Back in the day, you could throw up a website and be done with it (assuming you could throw up a website). No longer.

While WordPress has become the standard website interface, and while the infrastructure itself is pretty sound, the things that can go wrong are increasing daily.

WordPress has frequent updates. Some of them are just tweaks and new features. Some of them are security “patches.” Some of them work well out of the gate. Some of them… well, not so much. And how would you, the website owner, know? Should you update? Or wait?

Your plugins have updates, too. Sometimes a plugin will update automatically and then it doesn’t play nicely with everything else. Before you know it, your website is down. Or sometimes WordPress installs an update and the plugins stop working. It can be a real mess.

And then there are the security problems. Brute force attacks. Malware. Viruses. Ain’t nobody got time for all that!

Sometimes, also, there’s a problem with your hosting company. Your website may be on a server shared with many other websites, and somebody else’s site gets attacked and the whole server gets shut down. Or the host makes an upgrade to the server and it messes with your particular website – maybe they have installed a version of SQL that is not compatible with your code… Who’s going to fix that? Where do you even start? What does it even mean??

Having a website is foundational in today’s digital environment, but it is also a lot more involved than just “building a website.” It’s wonderful when it works, but when something goes wrong, you’ve got a major crisis on your hands.

Enter “Managed Hosting.”

Some website hosting companies have now stepped up to meet the need and are offering what they call “Managed Hosting.” Instead of leaving you to fend for yourself, they provide a service that includes management of the back-end tech stuff and security, among other things. And as you can imagine, it costs more.

The question is… Is it worth it?

And the answer is… It depends.

If you are exceptionally techie, or if your website isn’t an important piece of your business, then Managed Hosting may not be for you.

However, here at Kim Avery Coaching, having someone manage the behind the scenes tech stuff has been critical. I can’t begin to tell you how many times we have been rescued from disaster because we have a team on call who can take care of those website issues (and it isn’t me!). Our team takes care of securing the server that hosts the websites and making sure our site is “clean.” They do all the updates and make sure everything plays nicely together before it goes live. They keep backups so that in a worst case scenario, they can restore everything. They monitor our sites for malware and stop attacks that try to take them down. They provide us with peace of mind that is priceless.

And who are these super heroes? Carl Nasal and his team at www.Sentree.io. We have been working with Carl for several years, and the service he provides just keeps getting better and better. They have a full range of services for your website needs, and we can’t recommend them highly enough.

If the thought (or the memory) of your website crashing or being hacked is stressful, and if you want the peace of mind that comes with knowing that your home on the web is a safe place, I would encourage you to check them out: www.Sentree.io.