It isn't enough to create a WordPress site. You should also keep up with some WordPress upkeep.
It might be upsetting to believe that your site's work isn't finished after you've invested so much time in it. It hasn't even started yet. It does not, however, have to be a hassle.
In this piece, I'll go over some WordPress maintenance best practices and give you some pointers on how to improve it. I'll also give a guide on hiring someone to do it for you, as well as a review of some of the finest WordPress support companies.
Activating Maintenance Mode for Your WordPress Site
Putting your WordPress site in maintenance mode isn't something you'll do every day, but it's something you'll need to do from time to time, so you should know what it entails.
When you put your site in maintenance style, you're notifying visitors and search engines that it's presently inaccessible, but that the outage is scheduled and temporary (i.e. your site isn't down).
WordPress will automatically enter maintenance style when you upgrade WordPress or a theme or plugin (stuck in maintenance style? Use this guide to fix it. You've probably seen the screen that pops up when you do this: it's a little perplexing.
To display a notice reading "Briefly offline for planned maintenance," WordPress utilizes a file called.maintenance. Soon, give it another go.”
On a blank paper, this statement is minimal yet encouraging. However, it would be good if it provided more information to visitors and was customized to match your website.
This is why, when you're working on your site, it's a good idea to install a maintenance style plugin to put it into maintenance mode and offer additional information to visitors.
The Coming Soon Page & Maintenance style plugin allows you to design a maintenance mode page that fits your brand and provides more information to visitors about what's going on. You may also use it to create a "coming soon" page and gather email addresses to inform people when your site goes live while you're still creating it.
If you're performing any maintenance on your site (such as installing an update), I recommend turning on maintenance mode first so that your site doesn't appear to be broken. And, if your site ever breaks, put it in maintenance mode so that the rest of the world can't see what you're working on.
Keeping a Backup of Your WordPress Site
Keeping your WordPress site backed up is one of the most critical elements of managing it.
If you use Kinsta, your site will be backed up automatically on a regular basis, and you can quickly reinstall an older version of your site if something goes wrong.
If you don't have access to this, you'll need to install and setup a backup plugin so that you can have automated backups on a regular basis.
If your WordPress site is hacked or goes down, you'll be able to quickly restore a previous version. This provides you a great deal of peace of mind.
If you're performing site maintenance, such as updating the theme, adding plugins, or doing anything else, it's best to take a manual backup beforehand, either through the MyKinsta dashboard or using your backup plugin. You may then restore your site if the work you perform damages it.
Updating and Maintaining Your WordPress Site
Keeping your WordPress site up to date is another important element of managing it. This involves upgrading WordPress as well as themes and plugins on a regular basis.
What are the Benefits of Plugin Updates
This is done for three reasons:
• Patches for security issues are included in most updates. If these are enabled, your website will be more secure.
• Updating your theme or plugins guarantees that you have the most up-to-date functionality.
• Some upgrades to themes and plugins are necessary to ensure compatibility with the most recent release, so upgrading assures that your site will run smoothly.
Regular updates can be done manually or automatically to save time and effort.
In any case, it's a good practice to test any modifications on your staging site before deploying them to your live site to ensure that they don't break anything. All of Kinsta's hosting plans feature staging sites, allowing you to test plugin and theme changes, as well as core upgrades, before deploying them to your live site.
Unused Themes and Plugins are being removed from the site.
If you delete any inactive themes or plugins, keeping your site up to date will be much easier. Every theme or plugin you have installed on your site is an additional source of possible incompatibility or vulnerability, so only use the themes and plugins you need.
So, if you install a theme or plugin to try it out and subsequently deactivate it to make room for another, make sure you uninstall it as quickly as possible.
WordPress Maintenance: Maintaining the Security of Your WordPress Website
Keeping your WordPress site safe is critical to avoiding hackers and other security breaches.
You can rest certain that security is a priority with Kinsta hosting. So much so that Kinsta includes a security guarantee with each plan, guaranteeing that your site will be repaired if something goes wrong.
It's also a good idea to take efforts to safeguard your own website. Always use strong passwords, maintain your plugins and themes up to date, avoid downloading free themes or plugins from places other than the official plugin or theme directory, and make sure other user accounts on your site are well-managed (more of which shortly).
