As a business owner, you’ll want to do everything in your power to protect your WordPress website from data loss, hack attempts or the wrath of Google’s changing algorithms.

When juggling your business strategy, accounts and marketing, the day-to-day maintenance of your website can easily be put on the back burner. Perhaps it’s been so long since you carried out essential maintenance to protect your WordPress website that you don’t know where to start.

We’ve pulled together 6 must-do steps to protect your WordPress website that all business owners should take note of.

Step 1: Create an offsite backup plan

Backing up your WordPress website is imperative to protect against accidental data loss. Imagine how awful it would be to lose all of your carefully crafted content and imagery and have to write, source, and upload it all over again? The stuff of nightmares!

If you back up your WordPress site, you can avoid unnecessary stress, loss of income and a possible knock to your reputation.

And when it’s done right, your site can be restored straight back to its previous condition without having to panic populate your content again.  Phew.

Step 2: Update your core, theme and plugins

There are far too many websites running on outdated versions of WordPress with plugins that need to be updated. Leaving your website running on outdated technology will keep you wide open to becoming a victim of hack attacks.

Updating your core, theme and plugins will give you the peace of mind that you are doing everything you can to keep your site secure. Having a plan for who is going to update your plugins and how often this will be done means you are far less likely to find yourself having a deal with a hacked site.

Step 3: Implement site security measures

It is important to implement safety measures to your site to protect yourself and your customers. This is particularly important since GDPR was introduced last year. Having a 24/7 monitoring service means any potential threats are recognised and fixed before they lead to a data breach.

Common security measures that you should consider implementing include firewalls and two-factor authentication.

Step 4: Spam comment cleansing

If your WordPress database keeps getting filled with spam comments that are not actioned it weighs down your database making your website sluggish. To avoid slowing down your page loading times it’s vital to keep on top of the comments being accumulated in the backend.

The best way to stop comment spam is to configure your settings so that you have to manually approve each comment. Comments can also be marked as spam automatically if they contain any banned words you specify in your blacklist.

Moderating comments can be time-consuming but it will prevent your site’s SEO from being negatively impacted.

Step 5: SEO optimisation

And on the subject of SEO, having a well-optimised website will help improve your visibility on search engines leading to increased traffic and converted customers. A highly developed site architecture, clear navigation, correctly tagged imagery and appropriate content will help search engines index your site promptly.

Check out our handy SEO checklist to make sure you’re not missing out on any SEO considerations that could impact the success of your site.

Step 6: Do a speed test

Slow page loading times is a common problem on WordPress, and this can be down to improperly coded themes, images not been optimised, bad hosting, or too many spam comments clogging up the database.

It’s best practice to conduct a speed test every time you change or add something to your site to make sure it continues to perform properly and provide an optimal experience for your visitors.

Here at WP Tech support, our team of highly experienced developers can take the reins if you want to protect your WordPress website. Our WordPress support plans ensure that your website stays up to date, secure from cyber-crime and is fully optimised and backed up daily.

Protect your WordPress website with our great value plans. They’re simple to sign up for and if you’re not 100% happy with our service then we will refund your payment.