Your WordPress website maintenance checklist

By Andrew
WordPress
7821 Views
17th March 2017

As a white-label agency our clients are creative agencies who have the requirement for an experienced development team without the high cost of having to keep them as full time staff members.

As we offer development services we are often asked about the ongoing maintenance required for a WordPress website, as the CMS gives your client full control over their site they often want to do this themselves.

We have created a WordPress maintenance checklist, so you can advise your clients on the best ways to keep their website updated and ensure it runs smoothly.

Backups

It is essential to perform regular backups of your WordPress website, this means that you will have the latest version of your website (design, content and all!) should the website be disrupted in anyway.

Using plugins such as BackUpWordPress and Back up to DropBox will create automatic backups of your website, so you don’t need to worry about doing this yourself.

Security reporting

We have spoken before about the importance of security on your website and have even listed our top WordPress security plugins for you, so be sure to have these installed and regularly check for any security breaches on your website.

These plugins often provide reports, some of the plugins even sent SMS alerts to notify you should anything occur on your website that you need to know about.

Malware scan – a key security factor!

Alongside the security reporting, it is also essential to scan your website files for malware, this is something that the security plugins will also enable you to do – but be sure to keep on top of this as any issues with the files of your website can have a huge impact on its security for you and it’s users!

Remove un-used plugins and themes

The back-end of your website needs to be kept clutter free, anything that isn’t needed (be sure to check before deleting it) should be removed where possible. This includes any unused plugins or themes, often malware can be hidden by lots of unused files – so be sure to clear this out every few months to avoid this.

Broken links

Something that can impact on a user’s experience are broken links.

You don’t want any errors showing on your site, so use a plugin such as Broken Link Checker which will alert you to any broken links on the site, you can then fix these and prevent your users from having a poor experience on your website.

Passwords and admin users

Our final point on our checklist is one that often gets forgotten, be sure to change your passwords every few months – make sure that you use a secure one though!

It is also important to review the admin users on your website, WordPress allows you to set restrictions such as editor and admin – this means that those logging into your website only have the access that they need!