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Much like a fine-tuned race car, if your WordPress website isn’t virtually ‘oiled’ and cleaned up, it will sputter and stall. In the case of your site, those issues will result in crashes, glitches, and a bloated database. Having a dedicated WordPress maintenance strategy is a good idea.
You can divide WordPress maintenance into two categories. The first is a collection of tasks that you carry out day-to-day. You likely already perform most of these tasks. The second is a subscription to WordPress maintenance services. Like the best mechanics, they can help you keep your site running smoothly and keep any nasty issues at bay.
In this post, we’ll look at what maintenance is. Then, we’ll drill down to both forms of WordPress maintenance and explain them in more detail.
What Is WordPress Maintenance
First off, let’s give you some context. WordPress maintenance is any task you can carry out that keeps your site running in peak condition. There are two major concerns for many site owners:
- A site must be fast enough to ensure visitors don’t leave before the page loads.
- The site should also be free from errors and bugs wherever possible.
Given the above, there are several benefits to keeping on top of your WordPress maintenance:
- Site traffic could increase, as your site should load faster.
- Uptime will also increase because errors aren’t affecting it.
- Your WordPress database will be leaner, meaning accessing and delivering data could take longer.
There are plenty more, but even these give you umpteen chances to keep your site in tip-top shape. However, not all maintenance tasks are created equally. Let’s break down two distinct areas of WordPress maintenance.
Daily WordPress Maintenance
Many daily tasks are well within the reach of a WordPress site owner. WordPress always has the end user in mind, and Most WordPress maintenance tasks—even relatively complex—can be completed with a few clicks.
Even so, some dedicated WordPress maintenance services could do but don’t need to do. For example:
- Updating WordPress’ core files.
- Carrying out sporadic updates to themes, plugins, and translations.
- Clearing out spam comments and other forms of comment moderation.
The WordPress development team (and independent developers in the case of themes and plugins) has made it easy to carry out these tasks with just a few clicks.
Moreover, you might not consider SEO-optimized WordPress content a specific WordPress maintenance task, but it’s bundled there. Keeping your SEO in good condition is a daily, constant task. Without maintaining it regularly, your site will drop the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
Let’s discuss when it is appropriate to consider WordPress maintenance services.
When You Should Consider Dedicated WordPress Maintenance Services
In the previous section, we touched on a point that could lead you to consider using dedicated WordPress maintenance services. Your memory is fickle, and with many tasks on your plate and no scheduled reminders, you could forget a task here and there.
While daily maintenance may seem inconsequential, it can cause the worst to happen on your site. For example, consider a plugin that has issued a security update. If you delay carrying out your usual plugin maintenance tasks, this leaves a vulnerability open for exploitation. As such, it could take your site down for good or at least give you a few days of headaches.
Given the above, there are a few situations where hiring WordPress maintenance services is a good idea:
- You’re ‘spinning too many plates’ and will likely drop the ball on WordPress maintenance.
- The number of daily tasks you carry out is numerous.
- There are WordPress maintenance tasks you’re not comfortable carrying out.
For the third point, there are a few notable tasks that an expert WordPress maintenance service should handle. Performance monitoring and enhancements can be excellent if implemented correctly. Conversely, they can also take down your server and sites.
In addition, site security can be handled by you in a pinch. However, 24/7 monitoring is a boon simply because malicious actors never sleep. Furthermore, having a WordPress maintenance service carry out cloud-based, offsite backups can help you get up and running again if there’s a breach.
Overall, having an expert team will benefit you, your site, and your visitors. Having them on call means you can concentrate on running your business while they deal with how your site runs under the hood.
In Conclusion
WordPress is so straightforward you may think it needs no care. However, this is a fallacy. WordPress maintenance should be at the forefront of your mind. It requires as much looking after as any complex piece of machinery.
As such, this WordPress maintenance guide covers some of the tasks involved. While you should be okay with carrying out routine updates and comment moderation, experts should handle other concerns (such as elements of site security and performance enhancements). There’s nothing wrong with bundling your WordPress maintenance into one and handing it to a suitable team. That way, you can keep working on your core business without worrying about how your site runs.
Are you considering employing a WordPress maintenance service? Check out our plans and pricing, and get in touch to learn more!