Get Your Life Back!

Oh man, keeping a Joomla or WordPress site safe from hackers is like trying to keep raccoons out of your garbage—it’s a never-ending battle. You lock everything down, think you’ve got it covered, and then boom—some sneaky little exploit pops up out of nowhere.

The biggest headache? Updates. You gotta stay on top of them, or else you’re just leaving the door wide open. But here’s the catch—sometimes those updates break things! Ever updated a plugin or extension and suddenly half your site is throwing errors? Yeah, fun times.

Then there’s passwords. You know they need to be strong, but try convincing a client that "MyBusiness123!" isn’t cutting it. They roll their eyes like you’re making them memorize the nuclear codes. And don’t even get me started on those people who use the same password everywhere. If just one site gets hacked, guess what? Their Joomla or WordPress site is next on the chopping block.

And then there’s brute force attacks. Bots just hammer away at login pages like they’ve got all the time in the world—because they do. You can throw in CAPTCHA, limit login attempts, or hide the login page, but those little jerks keep evolving.

Oh, and let’s talk about plugins and extensions. The more you install, the bigger the attack surface. You might find this awesome little tool that makes life easier, but if the developer isn’t keeping up with security patches, that thing is basically a ticking time bomb.

Backups are another must-have, because let’s face it—sooner or later, something will go wrong. If you don’t have regular, off-site backups, you’re just gambling with your entire site. And recovering from a hack without a backup? That’s a soul-crushing experience I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

At the end of the day, security is about layers. Good hosting, strong passwords, regular updates, backups, and a little paranoia go a long way. But even with all that, hackers still find ways to be a pain in the ass.

So yeah, it’s a grind. But hey, better to stay ahead of it than wake up one day to find your site pushing Viagra ads...

Or you could hire Harper Vance Web Management and Get Your Life Back!

Oh man, unexpected downtime is like having your car break down in the middle of a road trip—total nightmare, zero warning, and now you're stuck figuring out how to fix it while everyone honks at you.

The worst part? It never happens at a "good" time. It’s always right when you’re running a big promotion, expecting a flood of traffic, or—classic—right after you sent out an email campaign telling everyone to "Visit our website now!" Yeah… now they’re visiting an error page.

And the business risk? Huge. First off, every minute your site is down, you're bleeding money. Customers don’t sit around waiting—they just head to your competitor’s site instead. Even loyal customers get annoyed because, let’s be real, nobody has the patience for a broken site in 2025.

Then there’s the credibility hit. A couple of outages, and suddenly people start wondering—“Is this business legit?” They might think you're unreliable, outdated, or even worse, hacked. And if Google notices your site is down often? That can tank your rankings, making it even harder to win people back later.

And let’s not forget the absolute stress bomb that comes with downtime. You’re scrambling—resetting servers, calling hosting support, frantically Googling error codes, all while trying not to panic. Any plans you had for the day? Gone. The only thing that matters now is getting the site back up ASAP.

And sometimes? It’s not even your fault. Hosting provider has an issue? Too bad, it’s still your problem. Some plugin update randomly breaks everything? Hope you have a backup. A traffic spike crashes your server? Great, your site is down because too many people wanted to buy from you. Ironic, right?

That’s why solid hosting, backups, and monitoring aren’t just nice extras—they’re business survival tools. Because when your website is your business, downtime isn’t just inconvenient—it’s expensive as hell.

Or you could hire Harper Vance Web Management and Get Your Life Back!

Oh man, updates and upgrades on a LAMP stack CMS like Joomla or WordPress? That’s like doing maintenance on your car while driving down the highway—necessary, stressful, and always way more complicated than you hoped.

First off, updates never come at a good time. You’re just minding your business, running your site, and then BAM—new PHP version, security patches, extension updates, CMS core upgrades. And you know what happens if you ignore them? Hackers roll out the red carpet.

But here’s the real kicker—you can’t just hit "update" and call it a day. Oh no, that would be too easy. You update Joomla or WordPress, and suddenly your theme is throwing errors. You update an extension, and now your contact form is broken. You update PHP, and half your plugins stop working because the developers haven’t caught up yet. Good times.

And testing? Forget about it. Who has the time to test every single plugin and feature before updating? You just cross your fingers, hope for the best, and pray you don’t wake up to an inbox full of “Hey, your site is broken” emails.

Then there’s the backups. If you’re smart, you back up everything before hitting that update button. But backups take time, restoring them takes time, and if something really goes sideways, you might spend half a day just getting back to where you started.

