Can changing just one thing in the way you present web development services to potential clients lead to more sales of website care plans and a massive boost in your recurring income? Yes it can! Read on to learn more…
TL;DR: Integrate maintenance with your website development services and sales of your website care plans will skyrocket!
“It might sound like an exaggeration but I went from a 0% success rate on closing care plans to a 100% success rate basically overnight … All I did was I simply stopped presenting this as optional … I just put it as a standard part of my process and pricing.”
Corey Dodd, Web designer
Are you ready to take your business and income to the next level?
Great! If you sell website maintenance services (or plan to), then read on to find out how making it a standard part of your business and sales approach will significantly boost your success rates and your income.
We’ll cover the following areas:
Sell More Web Care Plans & Maintenance Services – The Guaranteed Method
When you buy a car, you expect to keep it regularly serviced and maintained.
When you own a vehicle, you know that safety and maintenance are not optional.
Owning a digital vehicle is exactly the same.
As an experienced WordPress website developer, you know what can happen to poorly-maintained websites and the importance of keeping sites regularly serviced and maintained.
You know this, but your clients don’t.
Unless your potential clients have experienced their website being hacked or suffered disruptions to their business because of undetected problems, they really don’t know what can happen if they neglect website maintenance.
As an expert and a professional, then, it’s essential to communicate to your potential clients that website maintenance is not optional and explain why and what can (and probably will) happen to their business if they fail to maintain their websites regularly updated, secure, and optimized.
Make Maintenance Non-Negotiable and Improve Your Results
Imagine that every website you build for clients includes website maintenance.
Imagine too, that your clients simply agree and accept this as a necessary part of owning and running their website, much like they do when owning and running a vehicle.
This would significantly impact your bottom line, wouldn’t you agree?
Now, your mind is probably screaming all kinds of objections as you read this.
Let’s just put those on hold for the time being and explore how this approach would and could work for your business and increase your sales success rates.
Step 1 – Convince Clients that Maintenance Matters
The best way to convince someone else is to first convince yourself.
If you need convincing about the need to keep WordPress sites secure, just check out the latest WordPress security stats.
For example:
Sucuri reports that among the sites they have cleaned up:
- Most compromised environments were affected by malicious PHP scripts, .htaccess malware, and remote code execution backdoors.
- 50.58% of all CMS applications were outdated at the point of infection.
- The most commonly detected vulnerable components included out-of-date versions of Contact Form 7 (27.44%), Freemius Library (20.85%), and WooCommerce (14.51%).
- 69.63% of compromised websites were found to have at least one backdoor at the point of remediation.
- SEO spam was detected on 46.76% of all infected websites in 2022.
- 38.5% of all SEO spam infections contained spam doorways to manipulate search rankings. Another 29.3% belonged to unwanted SEO link injections for spammy websites.
- 23.63% of compromised websites contained at least one hack tool.
- Malicious WordPress admin users were found in 32.69% of infected databases.
- 90% of credit card skimmers were found in the form of malicious PHP code, making them impossible to detect with external scanners and highlighting the importance of server-level monitoring.
- The most common infection found during remediation was malicious allow/deny rules in .htaccess files associated with Japanese SEO spam (13.48%)
- 36% of all compromised websites had at least 1 vulnerable plugin or theme present in the environment at the point of remediation.
- Over 1.2 million backdoors removed from infected websites by Sucuri remediation teams in 2022 alone.
WPScan reports a yearly increase in WordPress vulnerabilities with over 51,000 detected plugin vulnerabilities in its database of 150,000+ plugins, and 95% of all vulnerabilities being attributed to plugins.
Additionally, hackers have even started running sophisticated phishing scams to impersonate the WordPress security team where emails are sent to WordPress users asking them to install plugins containing malware on their sites.
If all of the above statistics aren’t enough to convince you that every website you build for clients requires 24/7 protection around the clock, then search out more statistics until you are fully convinced. For example, you can read Patchstack’s State of WordPress Security in 2024 whitepaper.
Step 2 – Inform Clients of the Risk of Neglecting Maintenance
As a professional website developer, it’s vitally important that your clients be properly informed of the risk of neglecting maintenance of their websites, preferably before something happens.