If you don't use Kinsta hosting, a security plugin can help you keep track of security threats and breaches, as well as what you need to do to address them. Make sure your WordPress site is secure and less vulnerable to hackers by hardening it.
Maintenance: Boosting the Speed of Your WordPress Website
You can rest easy knowing that the essentials of your website are taken care of if it is safe, up to current, and backed up. However, working on enhancing the performance and page speed of your website is also beneficial.
This has two advantages: first, it saves you money.
• A fast-loading site will rank better in search engines, boosting your SEO.
Why A quick site implies fewer people will abandon it before the first page has loaded.
Make sure you choose hosting that is dedicated to performance and uptime to increase your site's performance. Install only recognized plugins and themes. Use a performance plugin and/or external tools like Google Page Speed Insights to assess your site's speed on a regular basis.
If your site's performance isn't up to par, you may try switching to better-performing plugins, changing your theme's code, enabling minification, and optimizing pictures and other assets.
You may enhance the performance of your website in the following areas:
• Your database - optimize database tables so WordPress can read them faster.
• Revisions - By optimizing revisions, you may decrease the quantity of unnecessary material in your database while also improving speed.
• Assets – double-check that your theme and plugins properly enqueue scripts and stylesheets.
• Images - modify images before uploading or use an image optimization plugin to prevent loading images that are bigger than they need to be. Consider delivering them using a Content Delivery Network (CDN).
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To enhance performance, Kinsta employs cutting-edge technologies. Clients saw a 200 percent speed boost for their website when compared to other hosting providers.
Problems with Your WordPress Site Troubleshooting
Your WordPress website may have issues from time to time. These might be serious, such as if your site gets hacked or a software upgrade causes the site to malfunction. It might also be small WordPress issues like broken links or graphics that aren't loading properly.
Here are a few resources to assist you in identifying and resolving issues:
• Resolve page not found 404 issues.
• You don't have to comb through your website manually to find broken links.
• When adding images to your media library, fix the http error.
• Use the Fix Media Library plugin to fix database entries for pictures if they aren't loaded.
Comment Modification and User Management
Users, unfortunately, might contribute security and performance concerns to your site.
• Administrators may install unsafe or poorly written plugins or themes.
• Users with the ability to produce and update content on your site may submit photos or other material that cause your site to load slowly.
• Users that leave comments on your site may add bogus links or material, affecting your SEO and perhaps getting you banned.
All admin users must be aware of the importance of security and performance, as well as what they must do to keep your site up and running. Make certain they understand the importance of using secure passwords and installing software from trusted sources. A security plugin or a plugin like WC Password Strength Settings, which is specific to this, will allow you to enforce strong passwords.
Strong passwords are also required for contributors and editors, so that no one can hack your site and upload content you don't want. You will avoid having to educate them if you enforce strong passwords.
Use an image compression plugin to ensure that there are no performance issues if your users upload large images.
Spam can infiltrate your site and, in some cases, cause it to load slowly. Modify your discussion settings or use a plugin to prevent spam comments. You can also use a third-party commenting system or tweak your discussion settings to prevent comments from slowing down performance.
In addition, you'll have to moderate and respond to comments on your website. You can change the discussion settings to receive notifications when new comments are made and to prevent comments from being published until they've been moderated.
It can take a long time to moderate each and every comment before it is posted. You might prefer to set things up so that anyone who has previously had a comment approved can comment without being moderated again. This strikes a balance between preventing spam and encouraging debate while also saving you time. In addition, if you want additional control over comment spam, the Akismet plugin will prevent spam comments from even being flagged for moderation.
Examining the Search Engine Optimization of Your Website
Creating a WordPress site and putting it online isn't enough to build a following or sell items or services. You must entice people to visit your website.
This is where search engine optimization (SEO) enters the picture. An SEO plugin will assist you in improving your SEO, and following top SEO practices will offer you an added advantage. However, auditing and monitoring your SEO on a regular basis might also be beneficial.
One of the finest tools for SEO is Google Search Console. It may help you diagnose SEO issues and provide statistics to assist you discover your best-performing content, see which keywords you're ranking for, and analyze all of your internal and external links.
