WordPress Website Maintenance: Best Practices and Tips

WordPress maintenance is a crucial process that involves performing various tasks to optimize your site, ensure its security, and maintain its functionality. There are various methods available, some requiring more hands-on involvement and each offering its own benefits.

1) Upgrade WordPress to the newest version

WordPress version upgrades are crucial for daily maintenance and are released twice a month. These updates contain patches, bug fixes, and feature enhancements, as well as addressing security vulnerabilities. WordPress automatically installs minor updates, which can be turned off. Major updates require authorization, but administrators often delay updates due to potential incompatibility issues with existing themes and plugins, potentially breaking the site. Therefore, regular updates are essential for maintaining your WordPress site.

2) Update WordPress themes and plugins

Regularly updating your website’s themes and plugins is crucial, as they often release patches to fix vulnerabilities. It’s advisable to update these as soon as an update is released, as developers often release patches through updates.

3) Identify and delete spam

Spam is a significant problem, especially on high-traffic websites. Many of the comments on your site are spam, and some of them are random posts or malicious links. This makes it difficult for visitors to interact with your site and increases security risks. To eliminate spam, you can use an anti-spam plugin like Akismet to delete comments, which helps prevent malware from infiltrating your site.

4) Check web host statistics, plans and domains

Regularly check your web host’s server details for your WordPress website to ensure no issues arise. Ensure normal server usage, as a spike without consistent visitor increases could indicate a brute-force attack. Assess the suitability of your web hosting plan and ensure your hosting plan and domain name are paid for. It’s best to pay upfront for long-term plans and monitor them annually.

5) Update your website information

As your business expands, it’s critical to update your website to keep customers informed of any changes, such as contact information, “About Us” pages, and major product or service changes. This helps maintain a strong bond with customers and ensure their satisfaction.

6) Optimize your WordPress website performance