You have set up your WordPress website because you have a particular need. You must, therefore, ensure that you take good care of it so that you can get maximum functionality out of it. It does not make any sense for you to spend time and money and have to keep on calling in the experts because your site keeps getting errors or crashing. Managing your WordPress website will save you a lot of money because you get to preempt problems. Some of the management aspects include doing security scans, backing up your data, paying attention to SEO, having the right plugins, and extensions, among others. We will go into the whole aspect of website management in our article below. And will share some fantastic tips that you can use.

What Does Maintaining A WordPress Site Entail?

You should not, for one moment, think that your job is over once you set up the WordPress website. That is just the foundation, and you must now take care of it. You will undertake tasks such as updating plugins, themes, core, among others. You must also have a good backup strategy in place and keep up with the updates. You need to do this to ensure that the website is performing as it should.

You can manage the WordPress website yourself or hire a web developer to do it for you. The advantage of hiring someone with the right expertise is that you can be sure that what they do will save you a lot of trouble. It also takes the burden off your shoulders, because someone else is handling the tasks for you. The disadvantage is that you will have to part with some money. If you do not have the right level of knowledge to do the website management on your own, you should consider it a worthy investment to hire someone.

WordPress Management Tips

WordPress is a fantastic website builder because you have so many features that will help in setting up your site. You must, however, manage it well so that you get long-term usage out of it. It is essential that you do it for better administration, getting traffic to your website, and strengthening the overall security. We will explore some of the management tasks you can undertake to manage a WordPress website effectively. Whether you are doing it for your website or a client, you will find our tips below, especially helpful.

1. Have The Right Hosting Provider

The type of web hosting provider you choose is essential for the running of your website. You must look at factors such as security because it will determine the vulnerability of the site. WordPress is excellent because it pays a lot of attention to security features, but there is still the possibility of a bridge. If you are currently on a shared hosting server, think about account isolation so that you protect the WordPress site.

There are hosting services that are dedicated to WordPress websites. They ensure that they have malware detection and firewalls that they have optimized according to the WordPress requirements.

You can also significantly ease the burden of managing your website by opting for managed hosting. The provider will give you a range of services that are specific to WordPress, thus allowing for greater efficiency on the side. They are in charge of all management aspects such as installation, server configuration, backup, and updates, among others. It does come at a cost, but you should consider it a worthy investment because you save a lot of valuable time by not having to do the managing your own.

2. Dashboard Management

If you have a situation where multiple users manage your website, you should enable the tracking of the Dashboard activity.  It will help with the systematic logging or any events that are occurring on the side. You must note the behavior of all the users so that you can backtrack any of the activities when an error occurs.  You also have the relevant information for future use especially around maintenance

Tracking also helps correlate user action and generate appropriate responses. You get better site security because you can classify behavior separately. It allows you to correct any areas that may be prone to faults in a timely manner.

Related Read: Top 10 Tools To Track User Activities On WordPress Website

3. Understand Your Client’s Needs

You are managing a WordPress site for a client, ensure you understand their needs properly. Different clients of different requirements and there are no one way of handling all your clients.  You must tailor-make the designs to suit the particular needs that your clients have. There are many tools online that will help with the design aspects such as portfolio designs, blog content, among others.

4. Manage Comments

We all know how essential comments can be to a business.  The positive ones have the potential of bringing you clients, while the negative ones can bring down your business. You will, therefore, find that you are spending a lot of time moderating comments. You have the option of switching them off, but you must realize that doing so can be detrimental in a sense. You do not get to know what people are thinking about your content. You also miss out on vital feedback that could help you improve upon what you are doing.

Your other option is to filter the comments for spam. WordPress has plugins such as Akismet that you can use to do this. It comes as a default setting, but you will need a product key to turn it on.

5. Keep A Clean Sidebar

It is not uncommon to find sidebars that contain too much information. It becomes an easy place to put everything, including links, images, advertisements, and tweets, among others. The result is that anyone who is on your website will find it challenging to navigate through what you have. The result is that most people will leave the site quickly because of the clutter.

Keep your sidebar clean by prioritizing the information you put on it. Think about the end-user and only have what is relevant so that your website visitors have a seamless experience when on the site. Declutter the sidebar by removing unnecessary widgets.

