5 really simple tips for WordPress website maintenance
Kim Scotland
Crafting WordPress websites for mission-led, service-based businesses that blend strategy with stunning design
WordPress site maintenance is probably the least exciting part of owning a WordPress website. And let's be honest, you've got a million and one other things that are more enjoyable and are direct money making tasks. BUT, not keeping your website up to date can have a negative impact on your brand reputation and potential client's ability to find you.
Read on to find out why you need to maintain WordPress and the potential problems if you don't.
Why should you bother with WordPress site maintenance?
When WordPress, or theme and plugin creators issue updates they do it for a combination of the following 3 reasons:
Security
WordPress is an open source platform. This means that the code that makes it do what it does is freely available for anyone to download, analyse and change.
This means that anyone can create new plugins and themes to go with it. Which is great because it means that anyone with the right knowledge can create new themes and plugins which benefit us, WordPress users.
But this also means that people with less noble intentions can analyse the code for weaknesses that they can exploit on sites that use it.
WordPress and theme and plugin developers are always improving their code. When they find or are alerted to a security weakness, they make it a priority to get an update out to fix it.
Now, an out of date WordPress website isn't guaranteed to be hacked. But if yours is unlucky enough to draw the attention of a hacker, an up to date website is going to be really useful in preventing it.
Performance
In the same way that WordPress developers look to improve security they also improve how efficient their code runs. This, in turn, helps make your website run more efficiently and more quickly which improves your user experience.
Website visitors expect websites to load in less than 3 seconds. You'll find that a site that takes longer than that will get fewer and fewer visits. So it's in your interest to keep your site as performant as possible.
New features
New features can be of benefit to you in the back end of your website, or on your site for visitors to see.
It could be that you can now automate your backup plugin, or it could be that your users can now login to your membership area using their Google or social media accounts.
New features are usually prioritised by user demand. The more often it's asked for the higher up the list of the developers' priorities it goes.
How do you maintain WordPress?
In my WordPress website maintenance package I cover 3 main areas.
“Kim has been looking after my website since building it about 8 months ago. Every week Kim sends me an email update and this week she just smashed it – things for me to action, instructions on how to do it and fixes and solutions to problems I didn't even know I had. 10/10 for proactivity and making my life easier.”
Taking a Backup
Why do I need to backup my website?
Last I checked there were tens of thousands of WordPress plugins around. And it would be impossible to test every single possible combination of them. So you never know for sure when you install a new plugin whether it's going to work well with the others you have installed. Or whether a new update is going to upset the apple cart.
So having a recent backup can be a lifesaver when it comes to WordPress site maintenance. Having a working backup means that you have a copy to revert back to if the worst happened when you install updates.
So if one of those updates conflicts with another plugin you have installed, all you need to do is to revert to the backup you took before you started.
How often do I need to backup?
As a minimum you should be taking a backup at least before you install updates. If you sell products via your site you probably want to be taking weekly, if not daily backups so that you don't lose any orders data.
How do I backup my website?
You can either back up your site yourself, or you can check to see if your host does it for you. Personally, I like to do it myself, for peace of mind more than anything else. I like to know exactly how often my backups are done and where they're saved, so they're close to hand if I need them.
I use the plugin UpdraftPlus (free version) for my backups. The free version lets you set how often you want the back up to run e.g. daily, weekly, fortnightly but not at a specific time, which the paid version does. You can set it up to save your backups to a few places, I keep mine on my Google drive.
Install and test all available updates
This includes WordPress itself, themes and plugins. It also includes any PHP version updates.
PHP is the programming language WordPress is built with. It is also regularly updated, and the version of PHP that WordPress recommends you use periodically updates too. This is usually done on your hosting account, rather than your WordPress dashboard. A good host will help you navigate it.
Installing updates for WordPress, theme and plugins is usually a case of clicking a few buttons. If you hover over the ‘Dashboard' menu option in your WordPress dashboard you'll find and ‘Updates' option. Clicking this option will list any available updates for your website.
I recommend installing them one at a time, then giving your site a quick once over. Then once you've installed them all, you can give it a more thorough check. Test it on a mobile and a tablet, as well as focusing on your most important features.
And any other important things your website does.
Run a security scan
Sometimes it's really obvious when your website has been hacked. I had a client once whose site was now pointing to a Chinese furniture shop. But sometimes it's not so obvious, a hacker might log in and change some code or even change your shop's payment details.
So once I've done the other WordPress site maintenance tasks I like to run a quick security scan to make sure there's nothing bad going on under the hood.
I like to use WordFence for this.
Check and fix broken links
Broken links on your WordPress website can harm your Google search ranking and irritate your visitors. A broken link is a link to a page or website that doesn't exist any more. Checking for broken links is really easy to do, and fixing them can be a really quick job if you keep on top of it.
Using an online link checker
You can use a website to check your blog for broken links. You enter your URL and it will then scan your site for any links pointing to pages that don't exist.
I like to use the online broken link checker because I like the way it shows my broken link results. I've not tried the others yet, but I will do at some point if only to report back here.
Plugin – not recommended
I'm only including this here so that you have the full picture. Using a plugin to check for broken links can make your website run slowly. A slow running blog means a worse user experience for your readers and it can also harm your Google search ranking.
Clean up spam comments
If you use a spam filtering plugin like Akismet or Antispam Bee you probably don't notice spam comments left on your blog posts, because they're blocked. But those comments are still saved on your site's database, taking up room until you delete them.
How often should you login to maintain WordPress?
I recommend that you do these tasks weekly. It might take some extra time during the first couple of weeks while you're getting your site up to date if you've not been doing it very regularly. Once you are in the habit if doing it weekly it shouldn't take you very long. It takes me anything between 20-30 minutes per week for a single website.
WordPress site maintenance – summary
WordPress site maintenance can be boring but it's also an important part of owning a WordPress website.
WordPress updates are issued for a combination of the following reasons: security, performance & new features
To keep your WordPress website ticking along you should regularly
No time or confidence to do it yourself?
If you've been reading this thinking "it's all well and good Kim, but I don't have the time and/or the confidence to do this on my site", I've got you covered.
My Worry-Free Website Plan does all of this for you.
Every single week I'll log into your site, take a backup, safely install and test the available updates, check for broken links AND run a security scan.
Each week you'll get a short email detailing what updates were installed and any tweaks I may have needed to make.
Maintaining your WordPress website is crucial, Kim. Your tips are truly valuable for small businesses wanting to make a big impact online.