seen this email then at least you can be confident that your WordPress Core is up to date but can you be confident that your website is still working properly?

Time To Check On My Website

Once you see that email message the first thing you do (or should do) is open up your website to check on it to make sure everything is working and looking normal.  After clicking through a bunch of pages in detail you find everything seems good.  Great news, you dodged another bullet!  What if everything isn’t working and looking normal?  Error messages at the top of the page, broken layouts, plugins stop functioning correctly and the white screen of death can happen if your theme, plugins and core are not all up to date.  Even if they are you can still have issues depending on your theme and your plugins and how quickly the developers have updated them to be compatible with the new WordPress core.

My WordPress Website Is Broken.  What Should I do?

If you website is broken the first thing you should do is see if your host, developer or YOU have properly setup automatic backup’s of your website’s files and database. What’s that you say?  You do not have any backup’s configured?  That’s a major NO NO.  Now your site could be broken for few days before you figure out what is wrong or find someone else fix the problems.

How Could I Have Avoided This?

The best way to avoid downtime, and issues like these is to have a WordPress Maintenance Plan in place.  These plans will keep your WordPress core, plugin’s and themes up to date.  Automated daily backup’s, security monitoring, security scans and database optimization also come with any of these plans which will keep your website healthy and running smoothly.

 

Sign Up For Our Free
Wordpress Maintenance Consultation

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Wordpress Maintenance is a Must Have

3 Reasons Why You Can't Afford to Neglect Your Website

You just paid thousands of dollars for a beautiful new WordPress website.  How do you keep it up and running at peak performance? Changing your oil every 3,ooo miles isn’t just a suggestion from your car company, it’s a requirement if you want your car to work. Website maintenance is no different. For your website and your business, it is necessary to make sure your site stays functional and performing well.  Here are 3 reasons not having your WordPress site up to date is costing you and your business money.

Reason #1 – Getting Hacked

Security is arguably the most important reason why you should keep your WordPress website up to date. WordPress is a popular target for hackers (and wanna be hackers), malicious code distributors, and data thieves.

Getting hacked can result in the following:

  • Your host can turn off your website – Now that your site is turned off none of your customers can access it.  This ultimately will lose your company money and perspective clients.
  • Stolen Data –  Data thieves can steal your clients/customers private and confidential data.
  • Google flags your site as insecure – Google can put the big red screen of death up if they scan your site and find any malicious code.  This can result in customers and future customers not trusting your company and loss of revenue.

Reason #2 – Slower Runtime

If your site takes too long to load, then people leave. No one wants to stick around and wait for your content to show up. WordPress maintenance is often seen as a chore, but it’s extremely important. Most web platforms, without a little extra care, can become slow, error prone and unreliable. Unnecessary files and data can slow your site down. Unwanted content such as comment spam can cause you a world of hurt, consuming valuable resources and impact on your search engine rankings. Security flaws can enable attackers to use your site to commit fraud, spread malware and launch further attacks.

Reason #3 – The Cost of Fixing a Broken Site

By not maintaining your site regularly, you run the risk of having to deal with a bigger issue in the long run.  Again,  think of your website as a car…when you get regular oil changes, your car runs at it’s peak performance. Cars that are taken care of regularly are less likely to breakdown and break the bank. The same goes for your website.   Fixing a broken site is costly.  Once your site has been hacked, or if a Plugin or the WordPress Core breaks your theme (or vice versa) it can take hundreds if not thousands of dollars to get it back to where it was before the issues.

Leave it to the experts

You may or may not feel comfortable updating plugins, themes and core, but it’s not what you do best.  Leave your website care to Graphic Lux.   We will make sure your site is always up-to-date, has daily backup’s and is secure!

Sign Up For Any Of
Our WordPress Care Plans &
Get Your First Month 50% OFF

Limited to the Month of April Only

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WordPress.org vs WordPress.com

WordPress.org vs WordPress.com.? If you’re new to WordPress or even played around a bit, this is a normal question and usually needs some explanation since the two get confused pretty easily.

Both are great options and the best one for you depends on the plans you have for your site, your skill level and how much time you can spend on maintaining and designing your site.

Do you need a self-hosted or WordPress.com site?

If you looking to create a simple website or just a blog, you probably will not want to want to fuss with regular maintenance or security and won’t want to customize your site too much, then WordPress.com probably is your best option.

If you need full control over your website design, plugins, files and database with the freedom to basically do anything you want  and don’t mind maintaining and securing your site, then WordPress.org can provide the software you need.  You don’t have to worry about maintaining and securing your site if you rather leave this to the experts though.  Graphic Lux has several different WordPress Care Plans to choose from, so you can do what you do best and leave the WordPress maintenance up to our specialists.

If you plan on developing an E-commerce, membership, social media or large business site a self-hosted WordPress site will give you more options and offers more flexibility.

We recommend: WordPress.org

When it comes down to cost, freedoms and limitations, and maintenance and development considerations, WordPress.org wins easily.

It may take more time and effort to set up a WordPress site, but you will have full control over the look and feel of your site. You will be able to use custom themes and customize their look, and also upload custom plugins to add more functionality to your site.

