Month: December 2023

WordPress Performance Challenges: What Makes Your Website Perform Under Par

Post author By Dipanjan Das
Post date December 22, 2023

Does your website take too long to load? Do your website pages become unresponsive from time to time? Are you worried about your WordPress website’s performance?

WordPress websites can suffer from several performance issues. For example, it can take too long to load, stop responding, or even crash without explanation.

Sadly, there is no one cause that takes a toll on your WordPress performance. Rather, you have endless reasons that make your website a poor performer.

In this blog, we will explore the top performance challenges in WordPress. We will also reveal the secrets to overcoming the challenges and providing the best user experience.

In the end, we will explore a few WordPress performance optimization plugins to keep your site performing well.

Let’s start with one of the most common WordPress performance issues of all time.

You Have a Slow Loading WordPress Website.

Have you ever felt frustrated waiting for a website to load?

We all have experienced a few websites that take ages to load. Your website visitors and potential customers can feel the same way if your WordPress site is slow.

According to Google, 32% of visitors are likely to leave if your website takes more than 1-second to load. The slower it loads, the more customers leave you for your competitors.

Today, your website needs to be fast and nimble to woo customers. As a result, you can’t afford a website that takes more than 2-seconds to load. Unfortunately, many WordPress websites are awfully slow, and it is a common problem across hosting providers.

A range of causes can make WordPress websites slow. Your website can get slow for uncountable reasons, from simple configuration errors to cumbersome media. Still, we have made an attempt to capture the most common issues below:

1. Your hosting can make your WordPress website slow.

wordpress hosting — Is your WordPress hosting fast enough?

Hosting is the foundation for delivering excellent user experiences. As a result, going with the wrong hosting provider or plan can make your WordPress website slow.

At Lodus, we always recommend the best hosting for our clients. You should stay away from those $3 per month hosting plans if you want your website to be fast.

Cheap hosting providers throttle your resources to the bare minimum, just enough to run your website. Therefore, you are bound to experience difficulties when you try to scale.

As a result, your website may slow down as it doesn’t have enough resources to handle increased workloads.

Using shared hosting can also make your website take more time to load its content. This is because your website will be sharing resources with other clients that take a toll on the loading speed.

What to do:

If your website earns you direct revenues, like eCommerce, go for a private server. Else, go with a hosting provider that has a reputation and good reviews in the market. Additionally, choose a plan according to your expected traffic.

A better option can be to go for multi-tenant hosting where several geographically-spread servers share the workload. Therefore, you always have enough resources, even if your site has to process a thousand orders every minute.

Lodus provides some of the best multi-tenant WordPress hosting plans for solid WordPress performance. Additionally, you get more than adequate resources to scale seamlessly.

You can get in touch with us to learn about the features of world-class hosting and help you choose the right plan.

2. Too many or too big WordPress themes and plugins can ruin WordPress performance.

Multi-purpose themes may make your website look beautiful, but they may also hamper your performance. Many themes don’t have good code quality and aren’t optimized for speed. Plus, they have a ton of features you really don’t need that increase code complexity.

As a result, they can add to your loading time by several seconds.

The same is true for WordPress plugins. They help you extend the functionality of your site, but some can end up affecting your speed. Again, it is mainly applicable to user-level plugins, like widgets, caching plugins, or additional security plugins.

The issue is also common when you have too many plugins on your website. Additionally, outdated or slow-loading plugins can also be performance hampers.

What to do:

Always choose a theme optimized for speed. Do not go for themes that have a lot of bloated features and add-on functionalities. You can always add them with plugins or with a bit of coding.

If you suspect your theme to be the cause of loading delay, try switching to another theme. Then check if your loading speed has improved.

For plugins, you need to find the actual plugin that is causing trouble and uninstall it. Then, you can use tools like GTMetrix to run performance tests.

You can also try all-in-one plugins to optimize your website speed. However, make sure they do not add to the complexity and dent your performance. Additionally, remember to update your themes and plugins regularly.

We can provide expert advice on how different plugins can impact your website performance. Just get in touch with us.

3. Big images, videos, and media files can make WordPress websites longer to load.

Wordpress file size — Be wary of big file sizes

Do you keep a tab on the sizes of the images you upload?

Images and media files that are too big can end up increasing loading time. You may think a 3,000 x 5,000 pixels image looks great, but it’s bad news for your website. Having too many videos or pictures of large sizes will surely make your website visitors wait for a long time.

Moreover, it makes no sense to use such high-resolution images. Desktop monitors are generally 1,920 pixels wide or less, so the extra resolution will not make a difference. In the case of phones, the maximum width of the screen is around 700 pixels.

As a result, it doesn’t make sense to mess up your loading speed using unnecessary high resolutions or big file sizes.

What to do:

Keep your target audience and the devices they use in mind while adding media files to WordPress websites. For example, you can upload images with a maximum of 1,920 pixels width if you aim for desktops.

Additionally, use an image editor to resize and compress your pictures. You can even use a simple tool like Windows Picture Manager to serve your needs and improve WordPress performance.

At Lodus, we use responsive images or multiple versions of your pictures in different resolutions. When someone visits your website, it loads the correct version based on the user’s screen size for the best performance.

Pro tip: You can use a content delivery network (CDN) to distribute your traffic and cut down the load on your infrastructure. A plugin like Jetpack can also help you leverage a free CDN for your media files.

Do not host unnecessary media files on your WordPress website. Instead, upload them on image hosting and video hosting platforms to keep your website light. This will help you improve your WordPress loading speed as you are not hosting the files on your servers.

4. The location of your WordPress server can increase your website loading time.

The geographical location of your server is vital to ensure your website loads quickly. If your server is far away from your target audience, your website visitors may end up getting frustrated.

The problem is, choosing a hosting provider from your country doesn’t mean your server will be located in the country. For all you know, your hosting provider based in Los Angeles may be using a server in Australia. As a result, the data from Australia will take time to reach your website user in the USA.

The delay in loading will increase with the distance between your users and your servers. Additionally, your data center location impacts your SEO. So, the location of your server is very important.

What to do:

Choose a server location that is closer to your target audience. If you’re a business in the US, go for a server located within the country. It will make your website faster for your customers situated here.

Businesses targeting an international audience can choose a server location closer to their target market.

Pro tip: You can also host your website on multiple servers. The process helps you balance your website traffic and meet unexpected spikes in visitors. If your website is on multiple servers, then all the servers share the increased flow of traffic. Therefore, your website performance will be much more consistent despite the increased traffic.

Additionally, multi-server hosting can help your website stay online even if one server or data center shuts down.

5. Your WordPress Website is Mobile-Unfriendly.

responsive website — Responsiveness is a must

Do you use a smartphone to go online? So do 90% of the global population that uses the Internet, according to Statista.

Today, more people are using phones rather than desktops or laptops to go online. Search engines like Google have also kept up with the trend and show mobile websites on search results. As a result, you will lose out on customers if your website doesn’t work on phones.

Being mobile-friendly is more important for businesses that depend on their website to generate revenue. Your eCommerce store should be operational on mobiles to attract all the mobile shoppers these days. Their number is quite huge and will make up 44% of all eCommerce revenues by 2024.

That’s almost half of the total people who shop online!

What to do:

Your website may not work as expected on phones for many reasons. Many are related to the limitations of mobile devices like low internet speeds and high latency. Additionally, the hardware is not as capable as desktop or laptops and takes more time to process website code.

Therefore, your website takes longer to load as it is developed for desktop computers.

You need to consider all the above factors to make your website mobile-friendly. Then you have to address each area and optimize your website to accommodate the limitations of smartphones.

Additionally, you can try:

Making all text legible and visible
Adopting mobile-first design practices
Implementing clean coding practices
Cutting down on long CSS and JavaScript
Using fewer plugins

Your web developer should be able to help you create a mobile-friendly website. If not, you can always contact us to let our experts take over and deliver the best mobile experience.

6. Server Overload Can Hamper WordPress Performance.

Every server has a capacity it can handle comfortably. If your server somehow becomes overloaded, your website can experience serious performance issues. Some examples are:

Strange HTTP error codes
A delay in response times
WordPress server doesn’t entertain TCP connections
The website loads partial content

No business will want their server to be overloaded. However, the issue is more common than you think!

What to do:

You don’t have much to do unless you manage your servers. If you don’t, call your hosting provider at the earliest and provide as much information as possible about the issue. The more details you give, the better diagnosis your provider will be able to perform.

The first step to resolve server load is to find out the cause. Some standard causes of server overload are:

A sudden increase in website traffic overloads your servers beyond their capacity. As a result, your website experiences hiccups and jolts.
Though unlikely, one or many of your servers may go down and make the remaining servers work hard. The reduced traffic balancing can take a toll on your website performance.
Your website gets infected with viruses or malware that purposefully slow down the site.
A hacker initiates denial-or-service (DoS) or distributed-denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) on your website. The attack floods your servers with fake requests and overloads your servers.

Based on the trigger, you can take measures to contain the damage or prevent it from repeating.

For example, you can host your website on multiple servers to meet sudden spikes in traffic. However, it can be expensive and require technical knowledge of site reliability engineering.

You can also contact us to choose our hosting for a better experience.

Robust Security can Improve WordPress Performance

Your existing security protocols can go a long way to help you manage your server load. You can use several methods to prevent and resolve server overload and malicious attempts to attack your systems.

For example:

A circuit breaker can stop too many requests from flooding your servers
Rate limiting can protect your server and stop the traffic overflow
IP blacklisting to block known and suspected malicious connections
Web application firewall (WAF) to protect your web apps
DDoS mitigation (Sometimes offered by provider)

Good security practices and the above can help you stop such attacks and server overload.

7. Hotlinking Can Put Your WordPress Website in Jeopardy.

wordpress hotlinking — Take steps to prevent hotlinking

Hotlinking is comparable to stealing the resources of your WordPress server. Let’s say you have a few images on your website. Someone copies the URL of the photos and uses them on their website. As a result, when the pictures show up on the other website, your server has to do the job of supplying them.

The issue can become serious if the website that stole your image URL attracts high traffic. In such cases, the high traffic can drain your server’s resources and make your website slow. Your web pages can also become unresponsive or take too much time to respond to clicks or requests. Worst of all, hotlinking can even overload your servers beyond capacity.

What to do:

You can use a range of techniques to prevent hotlinking. Many WordPress hosting providers offer hotlinking protection so that no one can steal your resources. Another trick is to disable right-click on your websites to prevent anyone from copying URLs or text.

HTTP security headers can also prevent clickjacking and some cyber-attacks. They implement rules for how browsers communicate with your website to offer more protection.

Moreover, you can even use WordPress security plugins that disallow the hotlinking of images and videos.

8. WordPress Coding and Configuration Issues Can Affect Your Website.

Many WordPress performance challenges are due to errors in website coding or configuration. Your developer may have made some mistakes that are causing your website to act weird or malfunction.

