Today we will learn How to Maintenance a WordPress Website. Has your WordPress site been feeling a little sluggish lately? Just like a musical instrument needs an occasional tuneup, WordPress websites need regular maintenance to stay up to speed. If your site has been around for a long time, chances are it needs some TLC.
Fortunately, there are some simple steps you can take to get your site back in tip-top shape. Maintenance tasks are an ongoing way to remove the “bloat” that is preventing your site from reaching its peak performance. These techniques are generally easy to implement and will help your website run as smoothly as possible.
In this post, we’ll go over five easy ways to maintain your WordPress site, such as checking for broken links and optimizing your database. Before that, we’ll talk a little more about why these jobs are so important. Let’s start!
Why ongoing WordPress website maintenance is important
When neglected, websites accumulate “bloat”. In other words, they will accumulate unnecessary files and other memory drains, which take up server space and slow down your site.
As you probably know, speed is very important when it comes to your website. Most visitors abandon sites that take more than 3 seconds to load. A slow site can cost you business. For example, 79% of online shoppers say they are less likely to buy from sites with poor loading times.
Website maintenance is the process of cleaning your site to improve the experience of your visitors. When done correctly, some of the benefits you’ll see include:
- Improved website speed
- Additional resources on your server
- A boost in search engine optimization (SEO) due to improved speed and properly functioning links
- A stronger user experience, since all pages and information on your site, will be up to date and its links will work
At this point, you may be wondering what steps you actually need to take to tune up your site. Next, we’ll look at some of the best strategies.
5 Maintenance Tips That Will Keep Your WordPress Site Running Smoothly
While there are many things you can do to improve performance, you can keep your site fast and in top shape by tackling just a few tasks. In the following section, we’ll cover the 5 most important areas to focus on. It is best to do all these tasks regularly (at least every three to six months).
1. Checking for broken links
Broken links are links that lead nowhere – either because they were mistyped in the first place, or because the URLs they point to have been removed or changed. Broken links usually lead to a 404 error page:
Broken links are important because they are bad for your site’s SEO. They can provide a frustrating experience for users. 404 error links make your site look sloppy and disorganized – even when they’re not really your fault.
That’s why it’s a smart idea to regularly scan your site for broken links. You can identify them using one of two methods:
Manual: A manual check means clicking each link to see if it works. This is only possible if you have a very small site or a dedicated QA team. If you have a few posts and pages, checking links manually can be extremely tedious.
Automatic: Automatic checking is preferred for most sites. There are many WordPress plugins that provide automatic link-checking functionality.
Either way, once you find a broken link, all you have to do is remove it or update it with a new URL. Then, you can move on to the next task.
2. Clearing unused media files
We’ve all been there: you start creating a new post or page, upload a photo, and then decide you don’t like it. You replace it with a new image, but the old one is still in your media library. These unused media files harm your site, as they take up room and resources. An extraneous image isn’t so bad, but the cumulative effect of dozens of unnecessary files can slow down your site.
Fortunately, you can easily identify unused media files with the Media Cleaner plugin:
This tool moves unused media files to a separate dashboard, where you can review them and decide which to keep or delete. That way, you won’t accidentally delete any photos you need.
3. Deleting unused plugins
Plugins are one of WordPress’ best features. However, every plugin takes up space and resources. Therefore, you’ll want to periodically check each plugin on your site to make sure it’s still being used.
You can identify unused plugins by visiting the plugins section of your WordPress dashboard:
Review each one – are there any you’re no longer using? Also, look for plugins that the developer has stopped updating or are no longer compatible with your version of WordPress. Then, take a few minutes to delete the ones you no longer need or look for better alternatives.
4. Optimizing your database
Next, optimizing your database can be a huge help in cleaning up your site. Your site’s database contains and structures its important information. “Cleaning” your database is important because it gets rid of the trash clogging up your site’s memory (like old draft posts and deleted comments).
You can quickly optimize your database by installing the Advanced Database Cleaner plugin:
It will search and delete unnecessary files and you don’t need to know anything about databases to use them. The pro version ($30 one-time purchase) searches for and deletes trash files associated with old deleted plugins. Buy WordPress Hosting For better performance.
5. Removal of spam users
If your site enables subscriptions, you probably have a lot of spam user registrations. These are fake accounts that sign up on your site, possibly hoping to have their spam comments approved Clearing these users helps improve your site’s speed by freeing up space and memory on your server.
You can do this by going to the Users section of your dashboard:
Check the box next to any user that is not valid. Then, from the Bulk Action drop-down menu, select Delete. If you’re not sure which users to remove, you can use a plugin like Bulk Delete. It will automatically find and delete users who meet certain criteria. In the future, you can prevent additional spam registrations by installing another plugin like CleanTalk.
Conclusion
Once you’ve completed each of the five tasks described above, your site should be fast and clean. However, maintenance tasks are not a one-time thing. To take care of your site in the long run, you’ll want to set yourself reminders to come back to this list every three to six months.