Make it your responsibility to communicate to potential clients that:
- WordPress sites are continually and relentlessly under attack. Keeping WordPress sites fully secure and protected is a never-ending battle.
- Attacks on WordPress sites can come from anywhere and everywhere at any time … bots, phishing emails, system vulnerabilities, etc.
- Hackers are using increasingly more sophisticated methods to detect vulnerabilities and look for ways to breach site security and cause havoc regardless of a site’s size or importance.
- WordPress site owners who do not perform regular maintenance stand little to no chance against hackers and malicious bot attacks… it’s only a matter of time before they will run into serious problems.
Step 3 – Assume That Clients Will Be on Your Maintenance Plan
You don’t need to hard-sell or force clients to buy maintenance, and you don’t need to use any persuasive, manipulative, or dirty tactics.
Simply assume that every client will be on your maintenance plan…and thank you for it!
If you can conceive this in your mind, you won’t sell yourself short.
Remember, it’s no different than buying a vehicle. If you neglect to regularly service and maintain it, expect to incur more serious and expensive problems later.
So … how do you introduce website maintenance to potential clients without making it a “hard sell?”
First, read our guide for successful client briefings. It shows you how to conduct a thorough needs analysis of your client’s business and gather all the information you need to effectively assess and evaluate your client’s needs, wants, capabilities, and budget.
If your prospective client clearly lacks the capabilities to carry out their own website maintenance, just assume that you will provide them with this service.
How To Successfully Present Web Care Plans To Clients
If you don’t currently sell web services that include maintenance, then consider introducing this earlier in your sales approach.
Your closing rate for selling web care plans will increase significantly if you effectively communicate the following to your potential clients:
- The necessity, importance, and value of your maintenance services,
- How much time, effort, and know-how it would take for them to learn how to perform these services themselves,
- How outsourcing these services to you will eliminate all the hassle and headaches, and save them time and money.
Let’s look at how to do this.
Develop An Effective Sales Approach
However you present solutions to potential clients (e.g. emails, video conferencing, face-to-face meetings, etc.) it’s important to introduce your maintenance services early on in your sales process, so that they are fully aware of it and see this as part of your solution.
Here’s the approach we suggest:
- Briefly introduce website maintenance as an integral part of your services when communicating your solution.
- Include analogies and metaphors to help clients understand the importance of website maintenance.
- Have supporting materials to back up your claims.
Let’s go briefly over each of the above points.
1 – Introduce Website Maintenance at the Beginning of Your Communications
However you choose to present your website development services to potential clients is not the focus of this guide. What’s important is that you communicate to potential clients that website maintenance is not an add-on, but an integral part of your website development services.
For example, here is a script you can adapt and use to communicate this in a face-to-face meeting, video conference, or email:
Initial Script
“We have reviewed your information and put together an effective solution that we believe will best address your needs and your budget.
Before we discuss the proposal further, please understand that your website will become a 24/7 target for hackers and malicious attacks as soon as it goes live. Sophisticated crime syndicates around the world target all websites regardless of their size using automated bots.
Owning a website is like owning a car. If you don’t keep it regularly serviced and maintained, it will eventually break down and cause bigger and more expensive problems later.
Unfortunately, this is the reality of having an online presence. Here at [YOURCOMPANY], we take this seriously, so, along with our proposed solution for developing your website, we have included important information about what kinds of problems you can expect to deal with if you don’t keep your site regularly updated and secure. We have also included details of a website care plan that fits your overall budget.
As you will see from the proposal, we’ll not only build you a secure website in a secure hosting environment, we’ll then keep it secure, protected, and optimized for the first 12 months, to ensure that nothing disrupts your business. We will proactively update, monitor, and fix all issues on your site, and keep you informed of everything we do with comprehensive reports (see attached sample).”
As you can see, there is no hard selling going on. By including the above information with your proposed solution, you not only communicate to potential clients that you are a professional, but that you also care about the safety, security, and long-term success of their business.
This simple step can help you secure an additional recurring income for many years to come.
The above script states that you will include information about what kinds of problems your potential clients can expect to deal with if they don’t keep their site regularly maintained and secure, an overview of your website maintenance services, and a solution that will fit their budget, so let’s look at how to do this.