Maybe, your website has too many individual scripts and timesheets that increase the loading time. Or, maybe you have not cached your website pages, making the server work harder to generate fresh pages for every visit.

Sometimes, the coding in your WordPress themes is also responsible for your website’s drawbacks. For example, poorly-coded themes can make too many database calls and make your site slow. You can have the same problem for well-coded themes, too.

You can have endless coding or configuration errors that make your website visitors ready to leave.

What to do:

You have to inspect your website’s configurations and coding to find out what’s wrong. The process will need technical expertise to discover the causes and adopt a solution.

For example, you can use a WordPress caching plugin to make your website serve cached pages. It will make your website faster by many times and help you attract more customers. You can also use a child theme to lower database calls and provide a better user experience.

However, don’t use multiple caching plugins for the same purpose. You should use only one plugin for caching your database, one for page caching, and so on.

Never mix identical caching solutions and stay lean on your usage.

For coding errors, you need to find out the errors in your code to fix the problem. Similarly, you will need to configure your WordPress the right way to get the desired performance.

Additionally, you can combine your stylesheets and scripts into fewer files using plugins like Autoptimize. Or, if you’re a plugin/theme developer, you may want to use tools like Webpack.

We can arrange an audit of your website to find out what’s making it slow or crash. Our team will also be glad to provide the solutions and help your WordPress website perform like a champ.

9. WordPress Performance May Suffer Due to Database Problems.

The database of your WordPress website can become heavy with a range of unnecessary information. The information may include deleted posts, unused tags, post revisions, and more. Having too much information in your database will naturally make your website slow to respond.

What to do:

The solution to this problem is really simple. You need to clean your database and remove unnecessary data to keep it fast and lightweight. Of course, you need to know which information is necessary and which isn’t. Otherwise, you can delete something important and make your website unresponsive.

You can also use WordPress plugins (like WP-Sweep) to optimize your database if you aren’t sure what to delete.

10. Outdated Core Software, Themes, and Plugins Are Responsible Too.

Some performance issues you experience on WordPress may be due to outdated resources. Your WordPress core software can create a range of issues if you don’t update it when necessary. The same applies to your themes and plugins.

Outdated software and plugins can slow down your website. They can make your website unreliable and filled with bugs. Additionally, not updating your software or themes can even lead to security risks like hacking.

The issue is more common when your themes and plugins have more dependencies and are more complex. For example, your WooCommerce plugins need to be compatible with both your WordPress core version and WooCommerce version.

What to do:

It is essential to understand your dependencies and sources of complexity to update your resources properly. If you have that expertise, then updates are not a big challenge.

WordPress releases frequent updates, and you should implement all of them. Do the same for your themes and plugins to lower your risks and fix bugs. Also, ensure your other elements like the PHP version are up to date.

Get in touch with us if you don’t know how to update your website.

WordPress Performance Optimization Plugins

WordPress has a large ecosystem of plugins that extend the functionality of your website. You can also use a range of performance optimization plugins to boost your site’s performance.

Below are a few plugins you may want to try:

WP Super Cache

WP Super Cache is a powerful tool to boost website performance. It creates static HTML files from dynamic WordPress pages.

These static files are served to users to reduce server load and enhance page load times. Key features include:

Cached HTML files to minimize the need to generate pages dynamically

Simple toggle switches and recommended settings make configuration easier
Seamlessly integrates with CDNs to speed up content delivery
Preloads cached files in the background to ensure fast loading times
Experienced users can access options to fine-tune cache settings
GZIP compression reduces the size of cached files for even faster loading
Separate caching for mobile devices for an optimized mobile experience

W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache is another suitable plugin to leverage various caching techniques. It boosts your site performance, user experience, and SEO efforts.

Here are the main features of the tool:

Page caching to lower server load and quicken page loading times
Browser caching of CSS, JavaScript, and images to prevent re-downloading on each visit
Database caching to minimize server load when fetching data
Object caching to reduce the need to query the database repeatedly
Minification of CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files to reduce size and improve load times
Integrates with CDNs like Cloudflare and Amazon CloudFront
Fragment caching to cache specific parts of a page
Mobile optimization for excellent mobile experiences

Autoptimize

Autoptimize is a performance optimization plugin for WordPress. It streamlines website loading by optimizing and aggregating web assets.

Some helpful features include:

Reduction of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript file sizes by removing unnecessary whitespace and comments
Combines multiple JavaScript files into one to reduce server requests and speed up loading
Aggregates CSS files to minimize HTTP requests
lazy loading of images to reduce server load and boost loading speed
Generates critical CSS, the minimal CSS required for rendering the above-the-fold content of a page
Hosts Google Fonts locally to reduce external requests
JavaScript deferred execution to quicken loading times
Supports async and defer attributes for JavaScript files to prevent render-blocking scripts

WP-Optimize

Wp-Optimize is ideal to enhance your web and database performance. You can clean up your database by removing post revisions, auto-drafts, spam, and more.

Additionally, you can:

Optimize database tables to improve their efficiency and allow faster data retrieval
Schedule regular automatic cleanups to keep the database lean and efficient
Image compression features to reduce the file size of images for faster loading
Manage and clear cache generated by caching plugins
Provides insights into your database’s health and optimization progress
Limit login attempts and protect your website from brute-force attacks
Manage multiple WordPress websites
Database backups to avoid any disruptions

Smush

Smush is a popular WordPress image optimization plugin. It focuses on reducing image file sizes to enhance website performance.

The main functions of the tool are:

Automatically compresses images without compromising their quality
Optimize existing images in bulk for entire media library to save time
Lazy loading of images
Resize images on the fly to fit the dimensions specified in your theme
Lossless compression options to optimize images without any loss of quality
Identifies and alerts you about incorrect image dimensions that may slow down your site
Automatic optimization while images are uploaded
Optimize images in specific directories or folders for more control
Smush integrates with WPMU DEV’s API to optimize images on their servers

Query Monitor

Query Monitor is designed primarily for developers and site administrators. It provides in-depth insights into website performance by monitoring various aspects of its functionality.

Some features include:

Identifies slow or problematic queries by monitoring all database queries during page loading
Records HTTP requests and shows information about each request, response, and issues
Monitor and analyze the hooks and actions being executed on a page for debugging
Provides insights into how each plugin impacts your site’s performance
View data on the current user’s role, capabilities, and permissions
Tracks REST API requests and displays information about each call, response, and endpoint
Provides a snapshot of your server environment, including PHP version, server memory usage, and more

WP Rocket

WP Rocket is a comprehensive and user-friendly performance optimization plugin. It is intuitive and comes with powerful features.

Some of them are:

Page caching to improve load times dramatically
Browser caching of files like images, CSS, and JavaScript
GZIP compression to ensure your website visitors can enjoy speed
Minifies and combines CSS and JavaScript files to reduce the number of HTTP requests
Supports lazy loading for images and iframes
Cleans up and optimizes your WordPress database by removing unnecessary data
Easily integrates with CDNs to enhance content distribution
Automatic mobile optimization upon detection of mobile devices
Preloads your cache automatically
Provides control over WordPress’ heartbeat API

Go for Managed WordPress Hosting for Top Performance

wordpress managed hosting — Managed hosting can be a savior

WordPress performance issues can creep up when you are managing your own website without the required expertise. You do not have a clear idea of what you need to do to make your website fast and reliable. As a result, you run into problems frequently and end up losing your customers and revenues.

Entrepreneurs like you need managed WordPress hosting to never worry about performance issues again.

WordPress managed hosting from Lodus puts us in charge of maintaining your website. We employ the top experts to keep an eye on your website for any bugs or performance problems. Our team even uses advanced tools to monitor your website 24/7 for errors or security risks.

Additionally, we get to know instantly if your website performance metrics take a downturn. Therefore, we can take action without wasting time and resolve performance issues quickly.

Lodus will also take the responsibility of caching your pages, using best practices like a content delivery network, and updating your software. Our team will help your website keep performing like a star all the while without any exception.

Get in touch with us to know how we can improve your website performance right away.

Tags slow website, website performance, Wordpress, Wordpress website performance

Cybersecurity

WordPress Security Challenges: How to Find Your Way Around

Post author By Dipanjan Das
Post date December 22, 2023

Are you worried about WordPress security?

WordPress powers a large segment of the web. It is one of the best solutions to host your website that powers over 40% of the internet.

Additionally, WordPress dominates the content management systems (CMS) market with a 64.2% share.

Yet, just choosing WordPress doesn’t make your website secure. In fact, not being able to manage your WordPress hosting can invite many threats.

Just like with any Internet-connected device, you need to keep an eye on your website to stop hackers, remove viruses, and secure your data. Otherwise, your website, customer information, order database, and everything is open to risks.

Sadly, you need a few technical skills and expertise to manage all these tasks to beef up the security of your website.

As a result, not many businesses are even aware of the threats they can encounter. We will take up the vital security challenges of WordPress hosting your site can experience any day.

Additionally, we will also tell you how to overcome these WordPress security challenges to keep your website and sensitive information secure.

We will explore a few WordPress security plugins in the end to strengthen your site protection.

Vulnerabilities

The security challenges of WordPress are common to all hosting services. Typically, the hosting you get is not bad. Still, many unchecked elements in your website can give an entry to hackers or blackmailers.

WordPress, too, is not free from vulnerabilities. If you fail to do your part, your website can be infected with malware or suffer unauthorized access.

A widespread issue is using a weak password for your website’s admin login(s). Cybercriminals can brute-force weak passwords easily and gain full access to your website, which may include payment or personally identifiable information of your customers.

Certainly, no entrepreneur would want that!

What to Do:

Do not reuse passwords across websites.

If any of them is compromised, attackers can download all the user data from the database and sell it. Or, they can use brute force techniques to crack the password encryption and log into any of your accounts using the same password.

To see if your accounts have been compromised, you can use tools like haveibeenpwned.com.

Create strong passwords.

One way to prevent risks like these is to use a password with numbers, upper and lower case alphabetic characters, and special characters. We recommend all our clients use the built-in password generator in WordPress to create secure passwords.

You can also use password management tools like Bitwarden, LastPass, or Keeper Security. These tools let you automatically create strong passwords with unique combinations. You can also store your passwords online to prevent writing them down on paper.

Additionally, your passwords will be encrypted and backed up in the cloud. You will no longer need to remember passwords, simplifying the whole login process.

Pro tip: Use multiple services to store passwords online to have adequate backups. You won’t have to worry even if one storage platform goes down.

Now, let’s check out what vulnerabilities haunt your WordPress website:

Unauthorized Access

multi factor authentication — Can your WordPress site prevent unauthorized access?

You learned how someone could break or guess your password to gain entry into your website illegally. Similarly, attackers can exploit many vulnerabilities to break into your website, account, or server.

For example, hackers can try to gain entry using passwords for accounts used by your employees or team members.

