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13 Crucial WordPress Maintenance Tasks to Perform Regularly

By Naveed Ahmed | Updated July 26, 2024

As a WordPress expert with over 15 years of experience, I’ve seen firsthand the impact of proper website maintenance. A neglected website can quickly become sluggish, vulnerable to security breaches, and ultimately, lose its ability to attract and engage visitors.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the 13 most crucial WordPress maintenance tasks you should perform regularly. These tasks are designed to ensure your website remains secure, fast, and performs optimally.

Remember, regular maintenance is not just about fixing problems, it’s about preventing them in the first place. By dedicating a little time each month to these tasks, you can save yourself headaches down the line and keep your WordPress site running smoothly.

Why and When to Perform WordPress Maintenance Tasks

Your WordPress website is a complex ecosystem of interconnected parts. It includes your web hosting, the WordPress software itself, your chosen themes and plugins, and of course, your valuable content. All of these elements work together to create a vibrant online presence.

Many website owners fall into the trap of only addressing issues when they arise. However, this reactive approach can lead to bigger problems down the road. A proactive maintenance strategy is key to ensuring your website remains healthy and performs at its best.

How often should you perform WordPress maintenance tasks? The frequency depends on your website’s traffic and activity level.

Busy websites (with high traffic and frequent updates) should be maintained every 3 months.
Smaller websites (with low traffic and infrequent updates) can be maintained every 6 months.

It’s also wise to perform a quick monthly check-up to address any immediate issues. This will help you catch potential problems early on, before they escalate.

13 Crucial WordPress Maintenance Tasks

Let’s dive into the specific tasks you should include in your WordPress maintenance routine. I’ve outlined each task in detail, providing clear steps and helpful resources to make the process as smooth as possible.

1. Change All Your WordPress Passwords

Passwords are your first line of defense against unauthorized access to your website. It’s crucial to use strong, unique passwords for all your online accounts, including your WordPress site.

Even if you employ strong passwords, they can still be compromised without your knowledge. Therefore, WordPress security experts recommend changing your passwords regularly.

WordPress Admin Area: Change your login credentials for the WordPress dashboard.
FTP or SSH Accounts: Update passwords for any FTP or SSH accounts used to access your website’s files.
WordPress Database Password: Change the password for your WordPress database, which stores all your website’s information.

For step-by-step instructions, refer to our beginner’s guide on changing your password in WordPress.

Remember, strong passwords can be difficult to recall. Consider using a password manager app like 1Password to securely store and manage your passwords. You can find more information on the best ways to manage your WordPress passwords in this guide: How to Manage WordPress Passwords.

2. Create a Complete Backup of Your Website

A backup plugin is an essential tool for any WordPress website owner. Backup plugins like Duplicator, UpdraftPlus, or BlogVault automate the backup process, ensuring you have a secure copy of your website in case of unexpected issues.

However, it’s important to remember that even the most reliable backup solutions can malfunction without notice. That’s why you should manually run your backup plugin periodically to create a complete backup of your website.

After running the backup, verify that your backup files are stored securely in your chosen remote location, such as Dropbox or Google Drive.

For detailed guidance, check out our guide on how to backup your WordPress site.

3. Check and Update All WordPress Files

WordPress boasts a built-in update system for managing updates to the core software, plugins, and themes. You should always update to the latest versions of WordPress, plugins, and themes to benefit from the latest features, security patches, and bug fixes.

However, there are occasions when updates might be missed. For instance, if a premium plugin or theme’s license expires, it may no longer check for updates automatically.

Therefore, it’s a good practice to manually check for updates periodically.

Visit the WordPress Updates Page: Access the Updates page in your WordPress dashboard to check for any pending updates.
Review Plugins and Themes: Inspect all your installed plugins and themes. Ensure they are running the latest versions. If not, document the reason for not updating.

4. Check and Delete Spam Comments

Akismet, a popular spam-filtering plugin, automatically shields your comment moderation queue from spam comments. However, there are instances where Akismet might mistakenly mark a legitimate comment as spam.

You should regularly review the spam comments folder to ensure that no genuine comments have been incorrectly flagged.

Review Spam Comments: Browse through the spam comments section in your WordPress dashboard.
Delete Spam Comments: Safely delete any spam comments you find. If you have a large number of spam comments, consider batch-deleting them using the WordPress interface.

