How to Keep Your WordPress Website Alive and Well
It is truly amazing what the WordPress community has created. A simple blogging platform that can host all of your website content and give you the flexibility to build and grow your business with just a few clicks of a button. It is a great starting point for anyone who wants to explore the world of online publishing, and even those who are new to the world of blogging will find it incredibly easy to get started with WordPress.
However, as with any other platform or tool used for business or publishing, security and maintenance are two areas where you must always keep your eyes open and act accordingly. This article will tell you how to do just that and keep your WordPress website alive and well.
The Importance Of Backups
One of the most important things you must do to keep your WordPress website alive and well is to regularly make backups. It is simply not enough to have a robust security tool set up and active monitoring of your site – you must also make sure that you have regularly scheduled backups in place. This is where dedicated WordPress backup providers like WPEngine, Flywheel, or BackupBuddy come in very handy. These companies specialize in taking care of all the tedious technical details so that you can simply focus on growing your business.
Backups are crucial for two reasons: the first is to prevent any kind of data loss, and the second is to enable you to restore your website quickly and easily if it ever happens to suffer a catastrophic loss.
Secure Login And Registration
One of the most important things you must do to keep your WordPress website safe and sound is to put in place a robust and secure login system and to ensure that new users make it mandatory to use a unique, secure password that is different from any other password they use for other services or websites. You should also set up a similar requirement for user registration – only allowing registered users to access certain areas or posts of your site. This is going to make sure that only those who have been approved by you or within your organization can access and make use of the content you provide on your site.
The best thing about this particular safety measure is that it is very easy to implement and extremely cost-effective – requiring only a bit of technical know-how and a decent amount of free time.
You should always keep your login and registration systems as secure as possible – utilizing two-factor authentication where available, and taking care to use trusted and well-known providers for user verification and registration. Doing so will greatly improve the security of your site and the experience of your users.
Active Monitoring
Keeping up with the ever-changing world of cybercrime can be a tricky business – particularly when you are already knee-deep in growing your web-based business. One of the best things you can do for your WordPress website is to put in place an active monitoring system that monitors all activity on your site for signs of intrusion or data compromise. This could include things such as login attempts or unusual activity on your server – anything that might indicate someone is trying to hack into your site or data.
With an active monitoring system in place, you can rest assured that you will be notified of any suspicious activity and that you can take the necessary precautions to contain it or deal with it. For the best results, you should look for a solution that offers real-time alerting and live chat with trained professionals – allowing you to easily and quickly address any issues that may arise without needing to wait until regular working hours.
Regular Maintenance
One of the most important things you must do to keep your WordPress website running smoothly is to carry out regular maintenance and optimization tasks. These are essential in ensuring that your site remains secure and that it functions at its peak performance level – preventing any kind of sluggishness or downtime that could eventually turn into a big problem for your business.
There are many maintenance tasks that you could carry out on a monthly basis – including but not limited to:
- Updating your WordPress installation to the latest version
- Firming up your website’s layout and design
- Optimizing images for faster load times
- Fixing broken links
- Testing your site’s performance across different browsers and devices
- Cleaning up your site’s junk content and redundant plugins (more on this below)
- Protecting your site from hackers and keeping intruders at bay
As a web-based business, you’ll no doubt be handling a lot of sensitive content on your site – including but not limited to:
- Financial records or detailed client information
- Product specifications, prices, and discounts
- Inventory, supply chains, and similar big-picture business information
- Trade secrets, new products, or innovations
- Legal documents, contracts, or other sensitive documents
- Passwords, bank account numbers, social security numbers, or other similar sensitive information
Taking the time to regularly clean up your site’s content and remove any unwanted or unnecessary words or phrases can also greatly increase the performance of your site and ease the burden on your Google Analytics or other web performance tracking tools.
As for the plugins that you include in your WordPress installation – it is no secret that plugins can be a big liability in terms of security and performance. This is why you should avoid using any kind of plugins on your site if you can – unless you are absolutely certain that they are completely safe and reliable. You should also make sure to remove any unused plugins after you install them initially.
Consider using a managed WordPress hosting service – such as WPEngine or Flywheel – to keep your site up and running smoothly. These companies take care of all the heavy lifting for you so that you can just focus on the things that matter most to you.
In summary, keeping your WordPress website alive and well is quite simple and can be easily implemented by anyone with a little bit of technical know-how. With just a few safeguards and optimizations in place, you can be sure that your website will remain secure and perform at its optimum level for years to come.