“Why Should I Care About Website Maintenance?”
First, let’s look at the numbers:
- 60 Million websites are created with WordPress.
- 39% of the top 10 million websites use WordPress.
- 500 + WordPress sites every single day are created.
Website maintenance addresses every single part of your website. and each part is just as important as the next. For the purposes of this post, I’m going to break it down into three sections.
- SECURITY
- PERFORMANCE
- HOW TO PROPERLY MAINTAIN YOUR SITE, PLUS A LITTLE EXTRA
HACKING:
- 49% of hacked WordPress sites are caused by vulnerabilities on your hosting platform.
- 52% of WordPress vulnerabilities come from plugins.
- 44% of hacking was caused by outdated WordPress sites.
**INTERESTING FACT:
In 2011, 18 million users were compromised due to a hack!
I. MAINTENANCE: HOSTING:
Let’s cover those:
Hosting platforms:
- Shared Hosting (GoDaddy, Bluehost, etc.) This is where your website shares a server with a bunch of other websites.
- Service overload is the #1 reason your site is slow, your getting site suspensions or 500 errors. Your website is sitting there with 200+ other websites. These packages run anywhere from $3-$5, but like with anything else you get what you pay for.
- Pay for extra features like necessary SSL certificates.
- DIY VPS
- More for developers & bootstrap startups. Can cause lots of problems if a mistake is made.
- Great if you’re smart, savvy, and need to save money.
- Managed WordPress Hosting (Flywheel, WP Engine)
- Hosts handle all of the backend-related tasks plus offer support when you need it.
- Saves you time and hassle.
- $25 – $150 monthly for these plans (but they cover things like SSL’s that most shared hosting charges extra for.
II. MAINTENANCE: PHP ISSUES
PHP – PHP is an open-source server-side scripting & programming language that’s primarily used for web development.
- The build of the core WordPress is written in PHP along with your themes & plugins.
- Should be 7.0 or higher.
- Faster speeds improved security.
BEWARE OF HOSTS OFFERING HHVM AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO PHP. HHVM IS NO LONGER A SUITABLE SOLUTION.
III. MAINTENANCE: THEMES
It’s very important to choose the right theme from the very beginning.
Every element in a theme has some impact on your overall speed!
THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING A THEME:
- Start with a fast, lightweight theme that is built with only the features that you need. OR
- A more feature-rich theme but you can disable features that aren’t in use:
THINGS LIKE:
- Google fonts.
- Font Awesome
- Icons
- Sliders
- Galleries
- Videos
- Parallax Scripts
BEWARE OF PAGE BUILDERS AS THEY CAN INCREASE LOAD TIMES. YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO TURN OFF.
IV. MAINTENANCE: PLUGINS
THINGS TO CONSIDER:
- Too many can slow down your site.
- Quality is as important as quantity.
MOST POPULAR:
- SEO By Yoast
- Akismet
- JetPack
- Wordfence
- Contact Form 7.
V. OTHER THINGS TO THINK ABOUT
Here is a list of settings and other tweaks you should or can make to your websites.
- Change your WordPress login. By this, I’m not talking about changing your username and password. In this instance, I’m talking about changing the /wp-admin/ to something else. Think about it almost every website uses this same login extension. By changing this you make it nearly impossible to sign in to your website because only you would know the new extension. You can use anything you want. This can be accomplished with a plugin.
- Disable, remove or tweak your plugins. A simple setting can mean the difference between a slow website and fast website.
- Disable Pingbacks from other sites, (Disable all both from you and from other sites).
- Limit the number of posts in your feed. No more than 10 is best.
- Caching is the most important and easiest way to speed up your website. BENEFITS: Your server uses fewer resources. Can easily reduce your page speed by over 33%!
- Image Optimization can significantly impact your overall page speeds. More important than Javascript, CSS & Fonts. Images make up on average 34% of a web page’s overall weight. The trick is to find that delicate balance between load times and acceptable image quality.
- Important to also consider when thinking about the images on your site is the format type of file. Compression can reduce your image size by as much as 5 times!
- PNG – Higher quality images – larger file size
- JPEG – Good quality and size.
- Compression types for JPEG | LOSSY COMPRESSION MEANS: Eliminating some of the data (may come out pixelated). LOSSLESS COMPRESSION: Doesn’t decrease quality by removing unnecessary metadata. ** Choose one that compresses and optimizes images externally.
