1. update software

WordPress software is regularly updated to fix issues, patch security weaknesses and generally improve website performance.

For the WordPress core, you can apply automatic updates (although this only works with minor releases). Plugins and themes need also need to be updated as soon as they are available – just look out for messages on your WordPress dashboard.

As always, before making any major site changes, don’t forget to backup your WordPress site first.

2. scan for security issues

It’s important to scan your WordPress site regularly for security issues such as malware, viruses and suspicious code.

We recommend installing the free Wordfence plugin, which includes a range of security features. To undertake a security scan, simply go to Wordfence > Scan and clicking ‘Start new scan’.

If your WordPress site has any security issues, Wordfence will suggest ways to fix them. Our ‘How to secure WordPress’ blog also has lots of tips.

3. monitor site speed

In today’s fast-paced world, a rapidly-loading WordPress website is essential. Speed is important not only for good user experience but also to maximise your search engine rankings.

As part of your regular site maintenance, we recommend checking your site speed with Google PageSpeed. This is a free online tool which includes mobile and desktop scores plus detailed recommendations for site speed improvements.

It’s worth making a note of your scores and trying to improve them over time. We’ve got lots of advice about how to improve WordPress website speed on our blog.

4. verify backups

It’s vital to backup your WordPress site regularly in case it ever gets hacked, infected with a virus or encounters another major problem that causes it to stop working. It’s therefore worth checking and verifying your site backups as part of your WordPress maintenance.

To do this, double check that all your site date is being copied and stored, that you have backups saved in different locations, and that files are not corrupted. Better to find out about any backup problems before the worst happens!

5. check SEO

If organic traffic is important for your company or organisation, then it’s a good idea to give your WordPress site regular SEO healthchecks. You can do this using the free Ubersuggest SEO analyser or another similar tool.

With Ubersuggest, type in your web address, select the relevant language/country and click ‘Search’. A report will be generated showing your monthly organic traffic, domain score and number of organic keywords.

In the ‘Site Audit’ section, you can also find a more detailed SEO analysis, including a list of issues which need attention. For example, pages with a low word-count or poorly-formatted URL may be highlighted.

Keep an eye on your site’s SEO and try to improve performance over time – we’ve got lots of tips in our WordPress SEO Beginner’s Guide.

6. review Google Analytics

With Google Analytics on your WordPress site, you gain lots of useful data about your users and their behaviour. It’s important to monitor this analytics data regularly so you can see patterns and make data-driven decisions to optimise website performance.

As part of your regular WordPress maintenance, we advise logging into Google Analytics and considering what’s working well and what content may need improvement.

7. moderate comments

Whenever a user comments on your WordPress website, the comment is held in moderation. It’s therefore a good idea to check the ‘Comments’ section of your WordPress dashboard regularly.

Publishing useful comments, replying to questions and deleting spam will help you keep your WordPress site clean and up-to-date, whilst also helping build rapport with users.

8. check mobile compatibility

To check website performance on mobile, try Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. This will show how your WordPress site appears on mobile screens and advise whether or not it’s easy to use.

With around 50% of all internet browsing taking place on mobile, a mobile-friendly website will ensure you don’t alienate or lose large numbers of potential visitors. Mobile optimisation is also an SEO factor, with Google prioritising mobile-friendly sites in its search results.

If your site needs to be more mobile-friendly, this article has a lot of useful advice for WordPress mobile optimisation.

9. monitor uptime

Uptime is the percentage of time that your website is online and available for users. It should be at 100% – demonstrating that your site is always available for users.

It’s worth monitoring your WordPress website’s uptime on isitwp (or another similar tool) as part of your regular maintenance. Where it’s falling below 100%, contact your hosting provider or WordPress agency to identify any problems and resolve them.

10. have a clean-up

The more you update and edit your WordPress site, the more it becomes clogged-up with old content, images and files. As this slows your site down, it’s worth giving your website a clean-up as part of your WordPress maintenance.

For imagery and content, you’ll need to go into your Media Library and Posts to delete any old, unused or duplicate items manually. Fortunately, for your WordPress database, it’s super-easy to schedule regular, automatic clean-ups with a plugin like WP-Sweep.

thanks for reading

Of course, this is just the beginning of WordPress website maintenance – for more tips and advice, check out our ultimate WordPress optimisation guide. Or, for on-demand WordPress support from an award-winning agency, please get in touch.

Do these scenarios sound familiar?

You know you need support and hosting for your WordPress website, but your current providers don’t offer reliable, consistent service or value for money.

Or, your WordPress hosting provider and support agency don’t talk to each other, leaving you spending hours going between them to fix even the simplest website problems.

These are scenarios we hear time and time again from our clients.