While this task won’t directly boost your website’s performance, it ensures that you don’t miss authentic comments from your visitors.

5. Test All Your WordPress Forms

WordPress form builder plugins like WPForms streamline the process of creating stunning forms on your website. However, due to misconfiguration on your WordPress hosting server or email service provider, these forms might suddenly stop sending emails.

It’s vital to regularly test all forms on your website to ensure their functionality.

Submit Forms: Submit each form on your website to test whether it sends email notifications correctly.
Troubleshoot Issues: If any form isn’t working, refer to our guide on fixing the WordPress not sending email issue for troubleshooting steps.

As a best practice, consider using the WP Mail SMTP plugin. It offers email logging and alerts you if an email fails to send.

6. Optimize Your WordPress Database

WordPress stores a significant amount of data in its database. This database contains your content, comments, users, and settings, which are critical to your website’s operation.

Over time, the database can accumulate unnecessary data, leading to larger backup sizes and potentially affecting the speed of backups.

Optimizing your WordPress database helps clean up clutter, defragment tables, and improve database performance.

For comprehensive instructions, check out our guide on how to optimize your WordPress database with one click.

7. Run Performance Tests

Many website owners optimize their WordPress site for performance during the initial setup but forget about it as time passes.

As your website evolves, with new content, plugins, and potentially theme changes, its performance can be impacted.

Faster websites enhance user experience and positively influence your SEO rankings. Therefore, regular performance reviews are critical.

When evaluating your website’s performance, go beyond your homepage. Test your most popular content and essential pages.

For detailed guidance on boosting WordPress speed and performance, follow our step-by-step guide: Boosting WordPress Speed and Performance.

8. Find and Fix 404 Errors

A 404 error page appears when a user tries to access a page that doesn’t exist on your website.

While 404 errors resulting from typos are normal, 404 errors due to missing or deleted pages can be frustrating for visitors and negatively impact user experience.

If you aren’t already tracking 404 error pages, our guide on how to easily track 404 error pages in WordPress and redirect them can help you.

9. Find and Fix Broken Links

As your website grows, you might find that some external websites you linked to in older articles are no longer available. They may have moved to new locations or ceased to exist.

Broken links aren’t limited to external links. You could accidentally add broken images, poorly formatted links, or misspell your own links. These issues can frustrate your visitors and negatively impact user engagement.

Include checking for broken links as part of your regular WordPress maintenance routine. For detailed instructions, refer to our guide on how to find and fix broken links in WordPress.

10. Perform a Thorough Content and SEO Audit

A crucial aspect of regular WordPress maintenance is a thorough in-depth review of your website’s content. This is where data from Google Search Console and Google Analytics becomes valuable.

Google Analytics provides insights into where your visitors originate from and their actions on your website. This data helps you identify content with high traffic but low conversion rates, indicating areas for improvement.

Google Search Console’s Performance page reveals search keywords for which your website appears in search results. You can sort this data to find keywords where your website can easily rank higher by updating those articles.

If you use All in One SEO, you can assign a specific keyword as your focus keyphrase. All in One SEO provides a True SEO Score and specific optimization tips.

Even with a high SEO score, your content can always be enhanced. Try adding new information, incorporating images, and linking to it from other pages on your website.

For a comprehensive guide to WordPress SEO, follow our ultimate step-by-step guide for beginners: WordPress SEO for Beginners.

Pro Tip: Tools like Semrush can automate website audits. We use Semrush at WPBeginner for our own website audits.

11. Optimize Images on Your WordPress Site

Images take longer to load than text, increasing your website’s page load time. While you might find some overly large images during your website’s performance checks, you might miss them in less popular articles, especially on multi-author websites.

Reviewing your images and media library helps you stay on top of image optimization.

Check Image Sizes: Inspect your media library for images that are overly large.
Reduce Image Size: Reduce the size of large images without compromising quality. Use a tool like TinyPNG or your image editor’s optimization features.

For more information, refer to our guide on how to save images optimized for the web.

12. Review WordPress Security Logs

Some WordPress users are unaware of attacks on their websites until they notice slow performance or a drop in search rankings.

We’ve already discussed security measures like changing passwords and creating manual backups as proactive steps. You should also review your website’s access and error logs to detect any unusual activity.

Consider adding a security audit plugin to your website. Sucuri and MalCare are reputable website security companies that offer website firewalls to safeguard against common threats.

