WordPress Maintenance Services

What are some of the tasks making up WordPress maintenance and support services?

Just as any complex asset is made up of many moving parts, so is your website. In this section, we will look at basic maintenance tasks for the best WordPress maintenance service.

1. WordPress site security

The first and most important task is to create a security plan and implement it.  The ramifications of not having a plan can be devastating as you will not know how to respond to a security breach and malware setting you up to lose customers, having your site blacklisted, or losing valuable customer data.

There are a few ways to implement this, including:

• With WordPress plugins
• Manually
• WordPress maintenance services

A decent WordPress support and maintenance service will offer complete malware removal, security optimization, security scans, free hacked website repairs, security monitoring, and uptime monitoring as part of their service.

2. Backup your site regularly

If your website is an essential part of your business, backups are a must.  Website owners often underestimate the need for backups, until they have a need for one. 

Since WordPress is so popular, it is targeted by hackers for a few reasons. First, there are many WordPress sites, and compromised plugins are a security risk.

To attack WordPress sites, hackers create software that automatically search the entire Internet for compromised WordPress sites. Once found, these programs will launch a second attack to exploit the vulnerability.

If you are taking backups, a compromised website can be up and running in minutes.

The frequency you take backups depends on the sensitivity and amount of data being produced. For a lot of data, daily backups may be appropriate while weekly backups are ideal for less data.

3. Ensure that your website is encrypted

Encryption not only protects your website, it is also a Google ranking factor. As a result, every website should have it.

4. Review your WordPress security logs

Some WordPress users don’t notice that their site is being attacked until it slows down or drops in search engine results.

To identify strange activity on your site, you should also analyze the access and error logs to identify trends.

5. WordPress site performance optimization

One of the main reasons visitors will leave a website is if it is too slow.  Your site’s speed is also a ranking factor, making performance optimization all the more important. 

Fortunately, there are many plugins and tools available to help increase download speeds. However, for best results, it will require a combination of factors. 

6. Optimize your WordPress database

Earlier, I mentioned cleaning your database. Database optimization focuses on improving database performance by defragmenting database tables, amongst other things.

7. Upgrade to the latest version of WordPress CORE

Another very important WordPress maintenance task is to run the latest version of WordPress core. Core updates are released regularly containing bug fixes, software patches, new features, and other improvements, and should be installed as soon as possible. 

Running old and outdated versions of WordPress is a security risk that can be easily mitigated by keeping on top of your WordPress updates.

8. Update your WordPress themes and plugins

Just as your WordPress core is updated regularly, the plugins and themes on your website are as well.  Just like WordPress core updates, theme and plugin updates will often contain bug fixes and software patches, and should be updated as soon as possible. WordPress updates and plugin updates are very important part of the overall maintenance service process.

To control for compatibility issues, version control systems are a solution.

9. Identify and delete spam

If you allow comments on your website, you have likely received spam.  Spam makes it difficult for real visitors to engage on your website and can be a security risk.  To get rid of spam, you need to delete these comments. 

10. Fix broken links

Broken links may seem like a minor issue.  However, they can affect your UX and impact your search engine rankings. Site visitors may leave your site when they come across broken links and search engines will often not show your website in search results. This applies to all links on your website.

11. Review your site SEO

Most of the traffic to your website comes from search engines.  SEO is not limited to just new content.  It applies to older content as well.  As a result, you need to review older content, specifically titles, meta-tags, and meta-descriptions to ensure they are current. 

12. Perform an SEO and content audit

While it is often SEO that brings traffic to your website, it is your content that keeps them there.

To maximize your investment in your website, an SEO and content audit enables you to increase the performance of individual pieces of content.

While not directly a maintenance item, an SEO and content audit is a tool to maximize the ROI of your website.

13. Check device and browser compatibility

Device and browser compatibility is a task primarily associated with the development of the initial website. It should also be a maintenance item.

Checking device and browser compatibility ensures that all of your website traffic can access your content as you intended.

14. Check user accounts

All user accounts are cybersecurity risks on websites, not just admin accounts.  Hackers can gain access through any user account through access privileges. As a result, basic maintenance services include keeping track of all user accounts.

