Performing regular maintenance on your WordPress site is crucial to keeping your site healthy and running smoothly. The only problem is that keeping your site in prime condition takes a lot of time! Completing all of the necessary maintenance tasks quickly adds up.
Luckily, there are a number of services to keep your site in tip-top shape so that you don’t even have to think about it. That’s why in this article we’re discussing some of the top WordPress maintenance services that manage your site for you.
But, before we dive into the services that can support you, let’s talk more about website maintenance and why it is essential to your site’s ongoing success. Let’s get started!
What is WordPress Website Maintenance?
In short, WordPress maintenance refers to a variety of tasks used to continually monitor and improve the performance, security, and quality of your WordPress site.
Your website requires ongoing attention. These tasks may come up monthly, weekly, or even daily. Maintenance includes:
- Backing up your site: This involves saving several copies of your website in various locations so that you can restore it in the event of a security breach or a mistake that deletes your files.
- Updating WordPress core: WordPress is constantly being updated to fix bugs such as security vulnerabilities. You should stay updated with the latest version to ensure that your site is as safe as possible.
- Keeping themes and plugins up to date: Themes and plugins are regularly updated. This includes security updates, bug fixes, and updates to stay compatible with the latest version of WordPress. It’s important to keep up with the latest versions of your themes and plugins to benefit from these upgrades.
- Clearing your cache: For websites, caches are saved files that can help your site to load faster. Over time, cached files can start to build up and cause site bloat. You may need to clear the cache periodically to reset things.
- Optimizing your database: Your WordPress database is a set of structured data at the core of your site. It contains user roles, post information, and other site data. As time passes, the database can collect unnecessary information, such as trashed posts. Optimizing your database clears this excess data. This can help your site load faster and keep your site’s size down.
There are many other small and less frequently needed tasks that also require attention, such as clearing out your Media Library, deleting spam comments, and fixing broken links. These examples just scratch the surface – the list goes on!
Why WordPress Maintenance Is Critical to Your Site’s Success
As we just discussed, WordPress maintenance tasks are important to keep your site running smoothly. The benefits of performing regular maintenance include added security and increases in site speed.
Regular maintenance can even boost your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) since search engines favour sites that load fast and are easy to use. A site that loads slowly and contains errors such as broken links appears less trustworthy. These things can cause users to abandon your site.
Additionally, internet users have short attention spans. If they can’t quickly find what they are looking for, users are more likely to bounce. They would prefer to leave your site to easily accomplish their goals elsewhere rather than poke around on your site for long periods of time without success.
To that end, maintenance can even impact your conversion rate. By keeping your site professional and usable, you maximize your chances of engaging visitors so that they’re more likely to become returning users.
However, maintaining a WordPress website on your own is an arduous task. It requires frequent–and sometimes daily–monitoring. Running a business is challenging enough without having to deal with your website every day.
Fortunately, there are WordPress maintenance services designed to take on the grunt work so that you don’t have to. In the next section, we’ll review eight platforms that you can use to help maintain your WordPress site.
The maintenance service you choose for your WordPress site depends heavily on your personal needs and budget.
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