One way to secure your website against unauthorized entry is using 2FA or two-factor authentication. It is a simple way to protect your website from prying eyes.

How does it work?

Chances are, you are already familiar with 2FA. Net banking apps send an OTP to your mobile when you log in with your ID and password. If you can’t provide the correct OTP, your bank will deny further access.

This is one method of two-factor authentication. There are other methods such as time-based codes used with apps like Authy and Google Authenticator.

Our team at Lodus always uses 2FA to secure all user accounts of our client websites. You should also incorporate 2FA into your WordPress website right now to stop unauthorized access.

Uncontrolled User Permissions

Any business may have more users other than the admin accessing the website. Your editor might log in to proofread a blog, or your sales team can search for customer data.

Every WordPress website allows you to control what your users can and cannot do on your website. The technical term for this is user permissions. You have different levels of permission like:

Super Admin: Lets you access all website and network features. You can freely edit or make any changes to all your WordPress websites.
Administrator: Allows you to use all the administrative features of the website. (Use this role with extreme caution — do not underestimate the potential damage of malicious actors gaining access to admin permissions).
Editor: Gives you the freedom to publish and edit all posts and pages, including those made by other users.
Author: Users with this permission can publish and manage their own posts and pages.

Contributor: Can manage or write their posts and pages but not publish them.

Subscriber: Users of your site who can only create and manage their own user profiles. This role has the least access and isn’t allowed into the admin backend.

Your WordPress website has the feature to control user permissions. But if you don’t know how, your website is left open to threats.

For example, you may not want your editor accessing your customer records, eCommerce orders, or client email addresses due to assigning the wrong role and permissions.

What to Do:

You should always start with the most restricted permissions and add more as and when required.
We recommend keeping admin users to a minimum to lower the risk of being hacked.
Delegate admin access only when required, and then revoke access once that requirement is fulfilled.

Outdated Core Software

Updating your website, installing the right patches, and upgrading your security protocols is a regular task. A part of this process is updating the core software of WordPress.

Unfortunately, updating your core software is not as simple as updating your mobile apps. And as you falter, an outdated core software leaves the door open for intruders and hackers.

Outdated Themes and Plugins

Your website may use a range of plugins to provide extra features not included in the basic WordPress installation. Just like with updates to the core WordPress software, you need to update your website’s theme and plugins.

If you don’t, cybercriminals can use security vulnerabilities present in the outdated code to compromise your website.

The gravity of this security issue is so high that WordPress forcibly updated specific plugins in the past to make its service secure.

Now, we hope you don’t want to suffer thousands of dollars of loss just because you didn’t update your plugins! If you’re into eCommerce, that sum can reach millions in court fees for not protecting personally identifiable information (PII).

Lodus takes care of everything when you choose us as your managed website hosting provider. If you don’t know how to update your WordPress or plugins, you can surely get in touch!

Exposed Login URLs

Websites with backends or content management systems have a separate URL or link to login — something like “your-website.com/admin.”

WordPress sites have the same URL for the user and admin login by default. In recent times, malicious actors are using this URL to gain illegal access to your website.

You can reduce your risk by changing the URL to something no one can guess. At Lodus, we can disguise your admin URL using a plugin, PHP code, or web server configuration. We will choose the best method based on your needs and circumstances.

Cyber Crime and Threats

wordpress security breaches — WordPress is not exempted from cyber crime

Any website on the internet can be a victim of cybercrime. You don’t have to be an enterprise to fall under the gaze of hackers or attackers. Even small businesses and solo entrepreneurs are at risk of experiencing cybercrime. Someone can copy all your customer data and sell it to marketing companies for thousands of dollars.

43% of cyber-attacks target small businesses, but only 14% are prepared to handle such attacks. As a result, businesses lose an average of $200,000 due to cybercrime.

Apart from customer ire, you will also have to face legal consequences if you are a victim of cybercrime. Let’s take a look at some common cyber threats applicable to any WordPress website.

Malware

Malware is the modern form of internet viruses. However, the range of applications has now expanded to include more malicious software like spyware or ransomware. These applications steal data, take down your website, lock your files for ransom, and cause more harm.

SQL Injections

SQL injections are a form of attack that compromises data in your database. Hackers can use this highly popular attack method to even send commands to your WordPress software.

Injecting is a method of inserting malicious codes into a website or web application. It interferes with how the application communicates with the database and gives the hacker the ability to:

Retrieve hidden and sensitive data
Compromise web apps and systems
Take control of user browser
Reveal private information of customers and clients
Steal and delete data

These attacks can even land you in legal trouble for your inability to protect user data. Plus, your reputation is up for questioning if you cannot even protect your customer data.

Cross-Site Scripting

This is a common bug found on many WordPress websites. Cybercriminals can exploit this bug to take control of your website and web apps.

The attacker usually injects some arbitrary JavaScript code into websites or web applications. The code executes within the end-user’s browser to carry out its programmed mission.

As a result, you can experience dangers like:

Your website clicks being hijacked
Stolen information like names, passwords, and other PII.
Damage to your website
Modification of your website content
Redirecting your visitors to other links

You can watch this video to learn more about cross-site scripting.

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

CSRF takes control of user accounts connected to a web app. The attacker will be able to do everything the user permission of the compromised account allows. They may initiate a transfer of funds, control how the app works, and even compromise the whole application.

The damages can be more if the user account is of an admin.

At Lodus, we use a Web Application Firewall or WAF to protect you from SQL injection attacks and cross-site scripting. In essence, you have nothing to worry about when we’re managing your WordPress site!

Denial-of-Service Attacks

DoS attacks are highly effective at disrupting services and taking down websites. Nobody will be able to access your website or content during a Denial-of-Service attack. For an online store, that results in a direct loss of revenues.

Unfortunately, you can end up losing hundreds and even thousands of dollars, as the average cost of DoS attacks is $22,000 per hour for a business.

However, your attacker needs only $5 to inflict the damage, thanks to the affordability and wide availability of IoT devices.

Phishing

Phishing is tricking someone into revealing private or sensitive information. The most common method is sending an email that mimics a trusted sender, like your bank. You click on a link in the email that takes you to a page that appears the same as your banking login page.

As soon as you enter your ID and password, the hacker gains entry to your bank account. Now, they can even withdraw your funds or make your account inaccessible to you.

Educating your employees to avoid suspicious emails and URLs is a way to reduce threats. In fact, making your employees aware of cyber threats is a standard every business should follow to minimize risks.

We would run out of space to list all threats that exist online for website owners. Just naming all malware is impossible, with 1 million new malware being released every day.

Similarly, WordPress hosting has many risks and headaches. Managing everything on your own is not possible, even if you have a bit of technical knowledge. Lodus can help you take care of all vulnerabilities and prevent cyberattacks proactively.

Contact us for your WordPress security consulting and enjoy secure enterprise website hosting for complete peace of mind.

Default or Weak Encryption

wordpress encryption — Encrypt your resources for peace of mind

Encryption is a technique used to store or communicate information to be read only by intended recipients. It protects information from being intercepted or leaked to malicious parties prying on the Internet.

For example, if you log in to any website using an unencrypted connection, anyone reading the network traffic can see your login information and password. That might not be the best way to protect your customer details.

Any malicious person can intercept data exchanged over the Internet between a website and a user if it’s not encrypted.

A secure website should have strong encryption to protect information exchanged with customers and users.

Encryption is now a legal requirement for many businesses. For example, any healthcare website needs to comply with HIPAA data privacy laws of encryption. Similarly, you may need to comply with different regulations worldwide, like GDPR, NIST, or PCI.

Encryption is now taken as a standard globally. Hosting your site on the HTTPS protocol is a basic way to encrypt your website. Plus, by implementing HTTPS, you can ensure all traffic is redirected to a secure connection.

Is My WordPress Hosting Encrypted?

Your hosting provider will also take care of providing some form of encryption, either by themselves or through third-party services.

Having basic encryption doesn’t mean you don’t have any risks. Your data may still be intercepted illegally or used for unintended purposes.

Using encryption is a must to avoid risks. The added security of HTTPS even eliminates the chances of having your data viewed by your internet provider or third parties. Plus, your customers will be more willing to trust your brand.

You can use browser extensions like HTTPS Everywhere for Chrome and Firefox to adopt a secure connection. Plus, you can consult us for more ways to protect your data and customers.

Inadequate Backups

Backups are life savers when your website is taken down or you lose your data. Just like important documents, websites need backups to stay resilient to failures and disasters. If something goes wrong, you can restore your services using a backup.

Lodus automates your backups at the server level. You can take daily, hourly, or even monthly backups without manually initiating the process every time.

However, having just one backup is not adequate. Even worse is keeping backups on the same server used for your website. You might lose everything if your server stops working.

Leading businesses maintain several backups on different servers. That’s the basic setup, but Lodus does more to protect your website even in the worst-case scenarios.

We store backups of our clients’ websites on different servers in different data centers. Moreover, we make sure to spread the backups across data centers in different parts of the world.

Even if a data center burns down, floods, or suffers a major power outage, we can quickly restore your website to keep generating business.

WordPress Security Best Practices

We have been talking about WordPress security challenges and even gave you glimpses of how to resolve them. Next, we are going to talk about a few best practices you can follow for your WordPress website:

Choose a reliable hosting provider.

It’s always better to avoid cheap hosting services that suffer quality issues. They are like a cheap stroller you will never want your 5-month-old to be in!

After all, you won’t want your baby to drop on the sidewalk or roll down the busy street!

If you experience any of the WordPress security issues we mentioned, you need a better hosting provider. Be sure to research and determine the reliability of any provider before you invest.

Update regularly.

Be it your core software, plugins, or themes, make sure to update regularly to reduce security vulnerabilities. Always take backups beforehand to minimize the risk of failure.

Websites used SSL certificates in the early days of the Internet to boast of top security. Today, SSL is replaced by more secure TLS encryption. We recommend using only TLS 1.3 for better security, privacy, and speed than its predecessor.

Implement foolproof security protocols.

These measures improve aspects of your website security, like encryption. You may also consider a web application firewall if your applications run on the web.

Monitor your website.

Keeping an eye on your website 24/7 can help you resolve many WordPress security challenges. You can spot anomalies and intrusions instantly using time-series data and take quick action. Many monitoring tools are now available, like Grafana and Amazon CloudWatch.

Educate your employees.

Familiarizing your employees and users with the security best practices will save your company money in the long run by empowering everyone to minimize risks. You can avoid threats like phishing and downloading malware to a great extent.

WordPress Security Plugins

WordPress security plugins can help you keep your website secure from various threats. They automate several tasks like malware scanning to help you stay proactive.

Below are a few plugins worth considering:

Wordfence

Wordfence is a robust WordPress security plugin to fortify your website against a plethora of threats. This all-inclusive tool acts as a virtual fortress for your WordPress site.