Website Maintenance Services Script
We recommend adapting a script like the example shown below to your proposal or presentation. It explains to your potential clients the importance, value, and necessity of performing regular website maintenance and why they should hire your services to make sure it will get done:
“As stated in our proposal, our website development services include looking after your site once your site is built. This section explains the necessity, importance, and value of performing regular website maintenance, and how we proactively ensure that your site remains up-to-date, secure, and fully optimized at all times.
“The necessity of maintenance: WordPress sites are frequent targets for hackers due to their popularity. Regular security reviews and updates are crucial to protect your site from vulnerabilities. Additionally, a well-maintained website loads faster and provides a better user experience, which is essential for retaining visitors and improving your search engine rankings.
“Why maintenance is important: Your website is a critical asset for your business and the primary gateway for your customers. Regular maintenance will ensure that your site remains secure, up-to-date, and performing at its best. This includes updating all of the software, managing security, and performing regular backups to safeguard your data.
“The value of using our professional maintenance services: You will have access to our expert website maintenance and troubleshooting knowledge and years of experience proactively monitoring and addressing any potential issues before they become major problems, saving you time and reducing downtime. We’ll keep your site running smoothly and problem-free 24/7, leaving you free to focus on your core business activities with peace of mind.
Here are the services we will perform on your site to keep it running at its best and the solution we propose to fit your budget: [INCLUDE LIST OF SERVICES]…”
2 – Include Analogies and Metaphors To Make Website Maintenance Easier To Understand
Including the following analogies and metaphors into your presentation or proposal will help potential clients understand the value and importance of signing onto your web care plans for a healthy, secure, and high-performing website:
“Maintaining a website is much like maintaining a car. Imagine if you never changed the oil or checked the brakes. Eventually, it would break down. Similarly, our regular updates and checks keep your website running smoothly and prevent costly breakdowns.”
“Think of our service as a top-tier home security system. It continuously monitors your website, safeguarding it from hackers and malware just as an alarm system protects your home.”
“Maintaining a website is like tending a garden. Without regular care and attention, it can become overgrown and unappealing. We ensure your website remains vibrant and healthy, much like a well-kept garden.”
“Our service is like a health check-up for your website. Regular assessments help us catch and fix potential issues before they become serious problems, just like visiting a doctor for routine health checks.”
“Consider our plan an insurance policy for your website. It offers peace of mind knowing that if anything goes wrong, you’re covered and your website will be promptly restored.”
“Just as a building needs a strong foundation to remain stable, your website requires regular maintenance to ensure its foundation remains solid and reliable.”
“Imagine never cleaning your house. Over time, dust and clutter would accumulate, making it unlivable. Similarly, without regular maintenance, your website can become slow and prone to serious issues.”
“Think of our plan as a personal fitness trainer for your website. We keep it in peak condition, ensuring it performs efficiently and remains in excellent health.”
3 – Have Supporting Materials To Back You Up
In addition to developing an effective script, it’s important to have supporting materials with powerful visuals to back up your claims.
We recommend including the following in your presentation or proposal:
- Simple visual charts covering WordPress security areas, site uptime, etc.
- A detailed White Label Client Report sample to demonstrate the value of your maintenance services.
Visual Charts
Use simple visual charts to explain the importance of WordPress security, performing updates, monitoring downtime, etc.
For example, you can use a chart like the one below to show clients that WordPress sites are the most targeted on the web by hackers because WordPress is the world’s most popular and widely used CMS platform.
Follow this with a simple chart showing how vulnerabilities in plugins account for the most breaches in WordPress sites. Explain why it’s important to keep WordPress plugins up-to-date, as even one outdated plugin with a vulnerability can end up bringing their whole site down.
Sample Client Report
After explaining why their WordPress sites are vulnerable to attacks and the importance of keeping everything on their site updated, show them how your services will:
- Proactively keep their sites secure, fully backed up, available online, and optimized 24/7
- Address and fix any security, availability, or speed issue right away before it becomes a serious problem that can disrupt their business or bring down their site.
You can easily create highly customizable white label client reports directly from The Hub to help you do this.
