I read two apparently unrelated articles on December 31st.
But if you pay attention to life’s “chance” encounters (like I try to do), you might think that there’s a good chance they’re related. My responses to the articles are a bit personal in nature, but I think they can be applied to website performance and WordPress maintenance.
Please allow me to indulge in a bit of year-end reflection.
A glance back at 2015
Our email inboxes are flooded this time of year with opportunities to look back on the previous year. Various forms of media provide us with year-in-review stats, facts, news, and events.
But if we are fortunate enough to have a roof over our head and food in our stomach, chances are we have the opportunity to be a bit reflective around New Year’s Day.
To be honest, I spent less time looking back this New Year’s than I have in the past. I chose to follow this article’s advice to take about 15 minutes and scan through my 2015 calendar.
In those brief moments, the things that stood out most to me—the things that are most meaningful—are not work-related. Maybe no surprise there. While I love what I do for work, I don’t live for work. I work to live.
And I imagine you’re much the same.
Like Mr. Keating said in the movie Dead Poet’s Society: “… medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
The things that highlighted “beauty” and “love” for me are mostly family related: attending one son’s local theatre performances and taking him to a U2 concert; attending my other son’s baseball games and school band concerts; memorable family trips to Washington state, Toronto, and Hawaii; numerous walks with my wife (to be supplemented by more regular dates this year).
These are the things that really enhanced my life—the things I “stay alive for.”
In 2015, I finally got more serious about writing: blogging, a newsletter, an ebook, and editing a novel. My plan is to increase writing again in 2016. Perhaps that is the “poetry” part of my life.
Improving website performance in 2016
I mentioned that I had read two articles that seemed unrelated. The second was a 2015 review of online stats by Pingdom which included data on website performance. Some of these stats are mind-boggling.
Like the fact that websites experienced 7.7 billion minutes of downtime (enough time to watch all 36,000 Netflix titles 4000 times!).
Of course, Pingdom also reports that websites are actually running 98% of the time. Not bad. Still, there’s room for improvement.
When it comes to WordPress websites, I am becoming more serious about helping small business owners improve their website performance. In 2015, I saw a few too many websites that had been neglected and then hacked.
So in 2016, I will be implementing new strategies for my existing WordPress Maintenance clients to improve their online presence. And I will be broadening the scope of services for small businesses that do not subscribe to my monthly maintenance plan.
If you have any suggestions or special requests, please comment below or contact me directly.
So how are these two articles related? Well, I often say that the reason I offer WordPress maintenance plans is to free up website owners to work at what they do best. But I also do it to help provide space for “what we stay alive for”—the stuff that happens between all the work!
May your WordPress website help increase your business in 2016 so you can enjoy a truly happy new year.
About Steady Digital
We provide a WordPress maintenance plan to ease concerns like:
- Is my website performing at peak performance so visitors get the best experience possible?
- Do I have regular backups of my website in case something happens to my web server?
- What if my website gets hacked?
- How can I get up-to-date, professional training so I can use my website better?
- Who can I trust to do the updates that are beyond my technical or creative abilities?
Tired of trying to maintain your own website? A WordPress maintenance plan might be the solution for you.
