The management and maintenance of a WordPress website can be a job in itself for site owners. Updates to core files, plugins, troubleshooting and security are all part and parcel.
Following a few housekeeping tips you can keep on top of most of the routine things.
Here’s our WordPress Housekeeping Tips to help you keep on top:
Using a staging or local copy of your WordPress website for testing and updates. That way you won’t effect the live version of your site.
Check for WordPress security updates
Security updates are different from routine updates. These get released when there has been a vulnerability detected and patched.
As such, these security patches are priority updates.
Check for routine core updates
Updates to the WordPress core happen often and can contain new features and bug patches. Keep your WordPress core files up to date with each release.
Backup your website on a regular basis. More on that later.
Check for routine and priority updates for plugins
Plugin updates happen as and when plugin developers issue updates. Different than the WordPress core files, these happen when plugin developers release them.
You will be notified of any new updates on the Installed Plugins page inside the Admin Dashboard.
Navigate to Plugins>Installed Plugins to see.
Check for theme updates
Some themes are more complex than others. Each can have many features and functionalities built into them.
The Avada theme has lots of extra features. Its page builder, Fusion Builder often needs patches applied when they issue updates.
Other themes are more streamlined and less complex. This makes updates a little more straightforward.
Theme developers often release updates. This is to keep their theme inline with the latest core and plugin updates.
So to avoid any issues, it’s always best to keep your themes up to date.
Perform updates or testing in a separate environment. This could be on a local copy of your site, or a staging area on your web server.
That way, you’re not working on your live site if things go wrong.
Make sure unused plugins are deactivate and deleted
Inactive, unused plugins are another cause of performance issues.
It’s good housekeeping practice to keep your plugins tidy and organised.
Let’s say you installed a lot of plugins to test some new functionality. Either test one at a time or remove any unwanted plugins that didn’t quite tick all the boxes for your needs.
Find out more about WordPress plugin optimisation for site performance and security.
Check for broken links
Broken links can have a negative effect on your appearance in search engines. Look for broken links using Broken Link Checker.
You can also use Google Search Console, SEMrush and Ahrefs to check for broken links on your site.
Use a redirection plugin to point any broken links you find to an alternative or more relevant page.
Search engines show up-to-date and relevant search results. depending on the term used to search. Make sure that all links to your content are correct.
The structure of your website should be straight forward and easy to navigate.
Check database stability and performance
The WordPress database can get bogged down if you have lots of active plugins or themes that are not in use.
The busier a database is – or how many requests your WordPress website is making, the slower it performs. This has a detrimental effect on your website performance.
It could also effect where your website appears in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Page).
It’s not all about search engines though. Think about your users first. Their experience on your site should be the priority.
Find out how to easily optimise your WordPress database.
Audit your user list and passwords
If you’re not running a large membership site, then your list of users will be small. Limited to who you’ve grated access to your website.
If only you manage your website remove any suspicious users that you don’t recognise.
One tactic an attacker can use is to set up their own Admin level account. Make sure your passwords are complex. This makes them much harder to crack.
Supprising how often I see sites using “admin” and “password123” to log in!
So for this reason, it’s important to include a user account audit in your housekeeping.
Where possible, the use of two factor authentication should be in place. No system can ever be 100% secure, but it’s good practice to use all the tools available to secure your site.
Be sure, any attacker looking for a vulnerability can deploy a wide range of tools to attempt to gain access.
In your Admin Dashboard, going to Users and you can see your user list.
Make regular backups
Backing up your WordPress website is an absolute must. You may need to revert back to a working version of your website if your site goes down.
All my client sites are using timeline backups. This means that they can restore their site to any point over the last 30 days.
If your hosting provider offers a backup facility, it’s important that you put this in place.
Use UpdraftPlus or All-In-One-Migration if your hosting provider doesn’t offer backups.
You can store your backup on your local machine, or on a separate area of your web server.
Image optimisation
Unoptimised images are one of the bigger causes for performance issues. Modern camera technology is capable of some of the best levels of image quality ever. But with great quality comes big file sizes.
Let’s say you want to upload 10 images to a page, and each one was 1.5MB in size. That’s 15MB of images that the page has to load. At the date and time of writing this article, according to GTmetrix, average page load size is 3.15MB.
Also, actual dimensional size of the image. Don’t, for example, use a 2000px by 1300px image for a space half the size. It’s best to scale the image to fit the size before you upload.
That way your WordPress website serves scaled images.
Performance issues will put off your visitors. Frustrated by waiting for pages to load and going elsewhere.
Use image editing software such as Photoshop or GIMP (great free alternative). Or online tools such as Picresize.
Plugin options are available such as WPSmush and EWWW Image Optimiser. It’s always best practice to upload optimised and scaled images to begin with.
Run performance tests
As part of any routine maintenance, run performance testing. This will help you to determine if there are any improvements to make. You can do this using tools such as GTMetrix.
These tools give you a score based on your site’s performance. Also, you will get a detailed report of issues, varying in severity and suggests what you can do to fix them.
Sometimes fixes can be tricky. Not everyone is familiar with some of the deeper workings of WordPress. Or website / hosting optimisation.
If that’s the case, please feel free to reach out and I can help with your WordPress website optimisation.
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