By using WordPress, you will be able to create a website with minimum hassle. However, you cannot just set up the website and forget it. You will need to pay attention towards maintaining your website on a regular basis. This will provide you with the opportunity to keep your site up and running without any issues.
Below mentioned are 7 of the most crucial WordPress maintenance activities that you will need to perform on a regular basis. If you miss them out, there is a high possibility to end up with frustration.
1- Updating the Website
This will sound obvious to you, but most of the people tend to forget its importance. If you don’t update your website on a regular basis, you will be compromising its functionality as well as safety. When you are updating the site, you shouldn’t just focus on the WordPress software version. You will have to take a look at all the plugins and themes that you have used for the website.
If you can go to the WordPress Updates page, you will be able to get a clear understanding of what needs to be changed and what should not. In fact, you will be able to manually check what plugins and themes are running on the latest version and what needs to be updated. It will take some time for you to go through this process manually. However, the time you spend is totally worth than facing frustration in the long run.
2- Taking Regular Backups
You should also think about taking regular backups of the WordPress website. There are instances where the things with your WordPress will go wrong in an unexpected manner. During such instances, you should have the ability to restore the website within the shortest possible time. In other words, you will have to minimize the downtime of your website. That’s where you need to think about taking regular backups of the website. When you are taking backups of plugins, you need to keep in mind that some of them will not work at times. You need to keep this fact in your mind as well, so that you know nothing wrong will happen after a restore.
3- Change the Password on a Regular Basis
The password of your WordPress website can be considered as the first line of defense. If someone takes control over your WordPress password, you will lose access to the entire website. Sometimes the hacker will do irreplaceable damage on the site. That’s why you will need to introduce the habit of changing your WordPress password on a regular basis. The passwords you include should be unique and strong. Along with WordPress password, you will need to think about changing the passwords of your SSH account, FTP account and WordPress database as well.
4- Optimize the Database
A large volume of data flows into the database of your website on a daily basis. Due to this reason, you must think about optimizing the database on a regular basis as well. However, database optimizations can be quite technical and you will not be able to do them on your own. In such instances, you will need to take a look at WordPress maintenance by Weslink as well. With database optimizations, you can get rid of all unnecessary data is accumulated on a daily basis. This can create a negative impact on the backups as well. For example, all the junk data will flow into the backup and this will lead you towards heavy backup files. Due to all these reasons, you must never ignore the importance of regular database optimizations.
5- Get rid of the Spam Comments
Along with time, you will be able to notice a build-up of spam comments on the website. Therefore, you must think about getting rid of these spam comments during the regular WordPress maintenance activities. It is true that the spam comments on your website needs to be deleted immediately. However, it will never be an easy thing to do. That’s because you don’t have enough time to keep an eye on the website and delete all the spam comments. That’s where you need to think about getting rid of them at least during the regular maintenance process. If you can do it, you will be able to save a lot of time in the long run as well.
6- Removing all the 404 errors
Did you check how many 404 errors are there on your website? They can ruin the user experience that you are delivering to all the clients who come to the website. Therefore, you must focus a lot on removing all the 404 errors that you are having on the website. As you already know, 404 errors on the website can be extremely frustrating. While you are removing the 404 errors, you should also have a clear understanding on why they take place at the first instance. Some people enter the wrong addresses and they will end up with 404 errors. You cannot do anything for that. But some people will end up with 404 errors after clicking on the links of your website. You need to make sure that such broken links are not available on your website.
7- Check for Broken Links
With the Search Engine Optimization efforts, you must be building a large number of internal as well as external backlinks on the website. However, these links are broken along with time. Due to this reason, you must take a look at all internal as well as external links during the regular maintenance. Identifying the broken links manually will not be an easy thing to do. That’s where you need to think about using appropriate tools available to get the job done. There are plugins, which you can use to automate the job of finding broken links. They have the ability to make the life easy for you.