The 13 most important reasons why professional WordPress maintenance is important
Professional WordPress maintenance is important for a number of reasons. Here are 13 reasons why companies should put the maintenance of their WordPress system in professional hands:
Safety:
WordPress websites are vulnerable to hacking attacks and malware infections. Professional maintenance includes regular security checks, updates, and measures to defend against attacks to ensure the security of the website.
Here are some key points that will help keep your website secure:
Perform security checks:
Regularly check your website for vulnerabilities and security vulnerabilities.
Use security scanning tools such as Sucuri SiteCheck or WPScan to identify potential problems.
Check your hosting provider’s logs for any suspicious activity.
Strengthen credentials:
Use strong, unique passwords for all user accounts, including the administrator account.
Enable two-factor authentication to provide additional protection.
Protect file permissions:
Set the correct permissions for files and directories on your server.
Limit write permissions to what is necessary to reduce the risk of unwanted changes.
Use firewall:
Implement a web application firewall (WAF) to block malicious traffic.
WAFs can block known attacks and provide an extra layer of security.
Choose secure hosting:
Choose a reliable hosting provider that offers security measures such as regular updates, firewalls, and malware scans.
Manage user roles and permissions:
Assign user roles with the minimum necessary permissions.
Regularly check user accounts and remove access rights that are no longer needed.
Website monitoring:
Use monitoring tools or plugins to detect suspicious activity and attacks in real time.
Enable notifications for security-related events.
Topicality:
WordPress and its plugins should be updated regularly to close security gaps and provide new features. Professional maintenance ensures that these updates are installed promptly to keep the website up to date. Good maintenance services also update all other software components used, such as the web server (e.g., Apache or Nginx) and the database (e.g., MySQL or MariaDB).
Performance:
Regularly checking and optimizing website speed, caching, database, and other factors will improve the performance of the website, resulting in a better user experience and ranking on Google.
To optimize the performance of your WordPress website, the following important points should be considered:
A reliable hosting provider with fast servers and optimized settings for WordPress should be chosen. A dedicated or managed WordPress hosting service can improve performance.
Use a lightweight, sleek, and optimized WordPress theme. Cluttered themes with unnecessary features that can slow down loading time should be avoided. Well-optimized themes like GeneratePress or Astra are a good choice.
Optimization of the images used. Images are often the largest files on a website. Image compression plugins such as WP Smush or Short Pixel reduce file sizes without significantly affecting image quality. In addition, the correct image format (e.B. JPEG. for photos, PNG for graphics with transparency) should always be used. The use of modern formats such as “SVG” should be prioritized.
The use of caching plugins helps to reduce loading time by creating static versions of the web pages and posts. Popular caching plugins include W3 Total Cache or WP Rocket.
CSS and JavaScript should be minified to reduce the file sizes of CSS and JavaScript files. The files should be compressed and merged. Plugins like Autoptimize or WP Rocket can automate this process if the plugin is set correctly.
Regular database maintenance and optimizations with cleanups, old revision versions, spam comments and data that is no longer needed keep the database lean. The WP-Optimize plugin can help with this.
Unnecessary plugins should be avoided. Each installed plugin can affect the loading time. During the regular checks of the plugins, plugins that are no longer needed should be deactivated or removed.
Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN): A CDN distributes static files from your website on servers around the world and delivers them to visitors from a server near them. This can improve the loading time under certain circumstances. Popular CDN services include Cloudflare or MaxCDN.
Performance monitoring: Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix can be used to check your website’s load time and performance. Based on these analyses, appropriate optimizations of the website can be made.
Backup:
Regular backups are essential to avoid data loss due to technical issues, hacking, or human error. Professional maintenance services ensure that regular backups are created and stored safely. Store them in a safe place. Test restore from backups to make sure they work in the event of a disaster.
Troubleshooting:
Professional maintenance includes monitoring and troubleshooting technical problems, malfunctions or errors on the website to ensure smooth functionality.
Plugin Management:
Monitoring and managing plugins is important to ensure that they are compatible, work well, and don’t pose any security risks. Professional maintenance services regularly check the plugins and update them as needed.
Choose only trusted and up-to-date plugins and themes from trusted sources.
Remove unused plugins and themes, as they can be potential security vulnerabilities.
Theme Management:
The theme of a website affects the design, user experience, and performance. Professional maintenance involves reviewing and updating the theme to make sure it works optimally.
