According to a study, 92% of WordPress vulnerabilities appear in plugin code. This makes updating and maintaining your WordPress website critical to avoiding vulnerabilities.
These vulnerabilities can be used by hackers to gain access to your site. When this happens, Google can blacklist your website, leaving you with nothing.
Luckily, updating and maintaining WordPress can be an easy process if you know what you’re doing. Keep reading this step-by-step guide to learn how to create a WordPress maintenance plan for 2020 that will give you peace of mind knowing your site is safe.
Let’s begin!
1. Create a Backup
Backing up your website to a cloud is always a smart idea, that way if something goes wrong, you will have a recent version still available to you.
It could have been anything that created a critical error. It could have been human error, a security breach, or even incompatible WordPress updates. No matter what the issue was, you can find peace of mind knowing your data was backed up, and you can access a recent working version.
2. Update Plugins and Features
Keeping plugins and other features up to date is a vital part of any WordPress maintenance plan.
It’s essential to keep in mind while completing updates to have a backup on file as they can create incompatible versions and errors.
Also, during this phase of maintenance, you should be removing any plugins and other features that you are no longer using. Keeping them around will only make your site more vulnerable to security breaches.
3. Search Engine Optimization
Many people try DIY SEO practices but don’t get the results they are looking for. That’s because SEO is a complex process that requires continual updates; it’s not a set-it-and-forget-it type of operation.
From page load speeds to keyword optimization to page errors, there are myriad factors that affect search engine optimization. Try this free assessment to see if your site is set up properly and performing well in terms of search visibility.
4. Website Maintenance
Maintaining your WordPress website is critical to the long term success of the site. This could involve several practices including
- WordPress updates
- Clearing Cache
- Clearing junk data
- And more
Clearing out old data and cache will help optimize loading speeds and keep your website running smoothly.
5. Monitor Security
When you are through cleaning up your WordPress website, it is critical to monitor your site for security threats.
According to a study, 90 percent of all hacked CMS sites were WordPress websites. They cited a lack of maintenance by the webmasters as one of the main reasons the hacks were happening.
Taking steps such as
- Running malware scans
- Resetting Admin passwords
- Removing inactive users
- And using 2-step logins
Are all necessary practices when it comes to monitoring WordPress security.
Need Help With Your WordPress Maintenance Plan?
You can see why having a WordPress maintenance plan is so vital to the long term success of the site. When your site is getting hacked, it takes precious time and resources away from you that could be used to help grow and sustain your business.
If you need help with your maintenance plan, contact us today, and we can help keep your site up to date, secure, and search engine optimized.
