Damage control—key aspects of maintenance

Managing your site can translate into different responsibilities, depending on whom you talk to. They can usually be grouped into three categories:

• Hardware: your live server, development server, Content Delivery Networks (CDN), cloud services, caching settings, database optimization, and so on

• Software:WordPress plugin and theme updates, content backups, any third-party services tied to your site(s)

• Site Users: spam prevention, user feedback, site-related troubleshooting, and so on

When to use a dedicated server

Assuming that you're starting out with a low-traffic website (a few hundred unique visitors a month), you will most likely not run into any issues when it comes to running your site on a cheap server. However, once traffic starts to pick up, one of two things will happen:

• Your website will time out with some sort of member exceeded bandwidth limit page or message that will leave your visitors utterly perplexed

• Your visitors will complain...