I’ve worked with small businesses and nonprofits for as long as I’ve worked with WordPress. In conversation after conversation with these folks, I’ve never seen a reason for someone to learn how to deal with all these critical website issues, as opposed to paying someone else to worry about it. The only exception is when someone wants to learn, in order to build a skillset around website building and maintenance.

Here’s an important nuance: especially for organizations with a smaller budget, it pays to have a general understanding of the full scope of website care, even if you can’t fix everything yourself. This basic understanding will equip you to make smart decisions about the products and services and people that will do the work for you, so that you can focus on what’s important.

So, yes, you do need to know how to manage your own website—but the time you spend learning should match your desire and curiosity about website development and management skills.

If you’re only in charge of managing your website because there’s no one else to do it, you should be familiar with the concepts of hosting, maintenance, security, and monitoring. As soon as you can spare even $30/month for your website, you should begin paying for services that will keep your website fast and secure. One or more trusted vendors can keep things humming along, and you won’t regret the investment.

If you’re interested in learning more about website deployment and management, nothing beats experience. As you learn more about the many aspects of keeping a WordPress website safe, online, and fast, it’s critical to starting taking on these tasks for others (while being transparent that you’re still learning). You’ll gain expertise quickly—but it will pay to continue intentionally learning, so that you’re prepared when something goes wrong.

This series will be helpful to folks in either scenario. We’ll cover the fundamentals of website care in a way that gives you the most critical pieces of information, allowing you to make smart purchasing decisions. But for those who want to learn more, each topic will be a jumping-off point for deeper understanding.

Obviously, Website Concierge is our offering to take care of all of this for you. But, this series is about teaching you concepts you need to know—so, it won’t be a sales pitch.

In fact, we’ll even link to trusted competitors as alternatives to our service as well. The most important thing is that your small business or nonprofit is able to achieve your goals, and that your website is an asset for your organization.  Transparency and honesty are non-negotiable components of how run our company, so our aim is to equip you to make informed, effective decisions for you and the people you work with.