Website maintenance is often viewed as a chore by website owners and is, therefore, neglected. However, neglecting website maintenance can lead to potential problems such as increased load speeds, reduced search engine rankings, and increased likelihood of hacking. In this article, we will explore the most important areas of your site that need to be maintained and our recommended course of action for each.
Backing up your website is an essential part of ensuring the long-term health of your website. Automatic backups are the easiest course of action, but it’s important to regularly test your backups to ensure that they’re functioning properly. You have multiple options to choose from when picking a backup system. There are several high-rated WordPress plugins that will help to automate and simplify the entire backup process. Most web hosts also offer options to have regularly scheduled backups for your website. It’s essential that you backup your website to multiple different locations to ensure that you’ll never be left without a way to restore your website.
WordPress software updates are released on a regular basis. These updates need to be applied to your website so it will continue to function properly. Without regularly installing these updates, you run the risk of having code conflicts and elements of your site becoming out-of-date. This leaves your site more open to hackers and it won’t function as efficiently as it could have otherwise.
Comment spam usually comes in the form of low-quality comments that are generally posted for no other reason than to build a backlink. The best way to deal with comment spam is to stop it before it strikes. Having anti-spam measures set up will help to prevent a flood of spam comments from ever plaguing your website.
Keeping your website healthy means keeping attackers out while ensuring your site is performing at its highest possible level. Tools like Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics will be able to give you comprehensive website metrics, so you know which areas of your site are performing well and which are not. By checking the stats of your website regularly, you’ll be able to avoid problems before they become too big to handle.
If you have a busy site with a lot of traffic and tons of content continually being uploaded, your database could probably use a little love. By maintaining your database you’ll be essentially cleaning out your website’s cobwebs, which will help to improve your loading speeds and reduce the frequency of database errors.
The best way to stay on top of things is to create a maintenance plan that fits into your schedule. Whether you’re doing the work or outsourcing the work to a professional, make sure that it’s handled on a regular basis. It can also be worthwhile to stay on top of WordPress updates, including updates for any plugins or themes you might be using.
In conclusion, regular WordPress website maintenance will keep your site running clean for years to come. With the plugins we highlighted above the process doesn’t even have to be that difficult. No more than possibly just an hour per month and you can ensure that your site is healthy and running the latest updates.