A client report is a great tool you can use to:
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- Showcase the maintenance services you will perform to keep their sites updated, secure, and optimized,
- Explain and educate them on the importance of performing a regular website maintenance routine.
- Help them understand the complexity and the value of all the services you will provide them with.
Let’s go through examples of maintenance services you can promote. Feel free to adapt the sample scripts below and use them in your proposal, presentation, web copy, or any other method you use to promote your services.
Website Security
Here is a sample script you can use to explain your website security services:
Imagine your website as a storefront; you wouldn’t want to leave it unlocked at night, would you?
Our website security and software update service acts like a guard patrolling your premises 24/7, offering continuous protection against the relentless threat of automated bots and hackers. By consistently monitoring, updating, and interpreting security data, we ensure your site remains secure, up-to-date, and fully protected against potential disruptions.
The benefits of our website security services include:
- Constant Protection: Your WordPress site is under constant threat from multiple bots every hour, round the clock, 24/7/365. Our service ensures your site is protected at all times.
- Automated Defense: Bots relentlessly attempt to hack websites, regardless of size or importance. With our service, your site is defended against these automated attacks every minute of the day.
- Comprehensive Monitoring: Hackers explore every possible vulnerability. We consistently monitor your security, run scans, review logs, and update software components to stay ahead of threats.
- Proactive Updates: Just one outdated plugin with a known vulnerability can cause massive disruptions or damage to your site and business reputation. We ensure all your software, plugins, and themes are always up-to-date.
- 24/7 Security: Our service includes 24/7 monitoring to detect vulnerabilities, malware, and prevent hacking attempts, providing you peace of mind.
- Expert Installation and Configuration: We install and configure the best security solutions tailored to your site, ensuring optimal protection.
- Data Interpretation and Troubleshooting: Security data needs expert interpretation. Our team analyzes data and troubleshoots issues to prevent compromises, keeping your site secure.
Our proactive approach enhances your website’s security, protects sensitive data, and maintains customer trust.
Website Backups
Here is a sample script you can use to explain the value of your website backup services:
Performing regular and consistent site backups is like having an insurance policy for your data. Backups ensure that your website’s information is safe and can be quickly restored in case of data loss or a cyberattack. This also minimizes downtime and prevents the loss of crucial information, keeping your business operations smooth and uninterrupted. Think of it as a safety net for your digital assets.
The benefits of our website backup service include:
- Daily (or Hourly) Backups: Ensure your website data is always safe with regular backups. You can choose daily or even hourly backups based on your needs.
- Pre-Maintenance Backups: We perform backups before any maintenance activities, such as updating plugins or fixing issues, to safeguard against unexpected problems.
- Instant Restoration: In case of any issues, our service allows for immediate restoration of your site, ensuring no data is lost and minimizing downtime.
- Peace of Mind: With our backup services, you can focus on your business without worrying about data loss or site disruptions.
We’ll ensure your website is always secure and your data is never lost.
Website Optimization Service
Use a script like the one below to explain to clients the value of your site optimization services:
Optimizing your website improves loading times, enhances user experience, and boosts search engine rankings. A faster, more efficient site keeps visitors engaged and increases conversion rates, directly impacting your bottom line. Just as a clean and organized store attracts more customers, a well-optimized website ensures a great experience for your visitors.
The benefits of our website optimization services include:
- Enhanced User Experience: Fast loading pages improve user satisfaction and engagement, leading to lower bounce rates and higher conversion rates.
- Improved SEO Rankings: Optimized site speed boosts your search engine rankings, making it easier for potential customers to find you online.
- Increased Traffic: Better search engine visibility and a superior user experience attract more visitors to your site.
- Regular Maintenance: As part of our service, we continuously optimize your site to keep it performing at its best, ensuring long-term benefits.
- Competitive Advantage: A well-optimized website gives you an edge over competitors with slower, less efficient sites.
Our website optimization service ensures fast loading pages, improved user experience, better search engine indexing, increased traffic, regular maintenance, and a competitive edge, driving your business to greater success.
Uptime Monitoring
Here is a simple script you can use to explain to your clients the value of using your site uptime monitoring services:
Our website uptime monitoring services ensure your site is always online, handles issues instantly, and proactively maintains site availability 24/7.
