WordPress maintenance is vital to a healthy website. I was on vacation a few years ago and received an email from my web-hosting service that my website had been taken down due to malware. Can anyone say PANIC? I spent a good amount of my “vacation” finding someone to fix the problem and spending time with my web-hosting service to figure out how I had been hacked, etc.
My website has been hacked 3 times over the years. Finally, I hired a website security expert and made some changes to guard against intruders. After implementing many recommendations on my site I began to carry out them for my clients.
Here is a 3-minute video on some of the monthly maintenance items I do. This includes a WordPress update, backing up my site, updating plug-ins.
WordPress Maintenance
WordPress Updates
Log into your back in WordPress and check to see if WordPress has made a maintenance update. Hackers love and find the loopholes in WordPress. WordPress is vigilant about plugging the loopholes. It is important to keep your WordPress files current.
An important step is to back up your site before applying an update. Verify with your web-hosting service that they provide daily or weekly site backups. You can also install a plug-in to regularly backup your site. Even though I have these systems in place I also do a complete export of my site.
WordPress Plug-ins
Of course every time you have a maintenance update there are usually plug-in updates. Go through and add them. Leaving old, out-of-date plug-ins is a great back door for hackers to gain access to your code. It only takes one line of bad code to royally screw up your site.
WordPress Comments
I am probably OCD but it amazes me how many people do not clean up their comments. Delete that old spam. Do a cursory glance to make sure a great comment hasn’t made to the spam pile. Make sure you approve comments so that readers feel engaged in real-time.
WordPress Menu
After doing updates on the site I always go into the site and verify that all the exposed menu items are functioning properly.
WordPress Hero
If this is an area of overwhelm for you, contact us and we can do your monthly check-up for you. It will include:
- Updating your WordPress Codex once a month
- Updating your Plug-Ins once a month
- Checking your comments, approving the good and doing away with the ugly once a month
- Verifying your exposed menu is working and displaying properly.
As always our goal is keeping you on the path to success!