That’s why we recommend having your website supported – for development, optimisation, maintenance, fixes and hosting – by a single, expert WordPress agency. Such as Pedalo, of course!

It’s a bit like buying a holiday.

You can research all the different aspects of your perfect vacation, and then piece them together yourself. You can find the right flights, transfers, hotels, day trips, meal options and insurance.

It will take a lot of time, but you’re likely to make some absolute cost savings. You may also get a sense of achievement and control in approaching your holiday in this way.

Alternatively, you can choose a bespoke package holiday. With this, you speak to a single travel company about your budget, what you want, and your specific requirements.

They then put together your dream vacation using their expert knowledge and attention to detail. Everything is done for you and tailored to your needs.

Flights, transfers, accommodation, catering, activities – all sorted in one go. If your flight runs late, you can rest assured that your onward transfers and hotel will be informed without you needing to worry.

If anything goes wrong or details change, there’s just one company you need to contact to sort things out and ensure your holiday is exactly as you want it.

It seems like a no-brainer to us. (And in case anyone’s wondering, our perfect holiday would look like the picture above.)

Here’s how it often works with WordPress hosting providers and WordPress support agencies.

Website-owner to WordPress agency: My site is running slowly – please can you help?

WordPress agency to website-owner: We’ve investigated and it’s problem x on your server causing the speed issue. You’ll need to speak to your hosting provider.

Website-owner to hosting provider: My site is running slowly and it’s because of the server – please can you help?

Hosting provider to website-owner: Actually, we’ve found that it’s problem y on your website causing the speed issue. You’ll need to speak to your WordPress agency.

The website-owner is left not knowing what’s wrong or who to call. All they want is their site running quickly again.

They may spend hours on the phone trying to understand what’s happening and establish what needs to be fixed. If they ask the WordPress agency and hosting provider to speak directly, they’re likely to keep passing the buck, whilst still not resolving the issue and wracking up a large bill.

With one, expert company managing your WordPress site and hosting, nothing slips through the net and any problems can be identified and resolved rapidly. Which means you can just focus on running your business.

 

If that sounds good to you, then please get in touch and we’ll be happy to help. We offer award-winning WordPress support, maintenance, development and hosting – all in one expertly-managed package.

For more expert WordPress tips, check out our Ultimate WordPress Optimisation Guide and other WordPress blogs.

WordPress is a brilliant, trustworthy and versatile website platform. With its intuitive backend and straightforward structure, WordPress websites can be built by almost anyone.

It’s no surprise that WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS, with more than 64 million sites using it. In particular, because of its user-friendliness, it’s often a first-choice software for website beginners.

WordPress websites can be created quickly and easily. There are thousands of options and add-ons to choose from, making it easy to set up and customise a site.

However, many WordPress website-owners don’t have the coding skills needed to adapt their site for their unique requirements. Therefore, a page builder often seems like a great option to gain more customisation options and control over webpage design.

A page builder can be added to your WordPress site as either a plugin or theme. Some of the most popular page builder plugins are Divi, WPBakery, Elementor and Beaver Builder.

With a page builder, you can create tailored, innovative and exciting website content without any technical knowledge. The only design limits are your imagination and time.

Sounds great, right? Yes, page builders can be brilliant – but they come with problems too…

when to use a WordPress page builder

1. you need rapid web building

A page builder has an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that can be used to design visually-appealing layouts for your WordPress website. This means that page builders are ideal for creating special offer pages, event information, or promo sites that need to be produced rapidly.

2. for lots of premade options & functionality

Page builders come with loads of premade layout options and functionality. This means you can include a wide variety of features and page designs on your website without needing to pay for or install multiple plugins.

3. to save money

With a page builder, customisation options that would otherwise only be open to WordPress developers are accessible to everyone. This means that web design work can be done by non-technical staff, potentially saving substantial costs. It also gives you more options for creating different types of content in-house.

4. for user-friendliness

Creating webpage designs with a WordPress page builder is very user-friendly. You can see exactly how your pages will look on the front-end, and ensure your design is just right before publishing.

when to avoid a WordPress page-builder

1. speed matters

Most page builders include extra code which is embedded in your website and impacts loading speed. Having a slower website is not only frustrating for users but also negatively affects your search engine rankings.

2. you want flexibility later on

Page builders are great when you’re using them but don’t allow for flexibility later on. If you decide to switch to a different WordPress design or theme, you’ll probably be left with a mess of broken pages and code errors. This means you may have to re-create each webpage again from scratch.

3. branding errors could cause problems

With a WordPress page builder, you can make sweeping changes across your whole site. Of course, this is a brilliant way of saving time, but also means that site-wide design errors can be made by mistake. Similarly, page builders give individuals significant power to break away from a website’s brand, such as by changing colours and fonts – which often leaves things looking messy and fragmented.

