Running a WordPress site is easy, but it doesn’t mean it’s not bound to get glitches or have a sluggish performance if maintenance isn’t done.

 

The good news is that you don’t need to be a tech guru to ensure your site performs well. In this post, we’ll walk through some handy WordPress maintenance tips to ensure a smooth-running website:

 

1. Create a complete backup

Securing your site is one of the first tasks you need to do regarding WordPress Maintenance. We know that WordPress sites may undergo many issues once they’re hacked, such as data being deleted, etc. By having no backup, you can potentially erase all your hard work. This is the reason why you should back up your site regularly.

 

There are two kinds of WordPress backups- database backups and file backups. You also need to do a complete backup, and that includes your core files and database. Doing your backups manually can be time-consuming. Many hosting providers provide automated backups as part of their packages.

 

How often you backup your site will depend on how often you post content. If you run an ecommerce site, you might have to do backups regularly.

 

2. Update all WordPress files

WordPress releases regular updates to fix several issues and introduce new functionality. These updates are one of the strongest security practices you can make apart from regular backups, strong password policies, reputable plugins, and so much more.

 

WordPress updates also come with minor improvements that improve your site speed. As you’re aware, speed is essential in rankings and SEO. Aside from that, an updated WordPress site also makes it more user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing to the eyes.

 

3. Uninstall unused plugins

Each plugin you install on WordPress affects your site performance. When WordPress generates a page, the server will run thousands of lines of code. So, by installing a plugin, it adds up to the amount of code that’s executed.

 

Also, the more plugins installed on your site, the slower it will get. If you want your site to load a lot quicker, and avoid server crashes because of high memory usage, then you should deactivate the ones you aren’t using anymore.

 

4. Regularly check and optimize your site for speed

As mentioned previously, you should optimize your site for speed. If your site takes more than 3 seconds to load, users will become irritated and quickly move on to the next site.

 

So, to keep up with your visitors, optimize for speed. Not only it keeps users on your site, but it also boosts your search engine rankings. Google and other search engines will favor faster sites more than slower ones.

 

Here are some tips:

 

Enable caching

This prevents data redundancy or downloading data again and again. Let’s say that a user visits a page. If your page isn’t in the cache, it will be generated from the database and served to the visitor.

 

Then, five minutes later, another visitor landed on the same page. During this time, the cached version of the page is already served.

 

Optimize images

Images capture users’ attention. But it can also slow down your site if you don’t optimize them. Image optimization is a technique that’s used to decrease your image file sizes while retaining their quality.

 

Allow lazy loading

Lazy loading allows you to enhance the initial load speed of a website. Thus, when a visitor loads a page, WordPress will defer loading some of its resources until they’re needed. You can use plugins like A4 Lazy Load and WP Rocket to allow lazy loading on your site.

 

5. Optimize the database often

When you first install it, your database is clean and well-organized. But as your site grows, this can also affect your site speed in the long run. That’s because your database is where you store all pages, posts, comments categories, tags, custom fields, etc.

 

So, before your site becomes disorganized, you must clean it often—examples of great WordPress database plugins that you can install are our WP-Optimize and WP Database Backup.

 

6. Monitor your 404 pages and set up redirects

404-pages are pages visitors see once they land on a page on the internet that doesn’t exist.

Although you can control the broken links on your site, you can’t necessarily prevent them on other sites. Thus, it’s crucial to monitor your 404-page traffic to find missing pages and then redirect them to the proper page.

 

Aside from that, it also helps that you quickly add the proper redirect, sending traffic to the right places.

 

7. Monitor user activity

Do you have multiple users on your blog? Then, it would help if you stayed in charge. Make sure you have a user activity log that keeps track of your site activity.

 

That way, once the user makes an error that can hurt your site, the user log will show you who did the change, how it happened, and the IP address where it originated. All this information is vital, especially if you want to troubleshoot or fix an issue before it’s too late.

 

Over to You

So, there you have it. Maintaining your WordPress site isn’t a one-time thing. It’s something that you need to do regularly.

 

It would be best if you did it to keep your site secure and running well. In short, maintenance should always be at the back of your mind.