It comes with features like advanced firewall, malware scanning, and login security features. The firewall actively blocks malicious traffic, thwarting brute force attacks and other threats.

Wordfence conducts regular scans to detect and eliminate malware. It also enforces stringent login security measures, including two-factor authentication to safeguard your site’s login credentials.

Wordfence is a vital guardian for your WordPress site. It enhances the resilience of your investment against ever-evolving online threats.

Sucuri

Sucuri is a leading cybersecurity company and the developer of a WordPress security plugin of the same name. The tool offers comprehensive protection for WordPress websites.

The plugin has features such as malware scanning, real-time threat monitoring, and a web application firewall (WAF) to safeguard your site. It efficiently detects and removes malware, preventing potential damage.

The WAF filters out malicious traffic before it reaches your site, reducing the risk of hacking attempts and DDoS attacks. Sucuri is a trusted choice for web admins seeking top-tier security to defend their WordPress websites.

It can protect your site against a range of online vulnerabilities.

iThemes Security

iThemes Security is yet another plugin to safeguard your WordPress website. It was formerly known as Better WP Security.

The plugin provides over 30 ways to protect your site from various threats. It focuses on critical areas like login security, malware scanning, and file integrity monitoring.

iThemes Security helps prevent brute force attacks and enforces strong password policies. It conducts regular scans for vulnerabilities or suspicious activity.

The tool also helps encrypt sensitive data to ensure no one can gain unauthorized access.

iThemes Security is an excellent choice with rich features and a user-friendly interface to bolster your web security.

All In One WP Security & Firewall

All In One WP Security & Firewall is a user-friendly yet powerful WordPress security plugin. It takes a comprehensive approach to safeguarding your website.

The tool comes with a range of features to keep your site safe from vulnerabilities. It offers user account security to protect against brute force attacks and login threats.

Additionally, the plugin features a firewall that blocks malicious traffic and enforces strict security rules.

All In One WP plugin is accessible to novice and expert users alike. It is an excellent choice to boost your site’s security without needing advanced technical expertise.

Shield Security

Shield Security is renowned for its simplicity and effectiveness in enhancing website security. It empowers website owners with a wide range of features to easily protect their WordPress sites.

The plugin offers brute force login protection, IP blocking, and a powerful firewall. Shield Security also includes features like two-factor authentication and login activity monitoring.

The tool is easy to use and accessible for users of all levels of technical expertise.

Shield Security serves as a robust shield against malicious attacks and unauthorized access. It is a valuable choice for anyone seeking to bolster WordPress security.

BulletProof Security

BulletProof Security is a dedicated suite of tools to strengthen your website security. The plugin employs a multifaceted approach to safeguard your WordPress site.

It protects you against common threats like brute force attacks, SQL injection, and more.

BulletProof Security includes features such as a firewall, login security, and file monitoring to detect and prevent malicious activity. The plugin is known for its security log and alerting system.

It helps users stay informed about security events and adopt a proactive approach.

BulletProof Security is ideal for beginners and advanced users looking for a robust security solution.

WP Cerber Security

Cerber Security is a formidable WordPress plugin. It helps you stay safe against a myriad of cyber threats.

It safeguards your site from malicious activities, including brute force attacks and spam.

Cerber Security boasts an array of features, such as IP blocking, reCAPTCHA integration, and user activity monitoring. It keeps a vigilant eye on login attempts and can automatically block suspicious IP addresses.

Moreover, the plugin prevents REST API and ordinary user enumerations.

Cerber Security is a comprehensive solution to boost your website’s security. It is available in free and paid plans to suit all budgets.

Managed WordPress Hosting for WordPress Security

Monitoring your website proactively around the clock is hypothetically the best way to protect your website. You can spot not just WordPress security breaches but also malfunctioning hardware, unresponsive software, and more.

However, monitoring your website 24/7 is not realistically possible for anyone. The only way you can do it is to pay two or three people to work in shifts. However, that is not a feasible option for most business owners.

Lodus can help you monitor your website with automated systems configured to spot anomalies. We use advanced monitoring and alerting tools to monitor your website and spot intrusions instantly proactively. Not only that, we will ensure your website performs like a champ when you choose our managed WordPress hosting service. Don’t hesitate to contact us with your requirements!

Go for WordPress Managed Hosting

You will never have to worry about having no technical knowledge or awareness of cyber threats. We will employ top experts to make your website secure and 24/7 monitoring. You can count on us for every solution we described for WordPress security challenges, like updating plugins and core software.

Lodus can also help you host your website and offer end-to-end management services to reduce risks to your business and the need for in-house expertise. Additionally, we always stay ahead on research and the latest threats around the world. We spend countless hours to learn, improve, stay relevant, and offer you the best.

Get in touch with us to switch to managed WordPress hosting. We offer enterprise hosting solutions to comply with your business requirements and keep sensitive information secure.

Business DevOps

Is DevOps Meant for Businesses in 2024?

Post author By Dipanjan Das
Post date December 10, 2023

Benefits of Devops for industries — Can DevOps help you achieve business success?

DevOps adoption is growing by leaps and bounds, driving the global market to $10.31 billion by 2023. Cost savings, better quality, faster time to market—the benefits of DevOps are too many to pen down.

Amidst the growth of DevOps, many businesses are unsure whether they are the right candidates for transformation. The lack of a definite structure contributes to the problem, as DevOps is a culture and set of approaches.

Lodus decided to make things a bit clear and spell out a few industries that can benefit from DevOps. You can get a better idea of whether your organization will benefit from DevOps and the pros you are looking at.

Next, we will explore whether DevOps is still relevant and the path of transformation it is taking.

So, let’s start with the most obvious industry.

1. Tech

Technology is the ideal ground for DevOps to score a home run. The amalgamation of the Dev and Ops teams helps you release faster. However, that’s not the only place where the culture shines.

DevOps can help you improve quality beyond imagination. Take the case of Amazon, for example. Using AWS and DevOps methodologies, Amazon reduced deployment failures to 1 out of every 100,000 for their website.

Along with that, Amazon deployed new software to their production servers every 11.6 seconds on average. On their busiest days, the tech giant pushed 1,079 fresh deployments to production daily.

Moreover, Amazon was able to save millions of dollars.

2. Finance

devops for finance — Finance needs DevOps to provide unmatched service

The finance industry was one of the first industries to transform digitally. No wonder it would also lead the pack in DevOps adoption. Any business in finance now has to deal with software and app development to offer its services.

Additionally, finance companies need to comply with a range of state and corporate regulations. On top of that, they also have to release quickly to stay above the competition.

DevOps comes as a natural choice for the finance industry. Leading players like HSBC, Capital One, and Barclays already use DevOps to woo their customers.

You can, too, break out of your monolith architecture and embrace DevOps elements like microservices for business success.

3. Entertainment & Streaming

Streaming platforms like Netflix use their share of DevOps to provide the best viewing experience. Have you ever noticed how sometimes the “Recommended Picks” in Netflix doesn’t work? However, you can still use Netflix as usual and watch what you want.

You can thank DevOps for helping Netflix fail like a champ. Using DevOps approaches, you can keep your services running even when parts of your application malfunction. That means Netflix viewers can enjoy their favorite series even if the recommendations don’t work.

Disney is another company reaping the benefits of DevOps that include:

Scaling and running thousands of servers
Providing more content to viewers quickly
Reducing technical resource usage
Updating countless servers with less time and effort

4. Retail

The retail industry is going through a massive transformation. Businesses are competing to hold on to their customers in the face of eCommerce. Naturally, leaders like Starbucks took to DevOps a long time back to provide an awesome customer experience.

Thanks to agile development, Starbucks could reduce the steps in its app development value stream by 41%. Additionally, its release cycle time came down by 74% to just 22 days. So, you can release more often, update more frequently, and add new features without disruptions.

DevOps benefits can also help businesses in retail to provide an omnichannel journey. You can use agile technologies and approaches to:

Manage shelf inventory
Improve supply chain management and cut costs
Deliver quickly

In short, DevOps can help the retail industry to improve customer experience.

5. Healthcare

devops in healthcare — DevOps may help achieve better health outcomes

However, most healthcare organizations operated in silos, and teams used different apps. The huge volume of data coupled with disparate systems made the situation worse.

Businesses in healthcare have been slow to adapt to change. Finally, the industry had to wake up, thanks to electronic health records and the digitization of patient data.

Optum, a sister venture of UnitedHealthcare, faced the same problem. Being the largest healthcare company’s child endeavor, Optum couldn’t achieve the speed and stability it desired.

DevOps provided the way out for Optum as early as 2014. The company shifted to a centralized and scalable platform and was able to exchange information seamlessly across consumers.

The perks also included low costs, quick releases, and a much-needed standardization.

6. Hospitality

The hospitality industry now depends heavily on apps and booking software. DevOps is ideal for accelerating deployments and speeding up design for quickly releasing solutions. Innovation in hospitality can also be facilitated by DevOps, apart from improving your customer service.

The Australian Tourism Association used DevOps and cloud to tie multiple legacy platforms owned by individual states. The association was also able to bring down costs and provide a better service.

Thanks to DevOps, they can now support high workloads, like processing over a million API requests efficiently.

Travel companies like Tavisca and Amadeus also use DevOps to stand out.

7. Telecom

The telecom and internet industry relies heavily on IT infrastructure. Naturally, the infrastructures are quite complex, difficult to scale, and run up huge costs. Offering uninterrupted services and keeping up with the latest innovations are also included in the telecom industry’s challenges.

Fortunately, DevOps is here to save big businesses like Verizon and Vodafone. Verizon has been a pioneer in adopting DevOps that involved activities like:

Adopting large-scale automation
Orchestration of app releases
Rewriting apps as microservices
Using containerized applications for cloud

The biggest benefit of DevOps for telecom is managing and updating infrastructure. You can treat infrastructures just like an app and update or release changes in increments.

8. Automobile

devops for automobile industry — Release quick firmware updates with DevOps

Driving a Tesla makes you aware of how the automobile industry has progressed in a few decades. Now, you also need to run firmware updates for your car to enjoy the latest technology and functions.

It’s not surprising that the automobile industry will also walk the path of DevOps. Brands like BMW, Jaguar, and Mercedes-Benz have already tried their hands on agile methodologies.

From releasing features to upgrades, benefits of DevOps can revolutionize the automobile industry. You can release updates, add features, and make changes to the software over-the-air. Just making some changes in the car’s coding may help turn a boring, stressful commute into a safer, more fun commute.

9. Defense

The defense industry was waiting to go agile for a long time. You need to write endless lines of codes to drive today’s fighter jets and submarines. The traditional tools are not enough to keep pace with your enemies.

DevOps can easily address the challenges of the defense industry and make it more resilient. You will be able to market faster and update your fleet without the complexities.

Companies like Northrop Grumman and even The Department of Defense now exploit the benefits of DevOps.

Is DevOps Still Relevant in 2023?