Steps you can take to protect your user accounts include: 

• Require strong passwords across all accounts
• Use the principle of least privileges when assigning user roles
• Regularly delete inactive and old user accounts, and
• Require new passwords on a regular basis.

15. Check your overall user’s experience (UX)

Not only does your UX keep traffic on your website, it also plays a big role in converting your traffic to subscribers, leads, and customers.

Checking your UX is a WordPress maintenance task best done holistically. What does a visitor see when they first visit your site?  What kind of image does it present?  How do you drive traffic to important pages?  How is your brand presented?  By addressing these questions, your UX will become much clearer.

Make sure that the navigation across your website is smooth.  No opt-ins or links are broken, and your visitor can easily find what they are looking for.  This process may also improve your brand’s image and boost conversions.

16. Review website passwords

Weak passwords are the second, most popular reason for security breaches on WordPress.  Hackers routinely hunt for sites with them.

Brute force attacks will guess password combinations by using software to gain access to your site.  To keep your website secure, here are some password best practices you should follow:

• Use lengthy passwords
• Use a combination of upper, and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols
• Update your password frequently, and
• Use a password manager to generate and store passwords

No amount of security monitoring or malware removal will protect you from weak passwords

17. Update site information

Your website is the best way to keep you customers informed about your company, and new products and services. As a result, it is important to keep your website up to date.

18. Delete inactive themes and plugins

Many users download themes or plugins, which they use only once. Forgotten themes and plugins are often not kept up to date since they are not utilized. As a result, they can become a security risk.

Deleting any plugins and themes you are not using is the easiest method to get rid of these vulnerabilities.

19. Review Google Analytics and Google Search Console

Your site’s data is a gold mine of information that you can use to improve your site. You should regularly check your website’s data on Google Analytics and Google Search Console, especially when it comes to security.

Your Google Analytics account tracks visitors to your website so you identify increases in traffic. If these visitors are coming from a certain region for no reason, it may be an indication of an assault. Google Analytics also tracks the performance of individual pages and content so that you focus on what works, and what needs work.

Some of the more popular WordPress maintenance services will not include Google Analytics integration as part of their offering. As WordPress development experts, we can offer such services. Please contact us with your needs.

Similar information is also provided by Google Search Console. When it comes to security, the Search Console’s security issues tab notifies you if Google has found malware on your website. To make your material more relatable and discoverable, you can also evaluate the keywords that your audience is searching for.

20. Clear database trash

Every image, article, and piece of content on your site is stored within your WordPress database. As you add more content, it builds up within your database tables, slowing down your website. Therefore, periodically clearing the database’s trash is necessary. There are plugins to help with this process or you can do it manually.

21. Check web host statistics, plans, and domains

All of your WordPress site’s server information is stored by your web host. It is a good idea to review this information on a regular basis. When looking at your server files, check to see if your server consumption has been consistent. An indication of a brute force attack could be an increase in server utilization without a steady rise in visits.

22. Clean up temporary media files

Media files such as images, video, and audio enhance the user’s experience. However, they take up a lot of space and impact site speeds.

The easiest way to handle media files is to optimize them before uploading and to delete any unnecessary media files.

23. Run your site through check-in plugins

 There are many plugins available to test your website’s performance. Use these plugins as a sort of health check. Think of it as an annual physical for your website.

24. Test all of the forms on your WordPress site

The forms on your website is one of the main ways that traffic converts to leads and prospects. As a result, it is important to make sure they are all working correctly.

25. Make sure your website is accessible

Chances are some of the traffic on your website is accessing your content with assistive technology. These are assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and the elderly.

Making your website accessible means ensuring that your website can be accessed by people using assistive technology. However, doing so can improve the user experience for all your site visitors.

There is another reason to make your website accessible. It may protect you from lawsuits. Non-compliance with the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) gives people with disabilities the right to file lawsuits in Federal court to stop violations.

27. Optimize the images on your website

 The images on your website are very important in terms of overall accessibility, usability, and SEO. Regularly check to confirm that all of your images are optimized.