OptimWise - Web Design & Development Simpsonville/Greenville SC

• Why is WordPress maintenance important?
• What can happen if you don't maintain?
• What are the benefits of proper maintenance?
• How is maintenance done?
• What are useful plugins, tools, processes, and services?
• How often should maintenance tasks be done?
• When should each task be done?
• What if I hate maintaining WordPress?

I covered these questions in a presentation on WordPress maintenance to the Greenville, SC WordPress Meetup Group on Nov. 7, 2017. I also gave this presentation to WordCamp Greenville 2018 on March 10, 2018.

Below are the video, slides, and notes. At the end of this post is your challenge!

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Video

Slides

WordPress Maintenance: Keep Your Site Secure & Running Smoothly from Chad Warner

Why Is Maintenance Important?

• Why is car maintenance important?
  • You want to keep driving your car
  • Invest in keeping it running smoothly and reliably
  • Be a responsible car owner
• Same concept applies to your website
  • Your business depends on your website
  • Keep site secure and running smoothly
  • Be a responsible website owner

What If You Don't Maintain?

• Site gets hacked
  • Sucuri: 61% of hacked WordPress sites are running outdated software
  • Wordfence: “plugin vulnerabilities represented 55.9% of the known entry points reported by respondents.”
• Site runs slowly
• Site breaks due to incompatibility
• Visitors stop using your site
• Google ranks your site lower (reducing traffic, leads, sales)

Benefits Of Maintenance

• Site more secure
• Site faster
• Site runs smoothly
• Have backup in case of issues
• Better SEO
• More traffic, leads, sales

How Is Maintenance Done?

• Manually
• Plugins
• Host may do some, at least partially (backups, Core updates, some security)
• OptimWise can help!

Plugins, Tools, Processes, Services

• Management tools
  • ManageWP
  • MainWP
  • InfiniteWP
  • Jetpack Manage
• Updates
  • Advanced Automatic Updates
• Backups
  • BackupBuddy
  • VaultPress
• Uptime
  • Jetpack Monitor
  • Uptime Robot
• Security
  • Sucuri Security
  • Wordfence
  • Service like Sucuri
• Speed
  • GTmetrix
  • Pingdom Website Speed Test
  • Ask host what they recommend
  • If host doesn't have caching system, try plugin like WP Super Cache
• Find Outdated WordPress Plugins
  • No Longer in Directory plugin
• Optimize Images
  • Imsanity
• OptimWise can help!

Maintenance Schedule

• Daily
  • Back Up
  • Monitor Uptime
  • Monitor Security
• Weekly
  • Install Updates
  • Moderate Comments
• Monthly
  • Review Front End
  • Review Back End
  • Check Backups
• Quarterly
  • Review User Accounts
  • Test Speed
  • Find Outdated WordPress Plugins
  • Declutter Plugins
  • Declutter Themes
  • Declutter Media
  • Test Forms
• As Needed
  • Optimize Images

Hate Maintaining WordPress?

• You don't need to do it yourself!
• Have a teammate do it
• Have OptimWise do it

Challenge

1. Audit your site. Are any maintenance tasks undone?
2. Catch up on incomplete maintenance.
3. Review your maintenance processes. Are there any gaps?
4. Improve your maintenance processes, using your internal team or outside help (such as OptimWise!).