4. options feel overwhelming

Whilst design options can be wonderfully liberating and exciting, they can also become overwhelming. If you want to focus on publishing great WordPress content without being distracted by hundreds of layout options, then a page builder isn’t for you.

page builders: in conclusion

WordPress page builders are wonderful things, but they’re not a one-size-fits-all solution.

They’re great for producing relatively simple sites or special offer pages, and for individuals and small teams who have the time to invest in learning how to use them effectively. In these scenarios, they enable innovative web design layouts and features to be produced quickly and at relatively low-cost.

However, organisations looking for core web platform, page builders aren’t the best long-term solution. A web developer or WordPress agency will be able to ensure your site includes the right branding, functionality and design for you without reducing speed or limiting options for future changes.

not sure what’s best for you?

We provide award-winning WordPress support and WordPress design – please get in touch to discuss your website or project.

For more expert WordPress tips, check out our Ultimate WordPress Optimisation Guide and other WordPress blogs.

1. install an image optimisation plugin (or two!)

An image optimisation plugin is a great way to ensure your WordPress images are compressed and resized for your webpages. We recommend Smush – it’s award-winning and totally free, so win-win!

Images are often responsible for slow loading times on WordPress, as they tend to be the heaviest website elements. Therefore, Smush compresses images into smaller versions for more rapid loading.

Smush also has several other handy image optimisation features. In particular, the lazy loading feature is well worth activating to improve UX and site speed, as it delays the loading of offscreen images until users scroll down.

Another great image optimisation plugin is WebP Express. It speeds up your site’s mobile performance by re-encoding images into super-quick webp versions for mobile browsers.

2. crop & edit images before uploading

As well as using an on-site image optimisation plugin, it’s also a good idea to crop and compress images off-site, before uploading to WordPress.

There are lots of great free tools which do this, such as Pixlr and Resize Image. With these, you can edit your image into the exact size and shape you want, and also substantially reduce file size.

It’s also worth considering, and sometimes changing, the file type for your image. Jpg images are usually the lightest, most practical file type for most photos. However, if your images are graphics or have transparent backgrounds, then a different file type will be needed.

3. always include alt text

Alt text is a short description that explains what’s happening in an image. This text is key for SEO and web accessibility, and will also appear if an image is unable to load.

Make sure to complete the alt text box whenever you upload an image to WordPress. Try to use clear, descriptive language to help both users and search engines understand your images.

You can add alt text to existing images in Media > Library on your WordPress dashboard. Once there, simply click on any image, and complete the ‘Alternative Text’ box.

4. add a favicon

A favicon is a thumbnail image that represents your website in web browser tabs and bookmark lists. It should be an instantly recognisable symbol for your brand and website, such as the multicoloured ‘G’ favicon for Google below:

We recommend either using a square version of your logo or choosing another image that works well in a small format.

You can add (or update) your favicon in WordPress by going to Appearance > Customise and then selecting ‘General Settings’ and ‘Site Identity’. Make sure your chosen image is at least 512 x 512 pixels in size, or it will appear blurry.

5. check for unoptimised images

We recommend regularly checking your website for unoptimised images. You can do this using an image optimisation plugin, such as Smush, or with a free online speed checker such as GTmetrix.

With GTmetrix, simply type in your WordPress website URL and click ‘Test your site’. A performance report will then be generated with two different speed scores. You’ll also find detailed recommendations for improving your site’s speed, with any bulky, unoptimized images highlighted.

6. clean-up your Media Library

Our final tip for optimising WordPress imagery is to clean-up your Media Library.

Whenever you upload an image or file in WordPress, several copies are made for different purposes. Some plugins and themes also duplicate image files.

This means that every time you add a website image, the size of your site grows substantially – using up more space on your server, reducing page speed, and taking longer to backup.

We recommend regularly clearing out your Media Library (in Media > Library) and removing any duplicate, old or unused image files. To delete a single image, simply click the ‘Delete Permanently’ option in red at the bottom of the screen. You’ll also need to click ‘OK’ in the WordPress popup.

Alternatively, you can delete images in bulk, by choosing ‘Bulk Select’ at the top of your Media Library page. Just tick any images you’d like to remove, and click ‘Delete Selected’. Once again, you’ll need to press ‘OK’ in the popup message to complete the process.

want award-winning WordPress support?

Our expert developers have built, supported and maintained hundreds of WordPress websites – from updating messaging for JRRT to launching a bold and fully-responsive site for Anti-Slavery International. For further information about our WordPress support and maintenance services, please get in touch.

Or, for more expert WordPress tips, make sure to read our Ultimate WordPress Optimisation Guide and other WordPress blogs.