It has been many years since DevOps came into the picture in 2007. The widely adopted methodology bridged the gap between development and operations teams.

DevOps allows agile development, enabling faster deployments and improved efficiency. However, is DevOps still relevant in today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape?

Let’s dive into the current state of DevOps and its potential future trajectory.

Some Say DevOps Is Dead

The role of DevOps engineers is becoming less critical due to the automation of many operational tasks. Many developers are now responsible for their application stack from end to end.

It undermines the need for a separate DevOps team.

The mushrooming cloud solutions in the market automate many DevOps responsibilities. Moreover, business revenue generated from cloud services is contributing to the shift.

Gartner predicts cloud spending may climb to $600 billion in 2023. It indicates that many responsibilities handled by DevOps engineers don’t exist today.

Moreover, services like Paas, SaaS, and Iaas further automate or even reduce the need for developer’s time.

For example, many eCommerce and online store platforms let you build your website. Additionally, serverless services are becoming popular with each passing day.

As a result, businesses don’t have the need for a separate DevOps team. They are hiring engineers who can take charge of the whole application stack.

The Emergence of Platform Engineering

platform engineering and devops — Platform Engineering is the way ahead

Most businesses don’t embrace DevOps in its totality. They either misinterpret it or apply it to the wrong use cases.

Therefore, these organizations cannot adopt the DevOps principles and culture. They only hire a DevOps engineer that doesn’t provide full value.

The perception is changing to make way for a mature and evolved version of DevOps. It has transformed to prioritize enablement and engagement of IT operations.

The new approach lets businesses achieve sustainability and growth in cloud-native environments. Moreover, managing infrastructure is becoming more agile.

Platform engineering (PE) has emerged to make this possible. Developers can forget pesky maintenance stuff and focus on their actual responsibilities.

PE creates reusable and self-service platforms that make software delivery a hassle-free experience. A developer can rely on tools and workflows to deploy code to production environments.

Most importantly, developers are not frustrated by complexities that come in the way of smooth systems. A lot of their work goes into repetitive work and keeping things going.

PE frees developers’ time and enables innovation. It helps developers churn out code faster without disruptions and minimal overhead.

The primary areas of focus for PE are developing and managing:

Runtime environments
CI pipelines
Kubernetes infrastructure
Automated testing systems
Software releases

Has Platform Engineering Replaced DevOps?

Automation has transformed many operational aspects of software development, freeing developers’ time to focus on DevOps challenges. However, this does not make DevOps obsolete.

Instead, it focuses on enabling developers and fostering a collaborative environment.

The emergence of platform engineering is an evolution of DevOps. It is a response to complex infrastructures and operational challenges.

PE aligns DevOps goals and encourages collaboration while providing standardized frameworks for developers. Instead of replacing DevOps, platform engineering complements the methodology.

The new approach helps organizations scale and handle the pressure to deliver code faster.

The Future of DevOps

DevOps has changed to adapt to the evolving technological landscape. However, DevOps is not going away.

The DevOps market is predicted to grow by 20% CAGR between 2023 to 2032. Therefore, we can indeed say DevOps is not dead and is still going strong.

Moreover, the increasing demand for automated testing and development tools indicates its continuing relevance.

The focus of DevOps teams is likely to shift towards innovation rather than maintenance as automation takes over tedious tasks.

One potential challenge is shifting towards more complex concepts, such as AI and ML, due to the automation of entry-level work. The IT skills shortage poses a significant issue in this regard.

Organizations must address this gap to ensure a smooth transition to new skill sets.

Final Thoughts

DevOps remains relevant in the IT industry, but its role is evolving. The automation of operational tasks and PE are shaping the future of DevOps.

Developers are increasingly taking on DevOps responsibilities while organizations embrace enablement and collaboration.

DevOps’s underlying principles and objectives continue to drive effective software delivery. Developers should embrace PE and stay updated to remain relevant and productive.

Tags Agile Development, CI/CD

Business

Chatbots of Yesterday and Today: The Coming of AI and NLP

Post author By Dipanjan Das
Post date December 10, 2023

chatbots customer service — Traditional chatbots vs. GPT-3.5 - who wins?

What purposes do chatbots on various websites serve?

Providing good customer service is not a choice anymore. 9 out of 10 Americans rely on service to decide whether they want to buy from a business. Naturally, providing stellar customer service is not only essential for profitability but also to survive the competition.

However, excelling at customer experiences doesn’t always need a huge investment and a team of customer representatives. A chatbot can help you provide amazing customer experiences at a fraction of the cost.

We are familiar with chatbots on online stores and websites. They allowed businesses for years to engage and assist buyers.

Today, technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) are transforming the chatbot realm. They are becoming more like humans with amazing capabilities to perform various tasks.

Let’s explore the use cases of traditional chatbots and what they made possible. Next, we will discuss how technologies like GPT and tools like ChatGPT are transforming the industry.

Automate Support Around the Clock

A chatbot is a virtual assistant driven by artificial intelligence. AI virtual assistants are now a part of our daily life and help us live better. You are interacting with an audio chatbot when you ask Siri or Alexa about the weather.

In the same way, you can set up a bot to chat with your customers on your website. A chatbot can use AI and machine learning to converse just like a human and provide support. You can program them to answer queries, link to resources, and more.

Best of all, you don’t need a person to stay up till 3 am to resolve customer queries. Chatbots are software and can run without supervision 24/7 once you program them.

That means you can provide support any time and create more loyal customers. Businesses in service like plumbers, painters, repairers, or even travel agencies can use chatbots to serve their customers automatically.

Expedia, Booking.com ⁠— everyone now uses a chatbot for 24/7 customer service and support.

Serve Knowledgebase and Resources

chatbot business service — Chatbots are great at customer service

Chatbots are excellent at troubleshooting. You can use a chatbot to help your customers resolve common issues and understand features. Chatbots can ask your customers relevant questions and then point them towards the right resource.

You can program your bot to show videos, connect to knowledgebase, redirect to blogs and articles, and more. Industries like tech, finance, telecom, and similar businesses can reduce costs and eliminate the need for human support teams by using a chatbot.

Additionally, allowing your customers to resolve issues themselves can boost satisfaction. Statistics show 50% of millennials perceive self-service as an integral part of a brand promise.

Top names in retail like Taco Bell and Burger King have already shifted to chatbots. You can, too, install a chatbot and serve your customers best to gain a competitive edge.

Chatbots Engage Customers Better

Engaging your leads is a great way to boost conversions. For that, you need to nurture your web visitors and encourage them to take action. However, you can’t push them too much to click the buy button!

The trick is to build a rapport with your visitors and help them make the purchasing decision. You will find many opportunities to assist and nurture your customers by doing a bit of research.

For example, over 50% of shoppers will quit immediately if they cannot access assistance while shopping online. Or, 57% of shoppers refrain from buying due to lack of information.

Chatbots can come in handy in such situations to assist and engage customers. If you succeed in satisfying the quench for information, your visitors will turn into your paying customers.

It’s no wonder 74% of global businesses prioritize lead nurturing. Not only can you improve your conversions, but you also provide a fantastic shopping experience to your customers.

Many industries like eCommerce use chatbots to nurture customers. Spring is one such name that relies on chatbots to drive customer engagement and provide the ultimate shopping pleasure.

No matter the industry, your chatbot is a cost-effective way to nurture clients and boost sales. Additionally, engaged customers are more loyal and self-advocates of a brand to aid in your marketing.

Serve Customer Needs Autonomously

The on-demand economy has removed the concept of traditional operating hours. Now, your customers may come any time during the night or day. However, if they find your shop closed, they may never return.

For some businesses, operating hours are now a restriction. A small clinic may lose out on its customers to a hospital that charges more but entertains 24/7 appointment booking. Anyone can call the hospital, even at 3 am and get all information about available doctors.

However, being a small business, you can’t afford to pay salaries for two shifts to take calls at 3 am.

As you’ve guessed, a chatbot is ideal in such situations. You will not need a person to handle calls and answer customer queries beyond your working hours. Your chatbot can give the list of available doctors, their timings, and even help patients to book the appointment.

Everything happens automatically without any human involvement.

Similarly, you can use your chatbot to generate business 24/7 by enabling bookings, reservations, and ordering.

Personalize Your Service

Personalization is the key to business success. 75% of online consumers go for brands that provide personalized offers and content. Additionally, 74% of shoppers end up getting frustrated if the content is not relevant to them.

You can gauge the need for personalization in the case of industries like finance. A person will only be interested in products that align with their financial status and goals. Recommending the wrong thing will surely make them frustrated.

Chatbots are affordable ways to provide personalized service. In fact, chatbots are now popular as personal finance advisors, helping people navigate the maze of loans and investments.

Many industries take the help of AI-driven chatbots to woo customers, like fashion and clothing. H&M, Sephora, and other top brands use chatbots for personal recommendations. . You can also personalize your service and recommend the right products for assured conversions.

Your customers will be happier and choose you over your competitors because of your approach.

Chatbots Add a Human Touch

Your customers don’t like to view themselves as an order number or a support ticket. They want to be treated like a human and shown respect and care. Statistics also prove that 84% of consumers are more likely to be repeat customers if customer support treats them like a human.

Chatbots are not humans but can mimic human conversations efficiently. They can deliver a context-based service and address customers by their name. Today, chatbot technology has become so advanced that bots can write a detailed, thoughtful response like a human instantly.

Additionally, a chatbot can learn from chats and improve to even replace a human agent. That means you can add a human touch to your service without the cost of hiring a human! Isn’t that great?

The Coming of ChatGPT

ChatGPT has created a buzz all around the world. From content creators to companies, everyone is capitalizing on the features of the tool.

Even students are using ChatGPT to write their assignments and get an A+! You provide a prompt, and it can reply with an answer or even write a potential blog.

ChatGPT is based on GPT-3, a transformative machine learning model.

What is GPT-3?

GPT-3 is short for Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3. It is an advanced AI language model developed by OpenAI. The company is also behind the creation of ChatGPT.

GPT-3 is the third iteration of the GPT series, and each version builds upon the advancements of its predecessors.

The language model is popular for its expansive capabilities. It is made of 175 billion parameters – the largest of its kind.

Parameters are adjustable values that the model picks up during training. The high parameter count allows GPT-3 to provide relevant and coherent replies on a broad range of topics.

GPT-3 relies on a transformer architecture, a deep learning model. It is designed specifically for processing natural language and capturing complex patterns.

Most importantly, it can generate human-like text – a prerequisite for developing a chatbot.

GPT-3.5

GPT-3.5 is an improved version of its predecessor. It comes with the same number of parameters as GPT-3.

However, the model provides better answers due to the refinement of human feedback. It filters out irrelevant or bad replies and provides optimized versions.

GPT-3.5 replies are more accurate, helpful, and creative.

GPT-4

GPT-4 is the latest iteration of GPT. It is also the most accurate and creative. The model has learned to reply with natural and responsible answers.

