‘Tis the season to be jolly. Christmas is just around the corner, your trousers are probably already feeling a little snug thanks to all the mince pies and extra yummy festive food you keep buying. You’ve probably completed your Christmas shopping and, if you’re really organised, it’s wrapped and waiting for the big day.
You know what your partner wants for Christmas, your children want, your family wants, but what about your website? If your WordPress website could write a Christmas list, what would be on it?
We can tell you.
We see ourselves as WordPress whisperers and can give you the lowdown of the top items your website is crying out for!
(Spoiler alert: a WordPress maintenance plan is pretty high on the list.)
1. Set up SEO
Your website is the star of your business proposition. If you want the three wise men to find it, you need to have a robust SEO strategy in place.
WordPress is pretty SEO friendly but, there is a lot more that you can do to optimise your website and bring more traffic to it. We recommend using the Yoast SEO pluginas a great starting point as it will take care of all the important SEO settings and is beginner friendly.
2. Install caching
Your website wants to feel fast and powerful. This is where caching comes in. It allows your website to quickly serve cached copies of your pages to users instead of generating them every time they type in your URL. This reduces server load on your website and improves your page load speed.
There are a lot of caching plugins available for WordPress, but we recommend using the WP Super Cache plugin.
3. Back me up
You need to protect your website as much as Santa’s elves protect the grotto. We’re pretty certain the elves have a backup plan in place in case all the presents get stolen, and you need to have something in place to protect your WordPress website if the absolute worst happens.
Having an offsite backup plan is the best way to make sure that you can easily recover your website in case of a disaster.
4. Update my themes and plugins
Your website needs monitoring for theme and plugin updates. Without keeping on top of this, you are potentially leaving yourself vulnerable to a data breach or hack attempt.
The consequences of a hacked website can be huge, with impacts on your reputation and finances. You might think only happens to other people, but the truth is anybody with a website can become a target and it’s not always obvious if you do become one.
Take a look at these common signals that indicate your WordPress site has been hacked.
5. Remove spam comments
Spam comments are annoying. You may be tempted to leave a backlog of unapproved spam comments due to the time and effort it takes to look through and approve them; however, this can greatly reduce the size of your WordPress database.
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 regularly remove spam. Turning off the option of commenting may be the best solution for.
6. Sign up to a WordPress maintenance plan
At the very top of your website’s Christmas list is a WordPress maintenance plan. By getting this, all of the other items on the ‘wish list’ can be taken care of too. More and more businesses are outsourcing the ongoing WordPress maintenance to the experts so that they can focus on the daily running of their business.
At WP Tech Support, we can handle all aspects of your website’s maintenance and security for complete peace of mind. Our great value monthly plans range from just £35 per month – a small price to pay to ensure your website stays up to date, optimised and secure. Give your WordPress what it really wants this Christmas and invest in ongoing support from people who know how to keep it in tip top shape. Ho ho ho!