6. Think About The Permalinks

The right use of permalinks will enhance your SEO. Pay attention to the kind of descriptions you have for them.  You must make the work of the search engines easier by using concise, short keywords. It will enhance the readability of the website, thus attracting more people to it.

7. Plugins And Extensions

Plugins and extensions are essential for better performance of your website. You must, however, be careful about the number you download because they can impact the overall running of the site. Some of them consume a lot of bandwidth, while others have a cost implication to them, which could make the running of the website expensive. One good tip is to choose those that can perform multiple as opposed to specific tasks. You end up downloading fewer extensions or plugins and also reduce the chances of security breaches.

8. Backup Your Sides

It is unfortunately quite common for websites to have errors or even crash. It would, however, be devastating to lose all your data because you did not do a backup. Even in the cases where you are security is compromised, you can revert the website to where it was as per the last save.

9. Media Library Searches

Many people feel that they can manage their systems better if they have multiple folders. Yet, you will have better functionality if you have one media library instead. Use the right keywords so that anytime you are searching for a particular file, you can find it easily by typing the keyword into the query box. If you want to create a media library, you must disable the organize files into the month of year-based folders. You will find it in the settings and media section.

You can easily do it with WordPress media management plugins. For that, you can add WPFileo WordPress Plugin. It is an amazing plugin that quickly organizes your website media as well as you can customize it easily.

10. Description And Title Enhancement

Anytime you want to promote your website content on social media platforms, you will require adequate descriptions and titles. It gives the uses information on what it is you are presenting. You can also determine whether what it is relevant to their query or not. It is essential that you prioritize search engine optimization (SEO) by adding relevant keywords to help with searches.

11. Clearly Define User Roles

User Activity Log PRO – Role Manager

Where there are multiple users, you must clearly define each person’s role. It will also determine the level of access you give them. There are different users, including the administrator, who is like the overall in charge. He can add, edit, and delete anything on the website, including articles, themes, among others. The editor can edit and publish posts, including those of others. And the author can edit and publish posts but only their own. A contributor will submit and edit posts for approval from the editor or administrator.

The subscribers can edit the profiles but nothing else. The main reason why you need to define the roles is so that you avoid situations where someone takes on a task they do not understand and end up messing up your site. It also streamlines the back-end operations if everyone sticks to what they are supposed to do.

12. Install Your SEO Plugin

Plugins such as WordPress SEO by Yoast will help with search engine optimization. SEO will make you more visible to the search engines. It is also an essential element for your blog articles, product descriptions, among others.

13. Think About Image Use

Images assist with passing relevant content and with search engine optimization. You must, therefore, ensure that you use the right keywords so that they are relevant to the end-users. You get better visibility on the search engines, and the right text tag will assist when the users cannot access the images for whatever reason. Search engines such as Google will use algorithms to identify whether your images and keywords match. You risk penalization if they do not, ensure whatever keywords you use have a close association with the pictures.

14. Security Checks

The online hacker is always looking for an opportunity to access your data. They will, therefore, look for any kind of loopholes that they can use to do their dirty work. Some of the vulnerable areas include plugins, core files, and extensions, among others. You must do a security check so that you prevent any incident that could lead to hacking and loss of data. Security scanners or security plugins will analyze the website elements to determine whether they are as they should be. If the scanner notices any unwanted changes, it will alert you, thus allowing you sufficient time to arrest and prevent further damage.

15. Content Management

You need good content on the website, but you must also manage it so that you get the most out of it. The type of content you have will determine the amount of traffic to get to your website. You must, therefore, have relevant, unique content that adds value to the end-user. Be consistent with the Publishing and manage the comments and subscribers. You can do this management aspect by installing the right themes and plugins.

Useful Read: Why Your Business Needs Content Marketing Strategy? (Beginner’s Guide)

Final Thoughts

Setting up your WordPress website is just the first step. You must manage it well so that you continue to keep your website in good running order. Pay attention to the web host provider you choose because it will determine how well your website runs. You must pay attention to the plugins you download so that you get additional functionality resulting in better user experience.

Pay attention to the security aspects So that you avoid any breaches due to hackers. Backup your content because sometimes your website can have some errors that could lead to the loss of data. It could also crash, and you must find a way to get back your site in running order as soon as possible. Use our web WordPress website management tips above as a guideline, but continue to educate yourself so that you get the best out of the platform.