SEO optimization:
A well-maintained website is also important for search engine optimization (SEO). Professional maintenance supports SEO efforts by monitoring search engine policies, optimizing metadata, and other relevant factors.
Key SEO optimizations include the following:
Installation and configuration of an SEO plugin such as Yoast SEO or Rank Math. These plugins offer features to optimize meta tags, XML sitemaps, canonical URLs, and more.
Page title and meta description optimization: Use meaningful and relevant page titles and meta descriptions for every page and post. Inserting relevant keywords and a clear description of the content.
URL optimization: Use of descriptive URLs that contain the main keyword of the page. Avoid unnecessary numbers, symbols, or words in the URLs.
Use of heading tags: Include heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) in the content to clearly represent the hierarchy and structure of the page to search engines. Place keywords in the headings where it makes sense.
Provide high-quality and unique, relevant content that meets the needs of the target audience. Keywords should be inserted naturally into the text without exaggerating.
Image Optimization: Use meaningful file names and alt tags for the images, as well as compress the images to improve loading time and use the right image sizes.
Internal linking: linking relevant pages and posts within the website. This helps search engines understand the structure of the website and determine the value of the pages.
Optimization of loading time: A fast loading time is important for SEO, see the above point performance optimization.
Website optimization for mobile views: Google prefers mobile-friendly websites. The use of responsive designs helps with this. The mobile-friendliness of the website should be tested with tools such as Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.
Build backlinks to get high-quality backlinks from other trusted websites. Backlinks from authoritative websites can improve the website’s ranking in search results.
Monitor and analyze SEO performance: Tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics help monitor the progress of SEO efforts. Analysis of search terms, clicks and visitor numbers serve to adapt the SEO strategy.
Spam management:
Spam comments and spam emails can put a strain on the website and affect the user experience. Professional maintenance services implement spam prevention and removal measures.
Spam is a common problem for WordPress websites, but there are several things you can do to improve spam management. Here are some key points:
Use spam filter plugins: Use spam filter plugins such as Akismet or Antispam Bee. These plugins can automatically detect spam comments and move them to the spam folder.
Use CAPTCHA: Implementing a CAPTCHA on the comment or contact form page ensures that real users fill out the forms. The Google reCAPTCHA plugin is a popular option. We will be happy to set this up for you.
Enable moderation of comments before they appear on the site. This allows all comments to be reviewed and spam to be removed manually.
Limit the number of links in comments: a limit on the number of links allowed in comments makes sense. Often, spam comments are associated with an excessive number of links.
Monitoring and checking of the comment sections of the website and removal of suspicious or obvious spam comments should be done regularly. Responding to legitimate comments and active discussion should be encouraged.
Use of the “nofollow” attribute for external links in comments should be set. This avoids search engines from tracking these links and minimizes the SEO impact.
The comment function should be switched off completely if spam is a recurring problem and the comment function is not absolutely necessary.
Customize registration settings for users to register on the site. Disable self-registration or require administrator approval.
Set up a firewall: Implement a web application firewall (WAF) to block malicious traffic and block spam bots. WAFs can detect and block many spam attacks. If you would like us to set this up professionally, please contact us.
The implementation of these measures serves to improve spam management on the WordPress website and to reduce spam annoyance. It’s important to make regular checks and adjustments to keep up with new spam techniques.
Scalability:
A well-maintained website is more scalable and can keep up with the growth of the business. Professional maintenance services help scale and optimize the website to meet future needs.
Reliability:
Regular monitoring and troubleshooting will increase the reliability of the website. Downtime and technical issues can be minimized to ensure the availability of the website for users.
Support and advice:
Professional maintenance services provide technical support and expert advice for all questions and issues related to the website. This allows for faster resolution of issues and effective use of website features.
Time saving:
Outsourcing WordPress maintenance to professionals allows businesses to focus on their core business while experts take care of the technical aspects of the website. This saves valuable time and resources.
Conclusion on maintaining a WordPress website
Overall, professional WordPress maintenance helps ensure a website’s security, performance, reliability, and scalability while saving website owners time and worry.
Help with the maintenance of your WordPress website
We are happy to help maintain your WorPress or WooCommerce website. We can carry out the maintenance once or continuously and very professionally via our maintenance contract, which we will be happy to adapt to your needs. Send us a short email and we will get back to you shortly for a personal consultation.
