WordPress website maintenance

For any WordPress site it’s necessary to keep it updated all the time. Since any outdated version of the website lack in security as well as inefficient behavior. Any non updated WordPress website can easily gets hacked also most of the malware can be injected in non updated site. Since it is very important to do necessary maintenance time to time to keep your website secured and safe.

There are few simple steps to keep your site updated and safe. Refer following:

1. Backup your WordPress website:

   This is the most important step before doing any maintenance activity. 

   To prevent the data and file loss we should always keep backup in one place. 

2. Backup all the plugins which are used:

   Before updating any plugin we should backup them. Since we are unknown what future features are included in the updated plugins and it can break our existing functionality in other way it can break our WordPress website.

   After taking backup update the plugins one by one. Any old and outdated plugin can cause site to attack from malware. Hackers can easily hack the site which is not updated.

3. Regularly Update WordPress Core, Your Theme, and Your Plugins:

   WordPress is under constant development. Every day new features are added. Also the bugs occurred while development are fixed in new development. Some security holes are closed in the next version. This means that the WordPress code built is constantly being updated. Therefore, when WordPress is being updated all of its component parts such as themes and plugins need to be updated too.

   Updating WordPress Core, Themes, and Plugins

   Whenever there is an update available for WordPress core, a theme, or plugin that you’re using, you should make that update.

   If there is a security update, then you should do it sooner than later. Security updates plug holes that are discovered and make your website less vulnerable to hackers.

   If you have more than one components to update at the same time, then you should update them in following order:

   • First plugins
   • Then your theme in used
   • Then WordPress core

4. Optimize Your Database

   Optimize your database means keep your database neat and clean

   As we all know WordPress is completely based on database. Every small module depends on database only. Every blog, page content is stored in database.

   Also while adding any page or post most of the time the non-technical person creates repeated post and page which may be in draft version or in trash. Those unnecessary things should be removed time to time in order to keep your database optimize.

   There are many plugins available in market to optimize database. We can use any of them to optimize the database.

5. Secure Your Website with a Security Plugin

   Security plugins are very useful for any WordPress Website. Security of website includes FireWall protection, Anti-spam feature, Malware Scanning and prevention, Failed login attempts detection etc.

   If our site is small or big it doesn’t matter to hackers or anyone. Any site get attacked or hacked. So we must have to be careful about its security.

   After the site hacked it affects its business also the readers gets distracted from your website and your competitors gets benefit from it. In order to prevent such loss we need to be careful about the site security.

6. Moderate and Clear Out Your Comments

   Moderating comments frequently is also play major role in website maintenance. If you have pending comments for review for long time it’s necessary to review them and perform required action either approve or reject. If the comments are valid and are useful for readers as well as for the website, you should approve it. Also there might be few comments which contains spam content or irrelevant content, for such comments we can mark them spam and reject them also we should move them in trash. And periodically you should check your trash folder also.

   For moderating and cleaning comments there are many plugins available in market e.g Akismet.

7. Maintaining Your Website Content

   You should periodically review your website content. You should find is there any content which is not relevant now or which is no longer needed. Such content can be removed. Also if you are giving any technological data to your readers then you must aware of the technology updates, and your content should be updated as per the technology updates. It means you have to be updated as per the time.

   There are no fancy plugins are available for detecting the content from your website. But It is the manual process and much needed.

8. Maintaining Good Website Speed

   Website speed is also an important thing. A slow speed website leads to loss of visitors which leads to loss of revenue.

   So we must be careful about speed. There are many tools available in market to test the speed of the website.

   Also there are many plugins available to optimizing your resources in order to reduce the loading speed w can use any of them and make the site in good speed.

This is all about the WordPress Website Maintenance. For every website we must follow these things to keep website in good state.