Dean Burton, WP Buffs: “keeping WordPress sites fast and secure is a full-time job”

With WordPress playing a huge role in online business these days, keeping websites up and running is more important – and tricky – than ever. Lots of site owners find it tough to keep up with all the updates, security issues, and performance needs.

Relying solely on plugins isn't enough to tackle today's threats. Businesses need reliable partners who offer both technical expertise and proactive support to keep WordPress sites secure, fast, and compliant.

Today, we’re talking with Dean Burton, the COO of WP Buffs. He opens up about the company’s journey of growing from the ground up to over $1M in annual recurring revenue. Dean also dives into how they help WordPress site owners and agencies tackle real issues – everything from speeding up site performance to providing white-label support and keeping up with the latest web trends.

Can you share how WP Buffs was started and tell us about your journey with the company since its launch?

Joe Howard founded WP Buffs in 2016 after spending time in government consulting. He wanted to help anyone with a WordPress website get the most out of it and help them improve their site.

WP Buffs grew month on month. It had zero investor help, and everything was bootstrapped from the ground up. Money made through revenue was used to pay for the software and the people pushing the company forward; it was invested back in from day one.

The company has gone through many changes over the years. We’ve managed a successful rebrand for WP Buffs, including a full new website rebuild, new branding, and logo. We restructured our leadership team and roles to meet company needs and have never been afraid of experimenting with new ways of working. We’ve implemented solid processes over the years that have enabled us to scale to this point; since launching, WP Buffs has grown into a $1M+ ARR company.

Can you introduce us to what WP Buffs does? What are the main challenges you help WordPress site owners and agencies navigate?

WP Buffs is a WordPress website maintenance service. We run on flexible monthly subscription care plans. We work with anyone who has a WordPress website. We support direct clients with one or more websites, and we have a White-Label Program, working with WordPress agencies and providing support to their clients under their brands, which allows them to scale without needing to hire internally.

We tackle everything you need to run a safe, speedy, and stable website. We run four daily backups a day for your site, manage speed and security, uptime monitoring, and give you access to a full team of support engineers who can troubleshoot any site issues and make edits and changes to your site.

In what ways can poorly maintained WordPress websites leave businesses vulnerable to performance issues or security threats?

Poorly maintained WordPress websites can expose businesses to significant security threats and performance issues. Outdated core software, themes, and plugins often contain vulnerabilities that hackers exploit to gain unauthorized access or inject malware. WP Buffs keeps websites up to date and fully tests out all updates before pushing them live. Additionally, neglected sites tend to suffer from slow loading times, broken features, and database bloat, all of which degrade the user experience and harm search engine rankings. If you're running an e-commerce site, that has a direct hit on your revenue. Without regular updates, backups, and security monitoring, businesses risk data loss, reputational damage, and lost revenue due to downtime or compromised customer trust.

Have you noticed any new pain points or risks emerge for website owners as a result of recent global or digital trends?

Yes! With evolving privacy regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and tighter regulations for accessibility requirements becoming more widespread, website owners face increasing challenges to ensure compliance, avoid hefty fines, and maintain user trust. A lot of our clients ask our team what they can do to stay compliant when it comes to certain regulations, which is why partnering with other agencies and firms that specialize in these areas is so important for WP Buffs and helps us go that extra mile to help our clients navigate these challenges.

At the same time, we’re seeing a rise in user expectations for faster websites and navigation. Slow-loading pages drive visitors away and hurt search rankings, and that’s something we put a lot of time into helping our clients with. We’re seeing an increase in clients becoming much more aware of how fast (or slow) their website is loading.

Many websites also depend heavily on third-party plugins and services now, which introduces additional risks. Any vulnerability or downtime in these external tools can directly impact site security and functionality. Our team does an excellent job of educating our clients on the software their website uses and recommends replacements or other routes when we see recurring issues with third-party software.

What essential steps should every WordPress site owner take to protect their website from performance drops, downtime, or breaches?

Keep everything updated and ensure you test updates on a staging site before you run them on your live site. Always use trusted plugins and themes; avoid abandoned or poorly rated tools, as these are more likely to contain security flaws or performance issues. Make sure your team implements strong security measures, such as using strong and unique passwords and implementing two-factor authentication on every system that allows it. You should also limit login attempts and use security plugins like Solid WP, which is included in our care plans. If anything happens on your site, you'll want to make sure you have a restore option, so running regular backups on your site is essential.

Many businesses are now choosing managed WordPress hosting or outsourcing maintenance. What should they be cautious of during this transition?

When transitioning to managed WordPress hosting or outsourced maintenance, businesses should be mindful of losing visibility and control over their own site. WP Buffs addresses this by using its own login credentials to access your site and maintaining a detailed activity log, so both you and the team can see exactly what changes are made and when.

It’s also essential to watch for hidden costs because some providers charge extra for backups, malware scans, or routine fixes. WP Buffs keeps pricing transparent and includes critical services in every plan. What you see in your plan is what you get!

You’ll also want to take data protection into consideration. It's important to confirm how providers handle and protect personal data. This is even more important if your site handles sensitive data.

What are some best practices you recommend for organizations to ensure their websites run smoothly and securely over the long term?

Aside from the usual tasks such as keeping WordPress, plugins, and themes updated, running daily backups, and implementing basic security and performance optimizations, long-term website health also depends on deeper operational habits. Organizations should conduct routine audits to review user roles, clean up unused plugins or assets, and monitor database performance.

Ongoing uptime and error monitoring help catch issues early before they impact users while staying compliant with data privacy regulations is essential to avoid legal and reputational risk. Clear documentation of your site’s structure, workflows, and recovery processes ensures continuity and consistency, especially as teams grow or change. Ultimately, partnering with a reliable WordPress maintenance provider can help you stay proactive, avoid fire drills, and ensure your website remains fast, secure, and compliant over time.

Looking to the future, what trends do you anticipate in WordPress management, security, or performance optimization?

Like most industries, we anticipate seeing more AI-powered tools. Not only in the backend of WordPress sites for tasks such as SEO support and detecting anomalies in traffic or performance but also for tools that companies like ours use. We're already seeing AI integrate into some of the tools we use, such as helpdesk software and management tools. The goal of integrating AI is to make life easier and operations more efficient, but it also presents new challenges for teams like ours that must make sure any technology we use is secure, kept up to date, and keeps us compliant across various policies.

In terms of performance, as mentioned earlier, website owners want faster and faster sites for their users. We're starting to see people use WordPress just for their content management or adopting a headless WordPress approach.

With Google’s continued focus on Core Web Vitals and UX metrics, performance optimization won’t just be a technical task; it will directly impact search visibility, conversion rates, and even ad revenue for content-heavy sites.

More businesses are shifting away from DIY maintenance to fully managed WordPress services, and with that, we expect to see growth in specialized providers offering turnkey support with performance, white-glove support, and vertical-specific expertise. We're already seeing some hosts attempting WordPress maintenance services packaged within their hosting deals.

And finally, what does the future hold for WP Buffs? Are there any exciting plans or innovations on the horizon?

Yes! We’re gearing up to scale our White-Label Program even more over the next 12 months. Our goal is to support more WordPress entrepreneurs to scale without needing to hire an internal team and to help more tech agencies free up their teams by taking WordPress management off their hands. We’re also scaling our internal custom development team to be able to support more clients with bigger projects and website builds. We want to be our clients’ one-stop shop for all their WordPress requirements.

Our one-time WordPress fix product launched recently, and that has seen great success so far. It’s been great to be able to work with people who have a website issue that we can see through from start to finish.