Top 7 Website Maintenance Tips for Beginners

You might think you are done with your website once it is up and running. However, routine maintenance is vital to ensure your company’s website is always operational and can be accessed by visitors. Website maintenance should regularly be undertaken because you do not want to wait until an actual issue comes up that hinders your website’s capabilities. Instead, follow these tips to always ensure your website is in fine working condition.

1. Check for WordPress Updates

The most common way for entrepreneurs to create new websites is with WordPress. While it is convenient, WordPress also offers updates regularly that you need to stay up to date on. For instance, if your website has a lot of out of date plugins or themes, then they may be slowing down your website. Most of the time, visitors simply leave websites that are taking too long to load. You need to do some WordPress maintenance every so often to see what updates are available and resolve any incompatibilities. You do not want to go more than a month or two without an update.

2. Test After an Update

After you have updated your website, you want to be certain it performs all desired functions. Before you leave it alone, you will want to run the site on your computer and make sure all the links go to the proper pages. You also want to test your website on more than one device. You should look up the website on your smartphone and a tablet if you have one to make sure everything is perfectly readable. If something is not right, then you want to fix it immediately instead of hearing about the problem from one of your site’s visitors.

3. Update Security Measures

Sensitive data might be running across your website, so you need to be sure no one has access to it who is not supposed to. In the event you are not sure what to look for, you might want to hire an outside company to run tests to see if anything is compromised. It might be best to have another company do it for you because a lot of hacking can simply look like a technical problem to the untrained eye. You want to run security tests somewhat frequently so that your website is always up to date with the latest security measures.

4. Find and Repair Broken Links

Broken links are another thing that should be added to your WordPress management to do list. Broken links can develop after you have updated your website, especially if certain pages were lost or no longer viable. You want to routinely check all the links on your site to ensure they go to the correct places. An abundance of broken links can make your website unusable, and you will lose a lot of traffic. You may also be penalized by search engines if your website cannot send people to the proper page. You might need to fix the link itself or create a whole new page.

5. Delete Spam Comments

Allowing people to comment on your website pages is an excellent way to promote engagement and make visitors active participants. However, you need to check your website’s comments once in a while to make sure they are not getting filled up with spam. Spam comments can make it so that real people do not want to bother communicating.

Another thing to be mindful of is to respond to comments. No one is going to bother leaving a comment if they are not going to get an answer. Check in on message boards several times a week so that visitors get timely responses.

6. Tidy Up Your Database

Everything you host on your website gets stored in a database. If too much data gets stored, then it could lead to your website running more slowly than normal. Once a month or so, you should go through your website in WordPress and delete pages that are not necessary. Deleting spam comments is a great way to free up space because there is no reason for those comments to be saved. Even if you are only able to delete a few things, it could make all the difference in how efficiently your website runs.

7. Analyze Your Website’s Traffic Stats

There is no point in having a website if you are not going to analyze the amount of traffic you are getting. Free tools are available that allow you to see how many visitors you are getting and how they are interacting with your site. Although there is a litany of ways to analyze this data, the most basic way to use it is to see if there are any areas of improvement. For example, if you are not getting as much traffic as you would like, then it might be time to hire an outside company to handle your online marketing strategies for you. From enhancing SEO to increasing the number of links your website has, there are a lot of ways you can enhance subpar stats.

Maintenance of your WordPress Website is Key to Ultimate Performance

This might seem like a lot, but there is a lot more you can do to ensure your website is fully optimized. If you are unsure if you have the time to dedicate to regular website maintenance, then you definitely do not want to ignore it. Instead, you should hire a WordPress management company such as Double Click Digital. We can do virtually everything for your website, including everything from enhancing your site’s firewall to optimizing website speed. Be proactive about your website, so you continue putting your company’s best foot forward.