Most importantly, the multilingual capability of the model has increased. Moreover, GPT-4 understands text and image inputs. You can provide visual elements in your prompts, such as graphs and charts.

However, the program cannot reply in images.

Below are the primary differences between GPT-3.5 and 4:

GPT-3.5	GPT-4
175 billion parameters	100 trillion parameters
Supports only text	Supports text and image
1,500 – 3,000 words limit	25,000 words limit

GPT-3.5 vs. GPT-4

Additionally, GPT-4:

Is 82% less likely to respond to inappropriate requests
Is 40% more likely to provide factual replies
Can adjust responses based on emotions in text
Generates different dialects
Synthesizes information from multiple sources
Provides comprehensive and nuanced responses
Cites sources and research
Can solve complex scientific or mathematical problems
Write code and debug more efficiently

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT refers to Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer. ChatGPT-4 is the latest version built on GPT-4.

ChatGPT is also an AI language model and excels in natural language conversations. It provides responses and generates replies based on the input.

The whole thing works just like a chat window.

OpenAI trained ChatGPT on a wide range of internet text sources to develop a broad understanding of language and knowledge. It uses deep learning techniques to capture and generate human-like text.

ChatGPT can understand and reply in various languages. It can assist with several tasks, such as:

Answering questions
Generating responses
Online researching
Providing explanations
Conversing on diverse topics

ChatGPT is more creative and generates more human-like text compared to traditional chatbots. It can even hold a conversation for longer without losing connection or context.

However, can ChatGPT mean an end to traditional chatbots? To answer that, let’s first find out how ChatGPT differs from chatbots.

ChatGPT vs. Traditional Chatbots: The Primary Differences

ChatGPT has many features lacking in traditional chatbots. Some are:

RLHF (Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback): It combines reinforcement learning and human feedback to enhance the training process. The language model can act and decide with guidance from prompt writers.
Free and user-friendly: ChatGPT is simple and easy to use. Anyone can have a conversation, like chatting with another person.
Fantastic user experience: OpenAI streamlined the user experience so that ChatGPT can hold conversations for a while. It can do a lot more than generating short lines of text.

Additionally, ChatGPT differs from traditional chatbots in the following ways:

Better Language Capabilities

ChatGPT can have human-like conversations in natural language. In comparison, rule-based chatbots can only reply with a programmed chain of responses.

They work on an if-this-then rule-based system to generate responses. As a result, you cannot expect replies in natural language.

AI chatbots incorporate natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning elements. They are able to have a conversation on limited topics programmed by the business.

Most websites use an AI chatbot with NLP today.

ChatGPT is in its own league. It has no qualms about holding a conversation on any topic you provide. Moreover, it can remember context and create fitting responses.

RLHF is the secret behind ChatGPT’s human-like conversing capabilities. The developers fine-tuned the initial model through human AI trainers.

These experts trained the model as a prompter and an AI assistant. Moreover, the trainers relied on model-written suggestions to develop improved responses.

The developers combined this conversational database with the tool’s dataset to create an outstanding dialogue format.

We asked ChatGPT how it was different in natural language capabilities from older chatbots. It provided the following response:

Better Learning Capabilities

Earlier, traditional chatbots relied on rule-based systems. Later, AI chatbots with natural language processing skills came to the market.

However, ChatGPT stands out from even the latest AI business chatbots. The main reasons are the GPT-3.5 model and deep learning mechanisms.

We can attribute the advanced learning capabilities of ChatGPT to:

Neural Network Architecture

ChatGPT’s underlying architecture is a transformer-based neural network. Transformers are designed to process sequential data like language in a highly parallel and scalable manner.

This architecture allows ChatGPT to understand the context of a conversation. It can also learn patterns and relationships in the data more effectively.

Pre-Training on Vast Amount of Data

Developers pre-trained ChatGPT on an enormous dataset containing a diverse range of text. This approach exposed the model to a vast array of language patterns, syntax, and semantics.

Most importantly, it helped ChatGPT learn grammar, sentence structures, and complex reasoning.

Transfer Learning

ChatGPT can perform transfer learning. It can leverage the knowledge gained during pre-training to adapt and fine-tune itself. Therefore, you can get relevant and custom responses on specific tasks or domains with smaller datasets.

The learning approach allows ChatGPT to specialize in various tasks while retaining a general language understanding.

Continuous Learning

ChatGPT can continually learn from new data and conversations. Each interaction provides the opportunity to gather valuable information and update the tool’s understanding of language and the world.

The ability to learn from real-world interactions makes ChatGPT a dynamic and ever-relevant solution.

Contextual Understanding

ChatGPT uses deep learning models to consider context and understand relationships between words and sentences.

Therefore, the tool can respond in a more contextually relevant and coherent manner.

Less Fine Tuning

Unlike traditional chatbots, ChatGPT generates responses based on patterns learned during training. Therefore, it can handle a vast range of inputs without explicit programming.

Additionally, the approach makes the language model more versatile.

Generalization

chatgpt prompts — Conversing with ChatGPT is a delight

ChatGPT can use its training to respond accurately to new prompts. It learned from the examples during training to learn to generalize.

This capability allows the tool to handle new and diverse conversational scenarios.

Better Adaptability

ChatGPT is more adaptable compared to traditional and AI chatbots. We already discussed some factors that make it possible, like:

Continuous learning
Understanding context
Generalization

However, there are more factors that make the language model adapt to new and unexpected scenarios. Some of them are:

Understanding Nuances

ChatGPT’s natural language processing allows it to understand complex sentence structures. It can also identify subtle nuances in conversations.

The sophisticated model lets it tailor its responses to meet changing requirements and inputs.

Fits Diverse Scenarios

Traditional chatbots often rely on predefined responses or rule-based systems. It limits their ability to adapt to new or unforeseen user inputs.

In contrast, ChatGPT generates responses based on patterns learned during training, allowing more diverse and adaptable replies.

Handling Ambiguity

Human communication often includes vague or imprecise expressions. ChatGPT is designed to handle ambiguity in language and interpret such inputs.

Therefore, the tool can create more accurate and contextually appropriate responses.

Less Reliance on Rules

Traditional chatbots rely heavily on rules and programmed responses. It limits their adaptability and prevents them from handling diverse conversations.

ChatGPT is a language model that relies on patterns learned from extensive training data. The model can adapt to various conversation styles and topics without explicit programming.

Handling Multiple Topics

ChatGPT can seamlessly switch between different topics within the same conversation, providing relevant answers for each. This ability to multitask and adapt to various topics contributes to a more engaging and dynamic conversational experience.

Better Intent Discovery

Intent discovery refers to understanding the user’s purpose or intention behind a given query or statement. ChatGPT is an AI language model designed to discover intent, which older chatbots struggle with.

Several reasons make ChatGPT better at intent discovery, such as:

Contextual understanding
Transfer learning
Handling ambiguity
Generalization
Continuous learning

Additionally, ChatGPT is a pro at intent discovery due to its:

Natural Language Understanding (NLU)

Traditional chatbots often use rule-based or keyword-matching techniques to determine user intent. These methods can be limited and may not effectively handle complex language patterns or nuances.

In comparison, ChatGPT utilizes advanced deep learning techniques, such as transformer-based neural networks. It allows the tool to understand natural language more comprehensively.

Its architecture helps the model to capture intricate relationships and context within the user’s input, enabling more accurate intent discovery.

Multifaceted Intent Recognition

ChatGPT’s capacity to understand context and relationships allows it to recognize more complex intents with multiple layers of meaning.

The tool can grasp implicit intents and respond accordingly for more human-like conversations.

All of the above capabilities make ChatGPT a versatile option for countless industries. You may apply it to several domains, such as customer support, education, entertainment, content generation, and more.

However, can the language model make older solutions obsolete? Let’s explore.

Can ChatGPT Replace Traditional Business Chatbots?

chatgpt and chatbots — Can ChatGPT serve your customers?

We asked ChatGPT if it was good enough to replace existing business chatbots. ChatGPT was confident on many grounds that we covered above, including:

Improved language capabilities
Enhances learning capabilities
Flexibility and adaptability

However, the tool raised some factors to consider before wiping out chatbots:

Custom use cases: An AI language model may not have the domain-specific knowledge of a business. It may be a challenge to customize ChatGPT for particular industries.
Data privacy: An external program may bring in privacy and security concerns. Sensitive data like customer information can leave the business premises.
Personalization: Achieving custom branding may be challenging with a language model. Chatbots may better capture a business’s tone, messaging, and voice.
Integration: Replacing existing infrastructure and implementing a new model may be laborious and challenging for some organizations.
Cost: API usage and related costs may add up to more than running a traditional chatbot.

GPT-4 resolves many of the concerns above. Developers can use the GPT-4 API to create custom chatbots for businesses. The latest iteration is more accurate and provides reliable responses with negligible errors.

Moreover, programmers can define how the model should respond to queries and inputs. They can give it a custom voice to match the branding of the company.

Businesses can access GPT-4 API at competitive pricing models. OpenAI offers several plans and a pay-as-you-go system to maximize its capabilities.

So, can we say ChatGPT may replace chatbots?

The decision is yet to be made. However, many organizations are trying their hands on GPT to build products and virtual assistants.

Let’s take the example of Khan Academy, a non-profit educational organization. It is running a pilot program based on GPT-4 to power Khanmigo.

It is an AI-powered assistant that acts as a virtual tutor for students and a virtual assistant for teachers. Students can get guidance on lessons and helpful prompts to learn at their own pace and style.

The program can also guide teachers to teach better. It can point to resources and provide information to improve learning outcomes.

Source: https://openai.com/customer-stories/khan-academy

Khan Academy is getting recommendable results from Khanmigo. It shows that businesses can adopt AI language models and build custom chatbots.

Final Thoughts

Chatbots serve a vital role for businesses. ChatGPT holds the potential to transform existing chatbots for better responses and engagement. Developers can fine-tune the model to a business’s branding for personalized messaging.

A combination of AI language model and chatbot technology is apt for meeting business requirements. GPT-4 makes this possible and opens the doors for more natural and human-like messaging from brands.

We can help you build custom chatbots using GPT-4 to engage your customers and audience. You can achieve your branding and tone to click with your buyers instantly. Get in touch with us to learn more about how we can help.

Tags chatbot for customer support, Chatbots for business, chatbots for customer service

DevOps

Can DevOps Reduce Development Bottlenecks?

Post author By Dipanjan Das
Post date December 9, 2023

devops for development — DevOps for development success

DevOps was the hot topic for any business in tech even a few years back. Big names like Netflix and Amazon used DevOps to develop quickly and frequently. According to the 2020 DevOps Trends Survey, 99% of organizations agreed DevOps impacts development and business performance positively.

However, we don’t hear about DevOps much now. Is it still relevant?

Can DevOps help you reduce your development bottlenecks?

