Maintaining a WordPress Website
Your website it just like many of the physical things you own – no matter how high-quality it is, it still requires periodic maintenance. With a WordPress site, that maintenance generally involves three things, although there are a few other extra things you can consider as well.
What Do I Need to Update
WordPress Core Updates
The WordPress Foundation publishes updated versions of the software generally twice a year. These updates add functionality, but also make sure the software is keeping up with current web standards. In addition to these updates, the WordPress will releases maintenance and security updates any time serious issues are found (smaller, non-critical issues are usually bundled with the update releases).
For the 95% of Cascade clients using Anchor Hosting, these updates get installed automatically by Anchor Hosting, so the issue isn’t doing the updates as much as checking the site afterwards to make sure everything is still working okay. WordPress updates are very well vetted, so “breaking changes” are quite uncommon, but when you website is the face of your business on the web, it’s always good to verify this after changes occur.
Site Health Checks
The WordPress Site Health tool is the equivalent of your doctor taking your pulse and blood pressure regularly. It’s a good, numbers-based way to see if everything is working okay. Many of the issues highlighted by the Site Health tool will not render your site non-functional, as much as they are a red flag to a looming issue or to something that is negatively effecting your site’s performance. Checking these regularly can help catch potential issue before they effect your site in more noticeable ways.
Theme and Plugin Updates
Themes and Plugins are WordPress add-ons to add visual or functional improvements to the core of WordPress. The creators of these tools regularly publish feature updates as well as maintenance and security updates. Because your site may have a dozen different add-ons from a dozen different creators, the schedule for these can be sporadic. You’ll often find you have a few new ones each month.
Unless your site is mission critical (i.e. you business would suffer if your site was offline for even a day), it’s generally okay to wait and update these in batches evey so often. But as with WordPress core updates the key is checking the site for errors after completing the updates. This is even more critical with add-ons than it is with WordPress core updates because these add-ons can be anything from a simple tool to something that completely restructures the site, so the chance of a “breaking change” is greater.
How Often Should I Update
The answer for how often to check your site for updates depends on how much of a problem would it create if your site were to stop functioning? For any business, their site is their face on the web and a poorly functioning one reflects badly on the business. But some businesses depend more on the website’s functions for day-to-day operations than others.
For most small business with a site that is generally informational, a check of these items every 2-4 months is acceptable. Businesses whose operations depend heavily on the site may want to consider monthly or even weekly checks.
Are There Other Things to Be Updating
Aside from maintenance checks, there are a few other long-term items a site owner will want to keep an eye on. These items are less like getting the oil in your car changed every 3,000 miles and more like noticing that your house’s kitchen is becoming dated. Can you still hobble along with the old stuff? Sure, but you aren’t getting the same bang for your buck that you did when things were new.
Web Design Standards
Web design standards are constantly evolving to support ever better content and to serve up that content in ever more efficient ways. Doing a periodic rebuild of your site every few years makes sure the site is staying current with those standards.
Visual Preferences
As with the items in a home, style preference are always changing. What looked really slick a few years ago may now look quite dated. Doing a refresh of your site every so often can keep it looking fresh and representing your business well.
Search Engine Optimization
Even if your site doesn’t depend on daily leads from search engines to fulfill it’s purpose, making sure it keeps up with current search engine guidelines can help make sure customers can find your business when they search for it. One good basic check to do is put your business’s name in a search engine. If you site isn’t the first thing that comes up on the list (below the sponsored results), then you probably need an SEO update.
The maintanence required to keep a site functioning well may seem like a lot, but it doesn’t have to eat away at your time as a business owner – that’s where we’re here to help! Cascade can set up a periodic maintainance plan for you where we go in an check each of these items on a regular basis. This is also a great time to think about if your site needs any content or information updates. Part of our regular maintainance plans is checking in with the site owner to get any of these updates so that everything can be taken care of at the same time.
If you don’t already have a maintance agreement set up, contact us today to get started!