WordPress Website Maintenance and Support
Unless you’ve signed on with an agency, managing your website is an ongoing responsibility. It may be something you’re comfortable with or not, but either way, it’s a job that must be completed regularly and consistently.
This responsibility must be taken seriously if your business relies on your website to generate traffic, leads, or sales. You wouldn’t let your car break down and not get it fixed because you don’t know anything about engines. The same principle applies here: WordPress Website Maintenance and Support is not a luxury but rather an investment in the future of your business.
Why You Need WordPress Website Maintenance
By taking care of your website and keeping it up to date, you’ll reduce the risk of malware, hacking, and other cyber threats that could have devastating consequences. You may think you can’t afford to hire someone to do regular maintenance and support. But what if your website gets hacked and your business loses revenue or customers?
To grow your business, you must take the necessary steps to create a strong and healthy foundation. This includes maintaining and supporting your website with regular updates.
WordPress Core Updates
Over the years, WordPress has built a reputation for security and reliability. But just like any other software, it needs to be updated regularly. There are several reasons for this. One is security. A website with old code is much more vulnerable to attacks and malware.
Another is functionality. New WordPress updates may include functionality that will improve your website and user experience. By default, WordPress will prompt you to update when there’s a new version available. If you want to override this, you can do so. The problem is that many website owners ignore this prompt and simply click “later.” Before you know it, you’ve let two or three versions pass, and your website is due for an update.
WordPress Security Updates
WordPress security updates are separate from core updates. These are specific to the WordPress security issues known at the time and will be issued as needed. You’ll want to turn on automatic updates and ensure you’re on the lookout for these.
This is another area where many website owners fail to pay adequate attention. Security updates are critical to keeping your website safe and should be treated as such. WordPress will default prompt you to update when there’s a new security issue. If you’re not paying attention, you’ll miss the prompt. By ignoring the prompt, you’re opening your website to hackers and viruses that could destroy everything you’ve worked so hard to build.
WordPress Theme and Plugin Updates
The other thing you’ll want to keep an eye on is your theme and plugin updates. In many cases, WordPress will prompt you to update immediately but not always.
It’s up to you to keep track of these updates and make sure you’re applying them as necessary. Failure to do so could result in problems with your website or even security issues. If you’re not sure how your theme or plugin works, you may want to outsource this task to a developer or hire someone to do the updates for you. By doing so, you’ll not only be more efficient but be able to make sure all updates are done correctly.
WordPress Content and SEO Maintenance
As time goes on, you may want to make edits or update certain portions of your website. For example, you may need to add new content or make corrections due to typos or factual errors. The good news is that WordPress makes this easy to do. You can change your content directly on the website’s backend by logging in and going to the relevant page. Doing so will make changes quickly and ensure that your content is optimised and indexed correctly by search engines. We won’t go into the complicated world of SEO, but if the content isn’t fully optimised, Google may not be able to index it properly, meaning that it’s less likely to show up in search engine results.
WordPress backups
Backing up your WordPress site is something that you should be doing daily. You should ensure that you’re saving copies of your content, database, and other critical elements in case the site has issues and needs to be restored to the last version. There are many ways you can do this one is by creating a compressed and encrypted file that you can keep on your computer, in the cloud, such as Google Drive. Alternatively, you can use a service like Dropbox to save your files in the cloud. You should be keeping a copy of your database too. You can do this by using a plugin like Updraft, SQL Backup or Restore; there are many other options.
Other WordPress Website Maintenance Tasks
You’ll want to ensure that your website runs smoothly by performing maintenance tasks like fixing broken links, adding redirections when pages are moved or removed, deleting old content you don’t need, and properly setting up your RSS feed; the list goes on. By taking care of these tasks regularly, you’ll save time and energy while keeping your website healthy and running smoothly.
Bottom Line on WordPress Website Maintenance
These days your website is one of the most critical components of your business. It must be supported and maintained regularly to stay secure, functional, and up-to-date. If you want your website to continue to be effective and valuable to your customers and clients, keeping it updated with the latest software and security updates is essential. Here at BlueDoor Design, we have you covered and can handle everything for you, saving you time and giving you peace of mind regarding one of a business’s most valuable assets – its website.