Our team at Lodus decided to take things into our own hands and show you how DevOps reduces development bottlenecks. You can assess each use case and determine if DevOps is the answer to your development barriers.

These are the traditional benefits of DevOps.

DevOps for Agile Development

Traditional Waterfall development methods are highly rigid. It’s very difficult to step back if you make a mistake in your coding. Worst of all, you may not even be aware of the bugs till the development is over.

Naturally, this increases risks for businesses, and you can end up developing a faulty product. You will need a lot of rework and investment to fix the issues or rollback any feature.

DevOps encourages development in increments. You can write small batches of code and deploy them, albeit after thorough vetting using automated testing. DevOps can help you develop continuously and release your features or functions incrementally.

As a result, you can quickly rollback updates or any feature as you are building in increments. Additionally, it is far easier to react to feedback and refine your product to match customer preferences.

Best of all, DevOps improves your product quality. 61% of businesses were able to create high-quality deliverables, thanks to agile development, as per the survey report.

DevOps Reduces Development Time

devops development — Develop faster and more frequently with DevOps

Developing custom software can take months — no wonder most businesses struggle with an unbearable, extended time-to-market. Plus, your revenues take a hit as you wait for your development team to finish coding.

Then your QA analyst may take over, which will slowly lead your operations team to step in. Sometimes, things don’t go according to plan, and your development ends up taking more time.

Fortunately, DevOps can also reduce development time to help you release quicker. Amazon deployed every 11.6 seconds using agile development back in 2013. In two years, the tech giant pushed its production deployments to one per second, resulting in 50 million deployments every year.

How is that possible?

DevOps forces the development and operations teams to work together. Developers code with the production environment in mind to reduce the chance of issues. Additionally, DevOps methodologies like continuous delivery can help you release faster.

You also develop in increments and make your product go live with its fundamental features. Continuous integration is another technique used by Lodus to discover issues early and speed up deployments.

In a short time, you can walk the path of Amazon and deploy daily, or even multiple times a day!

DevOps Reduces Development Failures

DevOps is the ultimate key to reducing your development failures. Businesses that use this development approach experience 50% fewer failures. You can find several more statistics to prove how meaningful agile is for those in software development.

DevOps reduces development failures through many ways:

Develop in increments for fewer failures and disruptions
Discover errors or bugs in early phases to save costly rework
Continuous testing for code integrity
Continuous monitoring for immediate insight on code readiness prior to release
Fix bugs faster and react to feedback
Consistent environments to drive down failures

Most important of all, DevOps establishes end-to-end accountability. Everyone shares responsibility and works together to eliminate failures and achieve business objectives.

Additionally, DevOps allows you to find out what works and what doesn’t in the early development stages. You can quickly identify issues with your product and eliminate them from occurring once again.

Fail Elegantly with DevOps

DevOps lets you fail in style. Our last blog discussed how DevOps helps Netflix continue providing its services even if a small part of the app fails. This is possible only with DevOps approaches and methodologies, like releasing in increments.

Your main services keep running even if something like “Recommendations” doesn’t work. You can, too, sail the same boat by adopting DevOps today!

Update Frequently with DevOps

You need to update your product and release new features to stay above the competition. Traditional development made it very difficult and costly to release updates. Additionally, you risk disrupting your services and losing out on revenues.

DevOps can help you update frequently and successfully, even several times a day. Take Instagram, for example. The photo-sharing platform deploys 30 – 50 times daily. That too, without any human intervention. Naturally, DevOps is the ideal candidate to help them achieve extraordinary numbers.

We have already told you how continuous deployment helps you release better-quality code quickly. Lodus can use the same methodology to push updates for your product several times a day. We also use other technologies like microservices to expedite your updates. You will never have to worry about disruptions, and your users can enjoy uninterrupted services.

Practices like fail-fast can also help you ensure your features are functional.

DevOps for Quick and Seamless Scaling

scale with devops — Scale seamlessly with DevOps

The need to scale your product is good news as it means more demand. However, scaling opens up a range of challenges for any business — cost and resources being the top ones.

DevOps is not only your development companion but can also help you scale seamlessly. The approach of development rides on the back of cloud technology supporting limitless scaling. You don’t need any upfront investment and can scale as-you-go, on-demand.

Additionally, Lodus can use techniques like containerization for portability and scalability. You can pack your frameworks, libraries, and more in small packages along with your app to run in any environment.

Our team can even use tools like Terraform to configure your deployment environments easily. You can treat your infrastructure just like an application and use Infrastructure-as-code (IaC) for easy vertical scaling.

The Role of DevOps in Modern Development

DevOps is constantly evolving as new technologies, practices, and trends emerge. It is adapting to modern development trends to make development quick and efficient.

Below are a few ways DevOps is transforming modern development:

Low-Code and No-Code Development

Low-code and no-code development create software applications without writing much code. They use visual tools and interfaces that allow users to drag and drop components, select options, and configure settings to build applications.

Low-code and no-code development can help developers save time, money, and effort.

The two approaches share many similarities:

Both use graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to create applications
Both can speed up the software development process and reduce developers’ efforts
Both are ideal for web, mobile, and desktop development

The dissimilarities include:

Low-code development requires basic coding skills to develop and integrate complex applications. On the other hand, no-code development does not require any programming skills.
Low-code development allows users to add code over auto-generated code. Consequently, no-code development has an entirely hands-off approach.
Low-code development suits applications requiring customization, integration, or advanced features. No-code development is ideal for simple, standalone, or self-service applications.

Low-code and no-code development are gaining popularity with each passing day. The solutions are also evolving to become more reliable and intuitive.

Here are a few current trends you should be aware of:

Low-code and no-code platforms are now more accessible, affordable, and user-friendly
They are integrating with cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning,
Low-code and no-code development platforms are supporting digital transformation initiatives

Low-code and no-code development are changing how businesses create and deliver software solutions. They offer a new way of solving problems, expressing creativity, and empowering users.

DevSecOps

DevSecOps is a way to integrate security into the software development process, from design to deployment. The approach aims to make security a shared responsibility of developers, testers, operators, and security experts.

DevSecOps also uses automation tools and techniques to embed security in every stage of the software lifecycle.

It is super important to improve the quality, reliability, and security of software solutions. Moreover, DevSecOps can:

Detect and fix security vulnerabilities early to avoid costly rework and risks
Reduce the time and effort required to deliver secure software
Eliminate manual and repetitive tasks to save time and effort
Enhance the collaboration and communication between different teams and roles
Align software with the business goals and customer needs

The current trends shaping DevSecOps include:

Cloud-Native Development

Cloud-native development refers to building software applications designed to run on cloud platforms. It uses several technologies, such as:

Containers – lightweight, standalone, and executable software packages that encapsulate an application with its dependencies and configuration settings.
Microservices – an architectural style and approach to designing and building software applications as a collection of small, independent, and loosely coupled services.
Serverless functions – a cloud computing model where the cloud provider handles the server provisioning, scaling, and maintenance.
Orchestration tools – software solutions designed to automate, coordinate, and manage the deployment, configuration, and operation of complex systems, applications, and services.

Cloud-native development helps improve software applications’ scalability, performance, and resilience. It also enables faster and more frequent deployments.

However, cloud-native development has its share of challenges. The list includes managing complex dependencies, securing distributed systems, and protecting sensitive data.

DevSecOps uses several techniques to resolve the challenges of cloud-native development:

Implementing encryption
Authentication
Authorization
Logging
Monitoring
Auditing

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)

AI and ML enhance software applications’ functionality, usability, and personalization. However, AI and ML pose new security risks, such as data privacy breaches, malicious manipulation, bias discrimination, and ethical dilemmas.

DevSecOps can help to mitigate these risks by applying security principles like:

Ensuring data quality, integrity, and confidentiality
Validating models’ accuracy, robustness, and fairness
Testing for adversarial attacks
Monitoring for anomalies and incidents

Zero Trust Architecture

It is a security model that assumes that no network or system is inherently secure. The model has tight checks like strict verification of every request or transaction before granting access or authorization.

Zero trust architecture can boost the security of software solutions by reducing the attack surface. It can prevent unauthorized access and detect and address threats.

Moreover, a zero-trust architecture enforces granular policies. DevSecOps can help to implement zero trust architecture by applying security controls at every layer of the software stack. It can use identity-based authentication and encrypt data in transit and at rest.

Moreover, DevSecOps can segment networks, isolate workloads, and audit activities.

Value Stream Management

Value stream management is a way of measuring and improving the flow of value delivered by software development. It allows businesses to optimize processes, eliminate waste, and align products with customer expectations.

The approach is inspired by principles of lean thinking, the same principles behind DevOps. They aim to maximize customer value while minimizing resources.

The benefits of value stream management are:

Faster and more reliable software delivery
Reduces time and risks involved in deployment
Improves customer satisfaction, business agility, and innovation
Delivers what customers want, when they want it, and how they want it
Boosts business reputation and perception
Enhances employee engagement by encouraging collaboration, feedback, and learning
Identify bottlenecks, waste, and inefficiencies in every stage of the software delivery cycle

Final Thoughts

DevOps still helps you resolve development bottlenecks to deliver fantastic software. It supports digital transformation initiatives and fosters a culture of collaboration and learning. DevOps is also evolving with new technologies, practices, and trends. The methodology will continue to impact software development around the world for decades to come.

Get in touch with us today to implement DevOps for your organization. We can also help you develop high-quality software based on evolving DevOps principles.

Tags Benefits of Devops, DevOps benefits, devops development

WordPress

Why You Need Dedicated WordPress Support

Post author By Dipanjan Das
Post date December 8, 2023

What happens when you don’t have dedicated WordPress support?

We always hold customer support a priority when buying a product or service. In fact, many of us would choose not to purchase from a brand that doesn’t provide adequate support.

Having no one to fall back on when you need assistance is undoubtedly a frightening thought. And if you are a business, that could even mean losing your revenues.

Businesses may choose to self-manage their WordPress hosting to save money. You may also be forced to manage a website when you select a cheap hosting provider or plan. Unfortunately, that means doing away with a team of experts who keep an eye on your website and provide support.

While such a move may seem affordable at first, you are bound to regret your decision later. Without support, you have no one to approach to help you out. Unless you have technical knowledge, you can’t even make changes to your website or database.

You have to hire a professional every time, which will keep on adding to your costs.

Additionally, you will experience many challenges along the way. Below are some of the most common challenges you can face if you don’t have dedicated WordPress support.

1. Not Knowing What is Going On

wordpress errors — You are lost without dedicated WordPress support

Website owners can develop a communication gap with hosting providers on self-managed WordPress plans. As a result, they don’t always know what is up with their site.

Maybe you see your website is taking more time to load. However, you have no way to find out why that is happening. Therefore, you cannot even proceed to fix the problem.

Not knowing how to manage your website can be a nightmare. On top of that, you don’t even have a support team to help you out. As a result, you are always in the dark about what’s going on with your website.