It's commonly ignored by website owners, but it's absolutely free and will give you with data that will help you enhance your SEO and plan your content strategy more strategically. Make sure you read up on Bing Webmaster Tools in our comprehensive tutorial.
Accuranker is a program that may help you track your search engine rankings and detect and rectify any issues. It will also assist you in determining which keywords you are already ranking for and which ones require more attention.
You may also perform a technical SEO audit to see what is working and what needs to be changed for your SEO.
Logging Errors and Monitoring Activity
Finally, one of the less exciting elements of site monitoring is reviewing error logs and monitoring site activity.
You'll get alerted if something unusual occurs on your site, such as a new user being added unexpectedly or files being posted that shouldn't be. It will also assist you in managing your material and ensuring that your posts are published on time.
The WP Security Audit Log plugin adds a panel to your admin that keeps track of every site activities.
This way, you can quickly see what's going on and see any possible problems.
You should also keep an eye on any issues on your site so that you can address them as soon as feasible. Here are some resources that might assist you:
• MyKinsta analytics will assist you in monitoring and troubleshooting any issues with your website.
• Query Monitor will debug your site and find things like sluggish database queries, REST API requests, and hooks triggering, among other things. This will assist you in determining the root of any issues.
• You may troubleshoot and debug any WordPress difficulties by viewing raw WordPress error logs or activating error logs in the wp-config.php file.
Using these tools might help you avoid difficulties in the future, so instead of reacting when your site goes down or stops operating correctly, you can take proactive steps to keep things running smoothly.
Premium WordPress Help is an investment.
All of this may appear to be a significant amount of effort. Much of the labor involved in managing your website may be automated. You can run automated security checks on your store, schedule automatic backups, and configure updates to run automatically.
However, you must still set up everything. You must spend the time necessary to check for any problems. It's possible that you'll need to repair them as well.
That's why hiring WordPress maintenance experts can be beneficial.
Paying for maintenance & Support: Advantages and Disadvantages of WordPress
You will relieve yourself of a burden by paying for premium WordPress support and maintenance. It will give you the peace of mind that your site is being monitored and any problems that arise are being addressed by experts.
It does not necessitate any knowledge of website security, error logs, or 404 pages on your part. It means you can focus on what you do best: creating website content and running your company.
Maintenance: However, there are some drawbacks
It can be expensive to begin with. It also means you'll miss out on the chance to learn more about your site and how it functions. And entrusting your valuable website to the hands of a stranger can be frightening if you prefer to be in control.
As a result, you may choose to outsource some of this work or use a hosting provider like Kinsta to handle some of it for you. You might decide to outsource the aspects of site maintenance that you don't know much about or that will put your site at risk if you don't do them.
Kinsta offers a variety of maintenance and support services.
If you have a Kinsta hosting plan, you can avoid having to hire another provider for some of your WordPress maintenance and security needs.
• Because of cutting-edge security, your site is unlikely to be hacked. Kinsta will repair it if it has been hacked.
• Automatic backups ensure that if something goes wrong, you can easily restore your site to a previous version, and they make it simple to do so with just one click.
• Using a staging environment allows you to make changes to your site and test them without putting it at risk: test everything first in staging, then copy it to live.
• If you use a site with a speed-obsessive architecture, you won't have to worry about performance as long as you manage it properly.
• With regular uptime checks (every two minutes), you can rest assured that your site will not go down without warning.
• Multilingual support available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, which means you can ask us questions at any time and we'll either help you solve a problem or show you how to do it.
These features will help you avoid site maintenance headaches and save you a lot of time when it comes to WordPress maintenance for your site (client sites).
Support and WordPress Maintenance Services: The Best Providers
It's critical to find a provider you can trust if you decide to hire professionals. This is why we've put together a list of WordPress maintenance and support companies with whom we've worked and trust.
One or more of the following companies may be able to help you: Although everyone is unique, you should be able to find someone who can assist you.
WP Buffs are a team that plays in the World Series of Poker.
WP Buffs bills themselves as providing "24/7 WordPress website maintenance services for serious website owners and white-label partners."
They provide site monitoring and support, as well as enhanced security, performance optimization, weekly theme and plugin updates, and advanced support for WooCommerce and more complex sites. They also run a podcast and have a fantastic WordPress blog.
