8 Steps for Cleaning up Your WordPress Website @SimplifyWebsite

by Kristal Reagan | Featured Contributor

Fall season is approaching us and with the fall season comes maintenance, house maintenance, HVAC maintenance, car maintenance and we do this maintenance to get ready and prepared for the weather conditions of winter. We want to find any problems before we are left stuck, without heat or a reliable car.

What are you doing to maintain your WordPress website this season? Anything? Your website is a huge investment of time and money and it’s the backbone to your business so shouldn’t you have a maintenance plan in place?

The maintenance you should be performing on your site is:

1. Backup your site-you should have regular backups scheduled behind the scenes for your site. How frequent your updates are will depend on how frequently you blog or update your site. Monthly may work for some and for others you may want weekly and very busy membership sites may choose daily. Plugin: Backup Buddy by iThemes
2. Update Your site-Make sure your WordPress Core is up-to-date and make sure ALL your plugins and themes are up-to-date. (Tip: complete a full backup first and download it, update ONE thing at a time and each time check your site before going to the next one.)
3. Check your plugin list-Do you see any plugins in your list that you are no longer using? Delete them!
4. Delete unused Themes-remember all those themes you downloaded before you found the right one? Delete the ones you are not using. (PS keep the WordPress core themes like twenty-eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen)
5. Scan for Malware– Wordfence is a great plugin with a built-in malware scan
6. Check spam comments/pings– Check for any spam or pings that may have been missed by your spam protection. Plugin: Akismet (which does come installed with WordPress by default, you’ll need to activate to get a key and get protected)
7. Check for any broken links/missing images– We all delete irrelevant things or make updates to refresh and some of us even move our sites so we want to make sure all the links in our site are working and that we don’t have any missing images, it happens! Plugin: Broken Link Checker
8. Then backup (full backup) again!

Why backup again? Because the update before you did the maintenance is insurance if something goes wrong in your maintenance process. The after update is so that if something goes wrong tomorrow you won’t have to re-do the maintenance.

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Kristal Reagan, Tech Expert-Owner SimplifyWebsites, Raleigh, NC

Hey y’all!  My name is Kristal and I’m a 100% born-and-raised North Carolinian, currently living in Raleigh. I’m a home-based business owner, wife of 10 years, and stay-at-home Momma to four wonderful children (ages 9, 6, 3 and 8 months.)

Let me make a confession. I’m a tech-geek and a gadget-girl! I LOVE technology and I LOVE teaching others about it. I especially love helping those who are self-proclaimed “technically inept.” It’s my joy to SIMPLIFY technology for them and show them how to use it to make their lives easier.

If you’re like many business women, you’ve spent countless hours and dollars on your website, but you still don’t love it. Or you love the look and it’s “pretty,” but it’s not fully functioning, meaning it’s not collecting new leads, it’s not deepening the relationship with your leads, and/or it’s not converting your leads to $ales.

And maybe you’ve wasted tons of time trying to figure out technology on your own. Or worse, there are times when the thought of technology seems so overwhelming that it stops you in your tracks and it keeps you from moving your business forward.

I’m here to help turn all that around for you! I promise to speak your language, and not use “big techie words”. I love to create step-by-step, how-to videos that teach YOU how to streamline your business and I’m really looking forward to that and being a resource for you!

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Kristal Reagan