- GIFS – Kill your website performance.
- Delete the number of revisions in both drafts and updated versions. To limit the number of revisions you can use a plugin like Optimize Database & Delete Revisions plugin or you can add this code to your .php function files. define (‘WP_POST_REVISIONS, 10’); YOU CAN CHANGE THE NUMBER TO ANY AMOUNT YOU WANT. You can also disable revisions altogether.
- Clean up your WP_OPTIONS TABLE & Autoloaded data.
- Here you will find things like; Site URL, Home URL, admin email, default categories, posts per page, time format, etc.
- Settings for plugins, themes, widgets (remove old deactivated).
- Temporarily cached data.
- 4 – Field columns:
- option_id
- option_name
- option_value
- option_autoload These you can change, but be careful.
MY MAINTENANCE ROUTINE:
- Create a clean backup of your site before making any changes whether it’s updating a theme or changing a plugin. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. The sites I manage are backed up every single day.
- Check sites for updates starting with WordPress, moving on to themes, and then plugins. Twice every month.
- Optimize databases (I use the Optimize Database While Deleting Revisions or the WP-Optimize plugins to accomplish this. Most of the above settings above can be done here). Twice every month.
- Scan for malware using Wordfence or another Security plugin of your choice. TIP: Make sure your hosting isn’t doing this already! Twice every month.
- Check your site speed with GT Metrix. (free) I do this once a month.
- Do a font-end visual check. Sometimes updates can make small changes to your site. It’s good to take a good look at this time. Check that email opt-in to make sure it’s working, social media buttons, or other important parts of your site. Twice monthly or after any changes.
IF YOU THINKING
“THERE’S NO WAY I HAVE TIME FOR ALL OF THIS”
I GET IT. LIFE IS CRAZY, BUSY THESE DAYS.
MONEY IS TIGHT
YOUR PLATE IS JUST TOO FULL THEN I HAVE THE ANSWER FOR YOU!
This week I’m celebrating two things:
TECHNOLOGY-THERAPIST.COM GRAND OPENING
&
THE BLOGGING 911’S 5TH ANNIVERSARY!
So, I’ve decided to celebrate like it’s well…2017
(no you don’t have to live through 2020 again I promise!)
FOR ONE WEEK ONLY
I’M OFFERING MY MOST POPULAR MAINTENANCE PLAN FOR ONLY $119!
That’s $30 off of the normal price! Special introductory offer. Renews at $149.99. Sorry! New clients only!
WHAT IT INCLUDES!
- BACKUP OF YOUR WEBSITE (2X MONTH)MALWARE SCAN (2X MONTH)
- DELETION OF SPAM COMMENTS, DEACTIVATED THEMES & PLUGINS (2X MONTH)
- 2 PLUGIN UPDATES A MONTH
- 2 THEME UPDATES A MONTH
- SITE SPEED CHECKED (1X MONTH)
- DATABASE OPTIMIZATION (1X MONTH)
- 2 VISUAL SITE CHECKS FOR ANY PROBLEMS OR GLITCHES DUE TO UPDATING
- 25% Discount on any other services.
- Once the introductory period is over your price renews at $149.99 BUT as long as you renew before your expiration date your price NEVER goes up!
What It Doesn’t Include:
- Design Work
- Troubleshooting
- Malware removal
Not sure what kind of help you need?
I offer a FREE 30 MINUTE DISCOVERY CALL!
WANT TO HEAR FROM SOME OF MY CLIENTS?
“Rena and the Technology Therapist have been wonderful to discover. Rena’s always willing to take a look at a website task large or small. She knows when to take on a project or when to send it to the hosting company. Because she has design experience as well as tech, she can comment on questions about Canva, site speed, page design, traffic, and google console errors with equal patience. Blogging can be so isolating – it’s so nice to feel that I have a partner in what I am doing with it! Rena’s fees are reasonable and worth every penny, and I have learned a lot from working with her. Many thanks!!”!
ELIZABETH ALLINGHAM AMEALINMIND
“I am an employment attorney who only represents physicians and other health care providers. I had a website before I retained the blogging 911 that was totally ineffective. In the two years that Rena has managed my website, my website has become a significant source of health care provider referrals from all over the country.”