For a complete security audit of your WordPress site, follow the instructions in our ultimate WordPress security guide: WordPress Security Guide.

13. Troubleshoot Maintenance Tasks

While most WordPress website maintenance tasks are harmless and won’t disrupt your website’s normal operation, some might temporarily slow down your website. This includes tasks like checking for broken links or running an image optimizer plugin.

If you have a staging site, you can perform these tasks on your staging site and then push them live. However, most WordPress users don’t use staging sites.

In such cases, you should expect a temporarily slower site and some potential errors. Here’s how to manage these scenarios:

Maintenance Mode: Put your WordPress site in maintenance mode to avoid interrupting visitors while you perform maintenance tasks.
Low-Traffic Hours: Schedule maintenance tasks during off-peak hours when your website’s traffic is minimal.

If you encounter any issues during maintenance, consult our guide on fixing common WordPress errors. If the error isn’t listed there, follow the steps in our WordPress troubleshooting guide: WordPress Troubleshooting Guide. These resources will help you pinpoint the problem and find a solution.

Want to Delegate Website Maintenance?

If you’d rather not worry about website maintenance and troubleshooting errors, consider hiring a WordPress support agency to handle it for you.

WPBeginner Pro Services offers affordable WordPress Maintenance Packages. These packages include a dedicated account manager who will monitor and maintain your website 24/7. They’ll perform tasks like routine backups, core WordPress updates, plugin and theme updates, uptime monitoring, security monitoring, and more.

Visit our WordPress Maintenance page to choose a package that suits your needs.

Conclusion

Regular WordPress maintenance is an investment in your website’s health and longevity. By taking the time to perform these essential tasks, you ensure a smooth and secure website experience for your visitors.

Remember, prevention is better than cure. A proactive maintenance approach helps prevent major issues from arising and keeps your website running at its best.

If you’re interested in learning more about tech news, feel free to visit my website: www.naveedahmed.me.

FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions About WordPress Maintenance

How often should I perform WordPress maintenance?

For busy websites with high traffic and frequent updates, aim for maintenance tasks every 3 months. For smaller websites with low traffic and infrequent updates, every 6 months is sufficient. However, a quick monthly checkup is also recommended.

What are the most important WordPress maintenance tasks?

Some of the most critical tasks include changing passwords, creating backups, updating WordPress and plugins, testing forms, and optimizing your database. Security measures like reviewing logs and implementing security plugins are also crucial.

How do I create a backup of my WordPress website?

You can use a backup plugin like Duplicator, UpdraftPlus, or BlogVault to automate the process. You can also manually create backups using FTP or your hosting control panel. Remember to store backups in a secure remote location.

How do I update WordPress and plugins?

WordPress has a built-in update system. Access the Updates page in your dashboard to check for and install updates. You can also manually check for updates for plugins and themes from their respective plugin or theme pages.

How do I optimize my WordPress database?

Use a plugin like WP-Optimize or a tool provided by your hosting company. These tools clean up unnecessary data, defragment tables, and improve database performance.

What are some good WordPress security plugins?

Sucuri, MalCare, Wordfence, and iThemes Security are popular and effective security plugins. These plugins offer features like website firewalls, malware scanning, and security hardening.

How do I find and fix broken links on my website?

Use a broken link checker tool like Broken Link Checker or a similar plugin. These tools scan your website for broken links and provide you with the information needed to fix them.

How do I perform a content and SEO audit?

Review your website’s content and SEO using tools like Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and an SEO plugin like All in One SEO. Analyze your website’s performance, identify areas for improvement, and update content accordingly.

How do I optimize images for the web?

Use a tool like TinyPNG or your image editor’s optimization features to reduce image file sizes without sacrificing quality. This helps improve page load times and overall website performance.

What should I do if I encounter errors during maintenance?

Consult our guide on fixing common WordPress errors or our WordPress troubleshooting guide. If you can’t find a solution, consider contacting your hosting provider or a WordPress support agency for assistance.

What are some good WordPress caching plugins?

W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, WP Rocket, and Cache Enabler are popular and effective caching plugins. These plugins improve website performance by storing website data in a cache, reducing server load and improving page load times.

Remember, regular WordPress maintenance is an ongoing process. By consistently performing these tasks, you create a strong foundation for your website’s success.

If you have any questions or need further guidance, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I’m always happy to help.