Let’s say you buy a car but don’t know how to drive. Naturally, accidents are bound to happen if you take to the roads with your inability to drive.

In addition, you may not have enough mechanical knowledge to understand what’s going on inside the engine. Therefore, you cannot make out what is wrong when your car gives up in the middle of the road.

Sadly, the same is true for your website when you cannot or don’t know how to manage it.

What to do:

You need a level of technical knowledge to manage your site. If you don’t have support, you should invest time in learning. Many online resources like articles and videos can help you learn the basics.

Additionally, learn how to read website logs to detect issues with your site. Further, develop an understanding of how web servers like Nginx or Apache, the HTTP protocol, and TCP networking work.

However, some of you may not have the time or interest to do things yourself. Lodus is always here if you want WordPress experts to manage your website. You can also enjoy dedicated support and stop worrying with our managed hosting.

2. A High Learning Curve

You need to intimately understand all the different components of your website and their relationships if you want to give up WordPress support. However, that comes with a steep learning curve if you have no idea about hosting or how a website works.

You will need to devote some time to hone your WordPress management skills. It is possible to learn for free using online resources if you are patient enough. Start with how to use WordPress and slowly progress to advanced topics.

You will also need to learn about various things like:

Editing and configuring plugins and themes
Creating backups
Deciphering website logs
How to optimize your SQL database

The list is quite big once you start getting into smaller details. However, the above should be enough to start you off.

Pro tip: You can also use a few tools to manage your website using a dashboard. A simple Google search can help you discover many such options.

Our team at Lodus is also available to help you manage your website with our managed hosting plans. We also provide dedicated WordPress support to let you focus on business growth.

3. Inability to Make Website Changes

wordpress customization — Will you be able to edit and customize your website?

You may need to make changes to your website for several reasons. Let’s say you’re not happy with the payment providers of your online store. You have partnered up with a new company and want to add it to your payment options.

However, you have no idea how to do that!

You may need to edit or make changes to your website countless times during your ownership. Some may be as simple as changing the text in your CMS, while others can be pretty challenging. Unfortunately, the process can get more complicated when you don’t even know where to begin.

The same is applicable for website customizations. You won’t be able to integrate custom workflows or services if you don’t know how to go about it. The same applies to customizing themes and plugins that you need to run your website.

What to do:

The only way to get past this challenge is to hire a web developer. They will be able to make the required changes to your website.

However, you will also need to pay every time you want to hire professional expertise.

Otherwise, you can leverage our developers’ expertise in WordPress. Contact us about your project and its requirements.

4. No Way of Troubleshooting

Your website can suffer a range of performance issues and bugs over time. Maybe, your website takes longer to load than before. Or, maybe your website has stopped sending order confirmations to customers after they checkout.

Worst of all, your website can even become unresponsive or fail to load.

Sadly, an unresponsive or sketchy website is not going to impress your clients. Additionally, businesses can run up huge costs if their website is down. On average, website downtime costs organizations $10.6 million every year.

The amount may be less for small businesses but can add up if you have frequent issues.

What to do:

The first thing you should do is to take a look at your website logs. It will help you zero in on the exact cause of the problem.

You may sometimes receive alerts from your provider or website when something is wrong. The alerts can provide essential clues to what’s wrong and how you need to approach the issue.

The only other way is to hire a web developer to save you from jeopardy. Of course, you can also contact our team, no matter how complicated or complex your problem is.

Our managed hosting is meant to keep you covered.

5. Website Update Issues

Outdated WordPress core software, website themes, and plugins can become a security challenge for businesses. They can provide a loophole for hackers and cybercriminals to compromise your systems and data.

In fact, outdated software and plugins are the reason behind 86% of website hackings.

You need to keep your WordPress, theme, and plugins updated to protect your website. Using the latest stable versions of resources is also necessary to enjoy the best performance.

Businesses don’t need to worry about updates when they have dedicated WordPress support. However, the same is not true for entrepreneurs who manage their websites.

You will be solely responsible for updating your themes and plugins.

What to do:

You should really know what you’re doing before updating WordPress. Else, you may cause permanent data loss or interruptions for your visitors.

Updating WordPress is not a hassle if you have the expertise. You can even update your core software using a single click. Just navigate to the Updates tab in your WordPress dashboard.

Next, click on the Update Now button.

Always create a backup before you update your WordPress software. Include all files, images, videos, and website content in your backup to reduce the risk of data loss. Check the backup to ensure all your data is present.

Therefore, if something goes wrong while updating, you can restore your site using the backup.

The above steps are ideal for updating WordPress easily. Now, let’s talk about updating WordPress plugins. You will have to take care of the task if you didn’t opt for WordPress support.

However, don’t worry as we’ve got your back!

Updating your plugins or themes is fairly straightforward. You will receive notifications when an update is available for your plugins on your dashboard’s Update and Plugins tab.

You can then choose to update plugins individually or in bulk. Just navigate to the plugin tab and choose Update from the drop-down menu on top. Next, click on Apply next to the menu.

6. Inadequate Logging and Website Monitoring

wordpress monitoring — Keeping an eye on your investment is absolutely necessary

Website monitoring and logging are two vital steps to ensure security and performance. Without monitoring, you will never know if a hacker attacks your website at 3 am.

Worst of all, you won’t have an audit trail to follow when something goes wrong, and you want a quick diagnosis.

Our dedicated WordPress support comes with foolproof website monitoring. We use a range of tools to keep an eye on our clients’ websites. As a result, we can spot any issues or attempts of intrusions instantly and take immediate action.

However, that’s not possible on self-managed plans. You have to take charge of monitoring your website and detecting threats and bugs. Additionally, you will also be responsible for getting things back to normal.

What to do:

Similar to troubleshooting, you should start with your website logs. It will help you find out what is wrong to determine what you need to do. You can also fall back on your monitoring tools to generate more insights about an issue.

Next, you will need to devise a solution based on what went wrong.

At Lodus, we maintain extensive logs for our managed hosting clients. We invest in additional storage to keep your website logs safe and ready for investigation. If anything goes wrong, we can quickly search through the information and get to the bottom of the issue.

7. Poor Website Performance

Your WordPress website may need tweaking from time to time to keep up its performance. You may also need to configure or optimize your website components to achieve the best results.

For example, your website performance can take a dip due to a complex plugin. Or, you may notice a drop in loading speed as you add more multimedia files.

Each situation demands a different approach based on the root cause.

What to do:

The only way to overcome this problem is to learn how your website works and different optimization techniques. Then, with experience, you will be able to tweak and tune your website.

You can also hire a web developer to fix any WordPress performance issues. Or contact us for a free 30-minute consultation.

Businesses can experience a range of difficulties if they are unable to manage their website. However, there is one way to eliminate all worries and let experts take over.

Businesses that Benefit from Managed WordPress Hosting

managed wordpress service — Is your business on the list?

Managed hosting is perfect for a wide range of businesses. It is an excellent choice if you want to focus on your core operations without worrying about the technical complexities of your infrastructure.

Here is a list of businesses that will always benefit from a managed hosting plan:

Small and Medium-Sized Businesses

SMBs often lack the resources and IT expertise to manage their servers and infrastructure. Managed hosting can provide them with reliable and secure solutions without the need for an in-house IT team.

It can free up the internal team and save money in the long run.

eCommerce Platforms

Online stores require high availability, security, and performance to handle customer transactions. Managed hosting can ensure your online store runs smoothly without interruptions.

You can focus on boosting your conversions while your hosting partner helps you offer fantastic shopping experiences.

Content-Heavy Websites

Several businesses publish large amounts of content, such as media, videos, and images. Managed hosting plans offer optimized content delivery and efficient storage solutions.

You can lay the foundation for your content to engage and perform.

Professional Service Providers

Law firms, consulting agencies, and other professional service providers generally don’t have in-house IT teams. They are also less known for being tech-savvy.

These businesses can focus on their client’s needs while leaving the technical aspects of hosting to experts.

Startups

Startups need to quickly establish their online presence without diverting too much attention to managing servers. Managed hosting can provide them with scalable solutions and room for growth.

They can also conserve resources and make up for the lack of in-house talent.

SaaS Companies

Companies offering software applications as a service can benefit from managed hosting’s scalability and performance optimization. It helps them ensure a seamless user experience and satisfaction.

Businesses can be free to iterate and add new features while experts handle infrastructure needs.

Gaming Studios

Online gaming platforms require high-speed, low-latency hosting to provide a smooth gaming experience. Managed hosting can handle the technical requirements while the gaming company focuses on developing games.

Additionally, your hosting partner can take care of complexities, especially if you are in online gaming.

Healthcare and Financial Services

Businesses in highly regulated industries need to ensure data security and compliance. Managed hosting can offer specialized security measures to meet strict regulations.

Industries such as healthcare and finance can attain peace of mind with a managed WordPress plan.

Media and Entertainment

Streaming services, news websites, and OTT platforms need reliable hosting to handle high traffic. They must also ensure the efficient and fast delivery of content.

Managed hosting can help such businesses entertain users without disruptions. It can allow them to create and maintain a positive user experience.

High-Traffic Websites

Many websites experience sudden spikes in traffic due to events, promotions, or viral content. These platforms can benefit from managed hosting plans to scale resources on-demand to accommodate increased load.

They don’t have to take the responsibility of running and managing the infrastructure.

Nonprofits and NGOs

Organizations with limited resources can benefit from managed hosting. They can reduce the burden by outsourcing technical management and maintenance.

It reduces the load on the internal teams and lets them contribute to society.

Companies with Limited IT Staff

Businesses that lack enough IT staff can outsource their hosting management duties. An expert team will be in charge of handling server maintenance, security updates, and troubleshooting.

There is no need to worry about the absence of technical skills or budget.

Choose Lodus Managed WordPress Hosting

Our managed WordPress hosting comes with dedicated WordPress support. You will not have to worry about any of the above problems as you have experts on the job.

At Lodus, all our managed hosting clients get quick support from WordPress experts. You will never have to encounter a call center agent who can only help with what’s written on a cheat sheet.

Our experts will dive right into the matter, unearth the cause, and implement a fitting solution.

Additionally, you will always be in the loop and stay updated about your website. We will notify you when we detect a threat or something wrong.

Moreover, our team can help you troubleshoot bugs and make changes to your website, especially those that are technically challenging.

Lodus will also update your software, themes, and plugins if you prefer that (in extended support plans). You will never have to worry about outdated resources or security gaps. We will make sure your website is secure and ready to ward off threats.

Our team also uses advanced monitoring tools and stores your logs for more than a year. So you can safely entrust your website in our hands and enjoy peaceful nights.

We will always be alert and ready to help you generate business without interruptions. Contact us today to get your WordPress managed hosting or shoot us your queries.

Tags managed wordpress hosting, wordpress hosting, wordpress support