Leave it to the experts

You may or may not feel comfortable updating plugins, themes and core, but it’s not what you do best.  Leave your website care to Graphic Lux.   We will make sure your site is always up-to-date, has daily backup’s and is secure!

 

Sign Up For Any Of
Our WordPress Care Plans &
Get Your First Month 50% OFF

Limited to the Month of March Only

[contact-form-7 id=”9211″ title=”Free Maintenance Consultation”]

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Why Website Maintenance Should Be On Your Mind

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Why Website Maintenance Should Be On Your Mind

The problem for many WordPress websites is that they have been neglected, and out of date.  The WordPress CMS core, plugins, and themes are in need of basic updates/upgrades while security monitoring and daily backup’s should be taking place.  Without these updates/upgrades your WordPress website could be susceptible to malicious attacks/hacks, and slower performance times.

Just like any software, websites require maintenance to keeping the site working properly. Avoiding website maintenance is like not having regular oil changes on your vehicle. You wouldn’t drive your car very long if you didn’t look after its maintenance, would you? Well, the same process is true for your website. Your website should always be live, ready for customers and presenting your business at its finest.

Websites Are Not a “Set and Forget”

If you don’t have website maintenance carried out monthly, you may actually be throwing money out the window. When visitors go to a website and find things wrong with it, they often don’t stick around. Many website owners never check their website to see how it’s functioning. Missed website issues or downtime can lose you potential customers.

The Benefits of Maintenance

Many people don’t realize the benefits of site maintenance:

The website performance, it’s load time, downtime and uptime, is all dependent on the WordPress software and plugin functioning as they should (and on the recent version).

The website growth, it’s fresh content, analytics monitoring and design changes, is all dependent on you having someone making sure all updates to the website are done in a smooth and error-free fashion.

Maintenance Workflow

At Graphic Lux we take great care to first backup the website, and check the website after our updates for any issues. Our software keeps a record of plugins we update so if there is ever an issue we see what plugin version was changed and revert back. Also included in our monthly maintenance report are the performance and security scans. If in the event we ever catch a plugin issue, it becomes a support ticket and we address it before you ever know there’s a problem.

Want to maintain your website yourself?

Maintaining your site yourself could cost you more than you may think. If you just update from your WordPress admin, you wouldn’t have a record of what was done. If an update to a plugin created an issue a couple weeks later, it would be difficult to know what changed and how you should revert back without restoring a very old backup (and possibly losing content changes, sales orders, contact entries, you name it).

It Costs More to Fix Than to Maintain

Inexperience and neglect can damage the look and functionality of your website. When that happens, you have a choice to make. One, you try and fix it yourself, in which case you may do further damage. Or two, you can then pay the (sometimes hefty) price for someone experienced to fix it. Just like your car, it costs more to fix it than it does to maintain it properly. Regular oil changes help keep your car running properly, regular site maintenance helps keeps your web site running properly.

Call in a Professional

Why not deal with what you know best and let us deal with what we know best? Would you try to fight that court battle without a lawyer? Then why try to maintain your own website if you’re not a web professional? By securing an experienced web professional to update and maintain your site properly you are actually saving potential lost sales and visitors.

If you’re interested in securing a maintenance contract for your web site, please view our WordPress Maintenance Plans to see which one fits your needs.

FIND YOUR WORDPRESS MAINTENANCE PLAN

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WordPress 4.5 broke my website!

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Why did WordPress 4.5 break my website?

WordPress’s Core will automatically update your website to the latest WordPress version when the newest version has been tested and deemed safe for release, unless you have preventative measures already in place.  Wordpress 4.5 included many new updates and changes which can all be seen here: https://codex.wordpress.org/Version_4.5

One of the biggest problems we have noticed is not with WordPress’s update but with the WordPress theme that is being used.  Wordpress updated it’s jQuery library and in doing so many websites broke because of the coding changes and their conflicts with the javascript of the theme.

There are other problems we have seen that broke other users websites but for the most part it usually had something to do with the jQuery update.

How can I fix this?

There are a few solutions to fix this issue but you most likely should have a development team to help you.

The best solution would be to update the core to 4.5, then update all the plugins, and update the theme (always make a backup of the files and database before you do this).  Usually if you have all the latest plugin’s and the latest theme files implemented on your site any broken area’s should be corrected.

Another solution would be to replace the new jQuery library with the last version.  This is not the best idea because once another WordPress version is updated on your site it will overwrite the older library.  Use these files here and replace the current folder located here: wp-includes/js/jquery.

How can I prevent this in the future?

The best way to prevent WordPress 4.5 or any newer version from breaking your website in the future is to have one of our WordPress Maintenance & Care Plans.  We not only make sure your website is updated to the newest versions of WordPress, plugins and themes, but we also go in on a daily basis and actively watch your site(s) for security and malicious activity, create daily backup’s, clean up spam, database overhead, monitor website uptime, and more.

You can always set your wp-config file so your site does not automatically update.  You can find more information about how to implement that here: https://codex.wordpress.org/Configuring_Automatic_Background_Updates.  This way you can have time to test the new version and make sure it works with your website before pushing these updates LIVE.

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