Here is a handy check-list to keep your website well oiled.
1. Backup
Having a backup system in place is essential to any WordPress Website, back your site up to cloud storage such as Google Drive or One Drive is easy to setup and can save you hours of recovery should something go wrong.
2. Keep Plugins and Themes tidy
Having lots of plugins on your site even if they are not active can slow your site down and cause, your to have vulnerabilities, Even if your not using a plugin, its deactivated, ensure that it is updated, all those themes you tried out when designing your site, now is the time to delete them.
3. Update WordPress Core
If you don’t keep your site up to date you can leave yourself open to security breaches this can lead to all sorts of issues. By updating your WordPress core you also get all the latest features and bug fixes.
5. Get a good Security Plugin!
There are several good WordPress Security Plugins available which can be set up to alert you issues within your site. It is hugely advisable that your site has a security check that can scan the site and make sure that there aren’t any known vulnerabilities. Talk to me about a solution to meet your needs.
6. Check for Spam
Disable comments unless you really need them, unmonitored comments can leave you open to a host of issues that you won’t want to deal with trust me! Use Akismet to keep them from becoming spam-ridden.
7. Test your forms
This is an issue I myself was hit with recently, make sure your contact forms are working, and do it regularly, spam filters change and some email filters can totally block out your mail without you even know, check this as often as possible. It only takes a minute.
8. Test your site speed
Regularly check your load speed on your site, a slow site can result in a lost client, nobody has the time or the patience to wait for your website to load anymore. Ensure that your site loads quickly and efficiently by testing it on a site such as Pingdom or GTMetrix.
9. Use Google Search Console
Using Google Search Console can be used to check for search engine crawling, malware, CSS and JavaScript errors.
10. Check Links, internal and external
Keep a good eye on all the links on your website and ensure they are all working. Using a tool like Screaming Frog, or Google Search Console, can be used to keep tabs on this.