WordPress agencies, freelancers, and professionals can also use their white-label support program to provide 24/7 support for their clients while also earning recurring revenue on a monthly basis. WP Mastery's white-label program earns Jan Koch four-figure monthly profits, while Rigorous Digital's profit margin has increased by 23%.
SkyRocketWP is a second-place finisher.
Along with hosting from Kinsta, SkyRocketWP provides maintenance and support services. That hosting is completely managed, with round-the-clock monitoring and assistance, and any security concerns will be addressed as soon as they emerge.
Daily backups, site optimization, performance, and uptime monitoring are also available, as well as hack protection, malware detection and removal, and a page load speed guarantee.
When you sign up with SkyRocketWP, you'll get Kinsta hosting as well as complete site administration.
3. Programmable
Codeable brings something new to the table. Rather from providing assistance and maintenance, they connect you with WordPress freelancers that can assist you in maintaining and developing your site.
They'll be able to connect you with a WordPress developer who can help you with theme development, custom plugins, theme customisation, or custom integrations.
You deposit the money of your project with Codeable when you choose a freelancer, and it is only paid to the freelancer after you designate the job as finished.
4. Press the WP button
ClickWP claims to ‘make WordPress enjoyable again' by providing WordPress assistance so you can focus on operating your site.
They provide hosting with their website starting packages, which simplifies the design process. They offer pre-made designs (called themes) that you may tweak and add your own material to, or you can have them create standard pages for you. Their service is meant to make the process of creating a website easier for those who are new to it.
They also provide support: for a monthly subscription, they will answer your WordPress queries and assist you with activities that do not need coding or development.
5. Valet parking
Valet is a service geared at assisting you in creating a website that is "healthy, wealthy, and wise." They provide a custom solution for larger companies that wish to avoid the hassles of owning and maintaining a WordPress site.
You'll be assigned a team of specialists based on your needs when you employ them: developers, engineers, WordPress experts, and other digital professionals.
WordXpress is number six.
WordXpress provides WordPress support and maintenance 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They'll make adjustments to your site as needed and work on your SEO in addition to managing things like upgrades and security.
They provide three tiers of help, ranging from basic security and monitoring to comprehensive website management.
mintWP is number seven.
mintWP includes comprehensive WordPress maintenance as part of all of their subscriptions, as well as Kinsta Hosting.
They deal with individuals and freelancers on any WordPress project. They also provide a complete white-label agency solution that includes Kinsta site setup, ongoing maintenance, and 24/7 support. This frees up time for site owners and agencies to focus on their primary business.
mintWP continues to provide value by including new features as standard in all plans each month, lowering expenses for freelancers and agencies all around the world.
Newt Labs (number 8)
Newt Labs is a UK-based firm that offers a solution to help you manage your WordPress site more efficiently.
Fixing problems with your site, keeping it updated and backed up, and patching and monitoring security risks are all included in our services. Managed WordPress hosting targeted at boosting site performance, as well as premium plugins to assist make your site more effective, are included in their plans.
GoWP is number nine.
GoWP is a WordPress maintenance and support company that works on a white label basis. Their services are geared at agencies, and they represent themselves as a team extension.
They'll assist you in managing and maintaining client sites by providing content changes, backups, security scans, malware patches, and a white label maintenance dashboard plugin that you may personalize to match your brand.
If you're a web design or development firm with clients that want hosting and support but don't have the time or resources to provide it, GoWP may be able to assist you.
WPCurve is number ten.
WPCurve's services include not only routine maintenance and security, but also tips on how to get the most out of your website.
They'll provide you advice on how to enhance your site's conversion rates, lower your bounce rate, and boost traffic, in addition to bug repairs, monitoring, and upgrades. They have employees all around the world who can reply to your emailed job requests and assist you in making your site operate harder and more consistently.
11. Keep it up
Maintainn provides WordPress assistance and maintenance from ‘real people.'
Backups, frequent updates, and security monitoring and patches are all available. They'll also address any faults with the content or configuration of your website. They have a team of well-known WordPress specialists on staff, and they provide development and hosting in addition to maintenance.
WPSiteCare (WPSiteCare)
WPSiteCare prides itself on being "the original and finest WordPress support business" (a big claim!).
