If you have a busy website that enjoys heavy traffic every day, you should have a maintenance checklist that you go through every three months. Your WordPress site is a complex system with many components. This covers WordPress hosting as well as the WordPress software, plugins, and themes. On top of that, you can add your text and pictures. All of these factors contribute to a website that is well-liked by your visitors and clients. Many website owners do not conduct maintenance checks after establishing a blog or website until something breaks.
There may be nothing inherently wrong with your site, but there will always be room for improvement. If you want to achieve peak performance, you must undertake some basic maintenance items on a regular basis. These upkeep activities guarantee that your website is always in top condition.
Here are four WordPress maintenance items you should do to ensure the optimum run of your website:
1. Optimize site performance: Check and Update All WordPress Files
WordPress includes a mechanism for managing changes to the WordPress core, plugins, and themes. You should constantly upgrade WordPress to the most recent version and keep all your plugins and themes up to date.
There are certain circumstances in which you may miss an update. For example, when the licensing of a premium plugin or theme expires, it may fail to check for updates. To manually check for updates, go to the WordPress Updates page. Examine all of your installed plugins and themes to ensure that they are up to date. If they aren’t, go through them one by one and update them. If you choose not to update something—such as if the recent update has reports of bugs—note it down and revisit it during your next maintenance cycle.
2. Check and Delete Spam Comments
You should take a quick run over the spam comments to verify that there are no legitimate comments mislabeled as spam. When you’re finished, you may securely remove all of the spam comments from your website. If you have hundreds of spam comments, removing all of them can make a difference. While it will not necessarily enhance performance, the act will ensure that legitimate remarks are not missed.
3. Change All Your WordPress Passwords
Passwords are your first line of protection against unwanted internet access. For all of your online accounts, you should always use strong, unique passwords. Your WordPress website, FTP accounts, and database are all part of this.
Even if you use secure passwords, they may be hacked without your knowledge. That is why WordPress security experts advise updating your WordPress passwords frequently. Passwords for your WordPress admin area, FTP or SSH accounts, and your WordPress database password are all included.
4. Optimize site performance: Database
The majority of data in WordPress is stored in the WordPress database. It’s where you’ll find all of your content, comments, users, and settings. Your database may accumulate a large amount of useless data over time. This increases the size of your WordPress backups, which may impact uploading, downloading, and restoring backups. Cleaning up junk, defragmenting tables, and improving database speed are all benefits of optimizing your WordPress database.
5. Create a Complete Backup of Your Website
Backups are one of the essential WordPress plugins you can have. There are many excellent WordPress backup plugins available. These may assist you in fully automating the WordPress backup process. However, your backup solution may abruptly cease functioning without your knowledge. It’s best to run your backup plugin manually once in a while to generate a complete backup of your website. Check that your backup files are correctly saved to the remote location of your choosing after performing the backup Dropbox, Google Drive, and more.
Final Thoughts
Creating a website for your business or brand has many advantages. However, an old or defective website may do more damage than offer benefits. One of the most outstanding features of WordPress as a CMS is that it enables continuous updates with little effort. It is beneficial to be aware of as many features and details as possible while learning how to use and manage websites. Stewardship and maintenance are essential for improved website performance. When websites are kept up to date and in good condition, they can do great things for your business, such as boosting exposure, developing your brand, and even bringing in new clients.
Work with the best web designers to optimize site performance and build a platform that can make your business thrive. Stephenson’s IT Support Solutions is a website design company in Barnsley that delivers the best IT support and digital marketing services you need. Contact us today to learn more!