Sam Hoover
Attorney, R. S. Hoover Law Ltd.
“Working with Rena has been the best decision I have made for me and my blog. I can always count on her help and knowledge for the simple blog fixes to help with major blog problems. Rena is always available to offer support and advice and I would not be successful without her services.”
Jeré Cassidy OneHotOven.com
Fantastic ideas. This reminds me that I need to go and up date my plug ins, and possibly scan for broken links.
Have you checked out our maintenance plans? Very affordable!
I will keep these in mind. I do always want to be sure my blog is running smoothly.
It’s very important. It doesn’t do any good if users leave your site in droves because of bad user experience.
Excellent information! I don’t know the first thing about maintaining my WordPress site, which is why I have a tech team that takes care of it for me. It really helps!
It’s a great idea if you’re not sure how to proceed!
These are good tips. I have been thinking about switching to WordPress so I will remember these tips.
Need help? I love to do migrations!
This post is really informative. Thanks so much for sharing this information.
Thanks for this. I find it so helpful. I will share this with my friends.
Thank you very much!
I hope it helps!
I second checking out the plug-ins and themes and making sure they are updated. That’s how my website got hacked.
Yes, it happens often.
I know I can get bogged down in the technology of running a blog, but luckily my husband enjoys it. It sounds like a great price for the services you’re offering!
I’m always open to hop on a call and discuss it further or answer any questions you may have.
WordPress is such a great starting point for bloggers. These are really hepful tips.
Thank you so much!
This post is awesome! I am so glad you shared this. I am going to need this information.
Great if I can offer any help just let me know!
I am lucky that I have a web developer who takes care of all of these. I can focus on my business without worrying that my site is vulnerable.
Yes, that’s always a great option!
What a great service! Although, I have to disagree on the use of Jetpack, Akismet and Contact Form 7 on any site as these plugins have been proven to slow down your site considerably.
That’s funny because I recently started taking JetPack off when I can, but do you think are better alternatives? I’m always looking for tips.
Great tips! I am personally trying to tackle site speed, but its so complicated!
I find this all terrifying. But then, you know that.
That’s why you have me!
Hi Crystal these tips will definitely help! Also, my maintenance plan is on sale for $120 and that’s for a whole year.
very useful post! WordPress is very powerful tool but it is not that easy to use it effectively
Yes it is, I love it.
Excellent tips and all very important for running a successful website. What I love the most is building it into a process. For example, checking on plugins or site speed every month. I’ll start doing that. Thanks.
Yes, I love routines. That way you don’t forget things.
Thank you for the tips! I’ve been blogging for years now but I still do have a lot of things to learn.
Yes, it’s always a learning process.
Fantastic ideas and good tips. I use wordpress and yes they are helpful.
These are great tips! SEO Yoast is my favorite tool for wordpress. It has helped me a lot!
Thank you! I’m thrilled that you found it valuable!
This is such a great post. You’ve got great tips and information here. I think everyone should read through this.
Aw thank you!
I had my website hacked years ago, and I had to start from scratch. It is a good idea to make sure that websites are safe and secure.
Definitely! There’s nothing worse than the white screen of death!
Yes, we need this! Thank you so much for these tips. It will be very helpful for all of us.
Great thank you!
This is so useful and great tips, I do need to work with SEO and using all the tools that word press has to offer
Yes Yoast is one of the best.
This is a very important aspect of our blog that we should take care. Thanks for remanding us about it!
You’re very welcome Catalina
Such an informative post! I use wordpress and dealing with themes issues right now, thanks for this one!
Oh no! You can always email me maybe I can help!
Thanks for this tips, yes I use wordpress these are wonderful and useful everyday I am learning something new.
That’s great! Thank you!
I always try to be sure my blog is running smoothly. I will certainly bookmark this as a added reference.
That’s great thanks!
These are some amazing wordpress maintenance tips. I didn’t know 49% of WP sites are hacked, yikes!
Yes! That’s scary crazy isn’t it!
This is great information. I will have to pin and come back to it. Recently having lots of issue with Blue Host
Great! I’m glad you enjoyed it!
I uninstalled wordfence, it caused multiple issues ? Thanks for sharing these tips, pretty helpful for all the WP users ?
I am not using wordpress but I can learn from this. I am sure there are a few tips here that I can apply to Blogger.