Around 32% of all websites use WordPress. If you look only at sites built with a Content Management System (CMS) like WordPress or Squarespace, then WordPress sites form a whopping 64% of the total. In short, WordPress absolutely dominates the CMS market and forms an increasingly huge part of the Internet itself.
With those stats, there’s a good chance that you’re running a WordPress site also. Good for you! Once you’ve got your domain set up, the site up and running, your themes installed, and your plugins good to go, what do you need to do next? How do you maintain your WordPress site?
You could easily assemble a list with dozens of smaller tasks to do on a checklist, but we’ve trimmed it down to five essential maintenance tasks. Most of these are straightforward, and you’ll recognize several as part of fundamental best practices for computer and tech maintenance.
1. Backup regularly
You’ve certainly heard of backing up your computer or your phone, and hopefully you keep multiple copies of important documents and picture files. The exact same principle applies to your WordPress site, except that your site is arguably even more important. If you’re running an e-commerce site or making money through your blog, start all of your maintenance with this vital step – back it up!
Creating and keeping a site backup doesn’t have to be a challenge, either. If you’re familiar with WordPress, you’ll know that it relies heavily on plugins to handle routine tasks. Backups are no different. You’ll find a number of great plugins to handle routine backups, from UpdraftPlus and BackUpWordPress (both free) to VaultPress and BackupBuddy (paid options). The important thing is to make sure that you have something in place and are regularly backing up your site; your livelihood could rely on it.
2. Install updates
If there’s a foundational rule of tech maintenance, it’s “update, update, update!” WordPress itself should update automatically, but you should regularly check both WordPress and all of your plugins to make sure that everything is up-to-date at the same time. Your WordPress theme, in particular, might update on a different schedule than WordPress itself; it’s worth double-checking to make sure they’re on the same page.
3. Improve security
- Delete old plugins
Keep up with the newest versions of everything, and at the same time, delete any unused plugins. Old plugins don’t just clutter things up, they can sometimes pose a security risk as well.
- Use a security plugin
Yes, that may seem counterintuitive to the previous point – but a good security plugin, even a simple one like WordFence, delivers a huge boost to your overall site security and health.
4. Monitor health
WordPress security and the overall health of your WordPress site are two sides of the same coin. Security aims to prevent attacks and malware, while health looks at a host of both technical and non-technical issues. On the technical side, keep a close eye on your website’s speed; slow websites kill traffic. Reduce image sizes and compress files to improve speed. Removing old plugins in the above step will also help.
It’s worth becoming familiar with tools like Google Analytics and Search Console, both powerful tools to keep track of your site’s performance and health.
You should also keep a close eye on comments on your WordPress site; that’s less a problem if you’re running an e-commerce site, but comment spam on blogs is a legitimate issue. If it gets bad enough, consider disabling comments site-wide to save yourself some hassle.
5. Keep it fresh!
Finally, don’t stop adding new content to your site! Fresh content and activity on your site are vital to drive traffic and boost your site visitors. Review basic on-page SEO factors also, from optimizing your content for SEO to reviewing meta descriptions. Even staying on top of basic SEO practices like good keyword research can do wonders for your traffic.
Those are the keys to good WordPress maintenance. There are countless other things you can do, from finding and removing 404 errors and improving compatibility with mobile devices, but the five steps listed above will keep you on the right track.