Why is WordPress Maintenance Important?
Maintaining a healthy WordPress site is a lot like maintaining a garden. Today’s web is a constantly changing, dynamic environment—complete with weeds and pests—and keeping your site functioning properly will require a certain amount of regular basic maintenance. WordPress maintenance, in particular, is very important because of the constant updates to the core code and associated plugins. Below are a few of the regular maintenance details you’ll need to consider on your new WordPress site.
WordPress Updates
WordPress is constantly improving, and you’ll want the latest updates to keep up, not only for functionality, but also for security.
Plugin Updates/Removal
Plugins are extra bits of code that can be added for additional functionality to your site: scheduling plugins, social sharing plugins, forms, etc. They are created by a variety of authors, and are frequently updated by their creators. When the creator updates a plugin, it will not automatically update on your site. These updates, like the core updates, are important both for functionality and security. Remember the situation with the Panama Papers leak? That was caused by an outdated plugin that caused a security vulnerability! What’s more, it’s important to get rid of unused plugins cluttering up your database.
Backups
Hey, things happen: servers get struck by lightening, hackers can infest your site, someone gives the new intern admin access…For these and other reasons, you will want a regularly scheduled backup to an offsite backup. With the push of a button, your site can be up and running again.
Security
Security is very important on your WordPress site, as mentioned above. Ensuring the correct plugins, settings, and levels of security are set for your site is an absolute must.
Theme Updates
Themes control the way your site looks and, just like plugins and WordPress itself, they are updated from time to time. It’s good to have a reliable backup before updating your theme.
Spam
Spam! It’s a total headache. While your blog can be a great asset for generating site visits, it also can attract unwanted comments from spammers. Not only do these clutter up your database and potentially lead visitors away from your site to the spammer’s site, but these messages can be a delivery vehicle for malicious code.
Looking for a DIY solution?
Basic WordPress maintenance is not that tricky, to be honest. The part that busy business owners find difficult is REMEMBERING TO DO IT on a regular basis. If you are the kind of person who is good at maintaining a regular routine and has time available, then you may want to do it yourself. There are plenty of resources online, or you may want to attend one of Creekside’s free monthly WordPress classes on Zoom.
You don’t need to be a client to attend!
Professional WordPress Maintenance
If keeping up to date on security updates and maintenance is simply not your thing, then you might consider professional WordPress Maintenance.
Creekside specializes in maintenance of Divi WordPress sites, and also maintains sites for a variety of other WordPress themed sites.
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