The benefits of our website uptime monitoring services include:
- 24/7 Monitoring: Your site will always be up and running, even while you sleep, ensuring continuous availability.
- Instant Issue Alerts: We receive instant alerts if any problems arise and address them immediately, even if it’s at 3am.
- Proactive Problem Solving: Our proactive monitoring keeps your site error-free and consistently available online 24/7.
Tip: If you don’t want to fix your clients’ problems at 3 am, just use our expert services instead. We’ll handle it all for you (while you and your clients get a great night’s sleep!)
Fixing Broken Links
Use a script like the one shown below to explain to your clients the value of using your broken link checking services:
Having broken links on your site can seriously impact user experience, search rankings, and even your business reputation.
The benefits of our website link checking services include:
- Enhance User Experience: Fixing broken links ensures seamless navigation, making it easier for your visitors to find what they need. This keeps users engaged and reduces frustration.
- Improve SEO: Regularly checking and fixing broken links positively impacts your site’s SEO, helping to maintain and improve your search engine ranking.
- Boost Site Credibility: Broken links can harm your website’s credibility. By fixing them, you show that your site is actively monitored and maintained.
- Prevent User Drop-off: Imagine navigating a store where aisles are blocked; it’s frustrating and likely to drive customers away. Fixing broken links prevents this issue on your website, keeping visitors on your site longer.
- Proactive Maintenance: We will check and repair broken links on your site regularly, ensuring your site remains functional and user-friendly.
Additional Services
In addition to the above, include services like SEO, content writing, site performance reviews, etc.
The Hub’s client reports lets you choose the sections you want to present to your potential clients.
End your maintenance services proposal or sales presentation with a statement that reinforces how the services will save your clients time and money.
For example:
Our comprehensive and proactive website maintenance services ensure your site remains secure, fast, and up-to-date all the time.
By letting us take care of your site, you can focus on growing your business with peace of mind. We’ll keep your website safe and running at its best to eliminate problems, reduce your costs, and provide an optimal online experience for your users and search engines.
Build Website Maintenance Into Your Services
The last step in this approach is to integrate website maintenance with your website building services.
There are a number of ways you can do this. For example, you can:
- Include an initial period of website maintenance with your website development services.
- Offer different care plans to suit different businesses and budgets.
- Make subscribing to your web care plans cheaper as a preventative option.
Let’s briefly explore each of these options:
Include An Initial Period Of Website Maintenance With New Site Builds
Offer to include website maintenance for a period of time (e.g. 6 or 12 months) with every new website. This allows the client to fully experience the value of your service and to hopefully depend on it.
After the expiration period, you can present your client with different renewal options (e.g. auto-renew every 6, 12, 18 or 24 months).
The benefits of this approach include:
- Affordability: Adding 3 or 6 months of website maintenance to your total web development price could be enough for clients on a small budget to experience and renew the service after their initial period expires.
- Flexibility: You can create different service periods with different pricing options (e.g. pay monthly or annually, buy 24 months of maintenance get 2 months free, etc.) and include this option for different plans (see below)
Offer Different Care Plans
Offer different care plans to accommodate different business types and needs.
As explained in our Website Care and Maintenance Guide, our reseller services lets you configure different web care packages and display these on your site with custom pricing tables.
Make Subscribing Cheaper As A Preventative Option
Think of this as business insurance for your clients.
Calculate your service and labor costs, and increase your pricing for clients who are not on your care plan(s).
Let your prospects know that if they are on your maintenance plan and something were to happen to their site:
- Their subscription will cover everything listed in their package.
- If any additional work is required, you will invoice them for services or labor not covered by the plan (tip: offer to charge the discounted rate for the additional work if they upgrade to the next level plan).
Sell More Web Care Plans With Total Integration
For this approach to be truly effective, make sure that all of your sales, marketing, and promotional communications are consistent:
- Publish articles on your blog to educate potential clients on why they should hire you to build and maintain their sites.
- Build an FAQ section on your site.
- Add testimonials from happy clients that have experienced the benefits of your integrated services.
DFY vs DIY WordPress Maintenance Options
Let’s suppose a client comes to you for website development. You pitch them on how you will build and maintain their sites, and they decide that they only want website development for now, citing budget constraints, etc.