And let’s talk about hosting compatibility. Your hosting provider decides to update MySQL or PHP? Cool, but now your older extensions don’t work. Or worse—your CMS doesn’t even load. So now you’re either upgrading everything in a mad scramble or begging your host to roll back the changes.

At the end of the day, updates are a full-time job. You have to do them to stay secure, but every single update comes with a small risk of disaster. That’s why managed hosting and maintenance services exist—because most business owners don’t have the time (or patience) to deal with this mess every month.

Honestly? If you’ve ever survived a big CMS update without breaking your site, you deserve a medal. Or at least a very stiff drink.

Or you could hire Harper Vance Web Management and Get Your Life Back!

Oh man, keeping up with pro licenses for extensions is like paying for gym memberships you actually use—it’s necessary, but it adds up fast.

At first, you think, “Eh, I’ll just grab a few essential ones.” Then before you know it, you’re juggling renewal dates for a page builder, security firewall, backup tool, form builder, maybe an SEO plugin, and a few niche tools that one client insisted on. And guess what? They all renew at different times. So now you’re basically running a subscription management service on the side.

And the cost? Oh, it sneaks up on you. Sure, $49 here and $99 there doesn’t seem like much at first, but add it up across 10 or 15 must-have extensions, and suddenly you’re dropping a few hundred bucks a year just to keep your site running properly. And that’s not even counting those "lifetime deals" you bought, thinking you were saving money—only to find out they abandoned development a year later.

Then there’s the upgrade dilemma. A new major version of Joomla or WordPress drops, and now half your pro extensions need an upgrade too. Some devs offer free updates, but others? Oh no, you need the new version—which, surprise, isn’t covered by your old license. So now you’re either forking over more cash or scrambling to find an alternative that won’t break your site.

And let’s not forget client sites. If you manage multiple sites, do you buy separate licenses for each one? Go for an agency bundle? Hope the client renews their own license? It’s a juggling act, and you just know that at some point, someone’s gonna call you in a panic because their site stopped working after an expiration notice they ignored.

So yeah, keeping up with pro extensions isn’t just about buying them—it’s a whole process of tracking renewals, budgeting for upgrades, and hoping the developers don’t abandon ship. And if you ever let one lapse? Well, better hope it doesn’t break anything, because fixing it might cost way more than just paying the renewal fee in the first place.

Or you could hire HarperVance Web Management and Get Your Life Back!

Oh man, website backups are one of those things that everyone knows they should do, but most people don’t take seriously until it’s too late. It’s like wearing a seatbelt—you don’t appreciate it until you’re in a crash.

One of the biggest mistakes? Not having backups at all. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “Oh, my hosting provider does backups.” Yeah? Have you checked them? Do you even know how to restore one? Because here’s the dirty little secret—some hosts do daily backups, but they only keep the last 24 hours. So if your site got hacked three days ago and you just noticed? Too bad.

And speaking of hosting backups, another mistake? Relying on them exclusively. If your host goes down, gets hacked, or decides to cancel your account for some weird reason, guess what? Your backups are gone too. That’s why you always need an off-site backup—Google Drive, Dropbox, or even an old-school external hard drive.

Then there’s the "I only back up my database" crowd. Sure, your posts and user data are safe, but where’s your theme? Your plugins? Your customizations? If you don’t have a full-site backup (database and files), you’re basically holding onto half a puzzle and hoping it still makes sense when you need it.

Another classic? "I have backups, but I’ve never tested them." Oh man, nothing’s worse than thinking you’re safe, only to find out your backups are corrupted, missing files, or completely useless when you actually try to restore them. A backup you can’t restore is not a backup—it’s just wasted storage space.

And let’s not forget infrequent backups. If you back up your site once every six months, and then something breaks, congrats—you’re rolling back half a year of work. At the very least, you need weekly backups, and if you update your site often, daily backups should be the bare minimum.

Bottom line? Backups need to be automatic, stored off-site, include everything, and tested regularly. Because the day you actually need one? That’s the worst possible time to realize you screwed it up.

Or you could just hire Harper Vance Web Management and Get Your Life Back!

We install and maintain SSL certificates (enabling the use of "https://" protocol) on each web site, which gives your site visitors confidence in your site and in you. These can cost up to $125.00 annually, but are included in our package at no additional charge.

We are proud to offer our hosting clients access to the Sygnifi Networks Data Silo for your analytics needs. This service is discounted to Hosting clients from $39.95/month/site to $24.95/month. Your first 3 months are provided at no additional charge.