Before offering web development and website maintenance as completely separate services, we’d like to suggest one more thing you can do to help your clients understand the value and necessity of using your website maintenance services, and give yourself another opportunity to increase sales of your web care plans:
Give them a guide that shows them how to perform all of the maintenance themselves.
What??? Why would you do this?
Here’s the strategy behind this method:
- Build Trust: Your clients will see that you truly care about the long-term success of their business and that you stand by your belief in the importance of website maintenance.
- DIY is Hard: Most businesses are too busy to perform a complete website maintenance routine themselves or to spend time learning how to do it. When your clients attempt to follow the instructions in your guide, they will realize that website maintenance is far more complex and time-consuming than they had imagined.
- They Choose Your Solution: Clients will appreciate how much work, skills, and expertise is required to maintain their website (especially when they run into problems). This will help them value your services and appreciate your professionalism, care, and transparency.
Do the above, and when your clients are ready to commit to maintaining their sites, you will be their first and obvious choice.
So, if a client declines to take up your maintenance services, simply say something like:
That’s ok, I completely understand that you aren’t able to commit to our maintenance service right now because of [insert client’s reason here].
As we explained, it’s really important to keep your website updated, secure, and optimized, and we take this seriously. So, after we build your website, I’m going to give you a comprehensive guide with checklists and detailed step-by-step instructions that show you how to perform all of the maintenance steps yourself. This way, you can keep your site completely safe and secure, and if you need any help, just reach out and let us know.
You can create your own guide, search for resources on the web, or download this free and comprehensive WordPress site maintenance tutorial as a PDF.
After building and delivering the website, send them the guide and ask them how things are going when you have your next follow up meeting.
You will find that many clients will ask you to take over their site maintenance, especially after attempting to do it themselves, or experiencing difficulties.
Website Care Plans – Handling Client Objections
Having the conviction that website maintenance is not an option but a necessity of owning a website is not enough.
It’s also important to be prepared for any objections or concerns potential clients may have about using your maintenance services.
To help you do this, we’ve created a useful and practical guide on how to handle client objections and concerns using AI tools here: Can AI Help You Sell More WordPress Services? WPMU DEV AI Assistant vs ChatGPT
WPMU DEV Gives You Everything You Need to Succeed
If you are a WPMU DEV member, you already have everything you need to start profiting from selling WordPress maintenance services to clients, right from the starting gate.
We give you a complete web development and WordPress site maintenance “business in a box,” so you can sell more web care plans and maintenance services effectively to your clients, grow your business, and boost your recurring income.
In our Website Care and Maintenance Guide, we explain:
- What types of maintenance services you can offer to your clients.
- Why offering maintenance services can be a profitable source of monthly recurring revenue for your business.
- How to set up website care plans and maintenance service packages under your own brand with WPMU DEV.
We also provide a WordPress Maintenance Checklist so you have a starting template to work with and develop your services.
We even show you step-by-step how to resell our complete suite of web services and how to set up a white label client portal so your clients will only ever deal with you while we do all the heavy lifting in the background.
And that’s not even scratching the surface of all we offer.
We also:
- Develop, maintain, and include every plugin you need for optimal site maintenance (e.g. security, site optimization, image optimization, SEO, etc.),
- Provide you with essential maintenance services like automation, backups, analytics, and reporting,
- Include time-saving maintenance tools for 24/7 site monitoring and broken link checking,
- Provide free assisted migration services so your clients can switch over to your services with little to no disruptions, and
- Make everything accessible from one central command center that lets you manage and maintain unlimited client sites.
Additionally, with integrated hosting, firewalls, email, domains, dns management, client billing, and our “hands-free” done-for-you expert services for handling your client’s uptime monitoring, malware removal, site optimization (and whitelabel expert client support coming soon!), you could even say that we have built the “ultimate” all-in-one website care and maintenance platform.
We hope you have found this guide on how to better communicate the value and necessity of your maintenance services useful. Make your maintenance services non-optional and watch the sales of your web care plans skyrocket.
Not a WPMU DEV member yet? Our Agency membership includes everything you need to grow your WordPress business and take it to the next level.