Security monitoring, automatic backups, performance optimization, and SEO help are among their offerings. They also provide a program for agencies that helps with client site administration and offers coaching to help you get the most out of your WordPress site.
FixRunner is number thirteen.
Automated cloud backups, uptime and security monitoring, speed optimization, and personal WordPress support are all available with FixRunner. They will respond to and resolve any difficulties on your site, and you will not be charged until the job is completed.
WPMaintainer
Theme and plugin updates, automated backups, Sucuri security monitoring, free migrations, theme and plugin compatibility assistance, and discounted development expenses are all included in WPMaintainer's plans (suggested reading: Powerful WordPress Migration Plugins).
You may engage their developers for extra work at a discounted fee if you sign up for a regular plan with them, allowing you the freedom to have your site maintained on a regular basis while also developing it as needed.
15. WP technical assistance
WP tech support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to help you with your WordPress website. If you have a security breach, they will figure out what went wrong and fix it for you.
They also provide continuous website security maintenance programs. They will do frequent manual checks of your site to guarantee it is not susceptible, in addition to keeping it up to date and backed up. You may see the reviews' reports through their customer portal. They also collaborate with other organizations.
WPSitePlan is number sixteen.
WPSitePlan is a WordPress maintenance and support company headquartered in the United States. Their Basic plan offers daily backups, uptime monitoring, database optimization, security scanning, updates, and monthly reporting, while their Advanced plan includes daily backups, uptime monitoring, database optimization, security scanning, updates, and monthly reporting.
Unlimited help desk assistance, WooCommerce support, comprehensive malware eradication, and daily site scans are all included in their premium package.
WPFixIt
WPFixIt provides fast WordPress help 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They provide a menu of services for which they charge a set cost in addition to continuing plans.
General assistance, virus eradication, performance optimization, site tune-up, and a WooCommerce checkup are among the services offered.
They also provide monthly maintenance, which includes complete website administration, security monitoring, daily backups, and site upgrades.
WPButler
The WPButler bills themselves as ‘TLC for WordPress.' They will maintain, support, and monitor your site on a regular basis, as well as resolve any issues.
If your site has difficulties, we can restore it from a backup, improve security, monitor uptime, and do automated backups.
They provide a variety of programs geared at various types of businesses. The most expensive package includes monthly site inspections and 30-minute development time. They also provide a monthly retainer option where you may pay for development time in advance.
FixMySite (19.)
FixMySite's service is designed to assist you in rapidly resolving any issues with your WordPress site.
With a money-back guarantee, they provide on-demand website help. Making minor modifications to your site, restoring a hacked site, transferring sites, and resolving theme or plugin incompatibilities are all examples of fixes.
FixMyWP is number twenty-first on the list.
FixMyWP also provides an on-demand solution for troubleshooting WordPress issues.
They can restore a compromised site, alter a damaged theme, or replace a malfunctioning plugin. Updates, spam cleaning, database optimization, backups, and email assistance are all included in their monthly maintenance plans.
TotalWPSupport is number twenty-one.
TotalWPSupport is a WordPress support and maintenance company that provides a variety of services. They will protect your site and solve any risks, as well as take backups, update themes, plugins, and the WordPress core, and monitor your site 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
They have a number of options available, with the most expensive including hosting, real-time backups, staging, CDN, SSL, and a dedicated account manager.
More reading: Are you in charge of an online store? Check out our detailed tutorial on how to install an SSL certificate in WooCommerce.
WPKnights (number 22)
WPKnights is a WordPress maintenance and support business managed by a group of WordPress nerds, or Knights, as they prefer to be called.
Aside from standard services like backups, updates, and monitoring, their services emphasize speed and security enhancements. Furthermore, they offer total peace of mind with three self-service options (beginning at $49 per month) that cater to WordPress website owners of all levels.
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They take pride in providing prompt and hands-on customer service as well as developing long-term connections with each client.
Summary
WordPress upkeep is necessary for any website.
You have the option of maintaining and updating your site yourself, automating some of the procedures with plugins, or hiring it out. Which one you pick will be determined by your skill set, resources, and money.
But whatever you do, don't forget about site maintenance: if you don't, your website may become insecure. As a result, it will cease attracting visitors and start converting them.
You'll appreciate Kinsta's WordPress hosting platform if you liked this post. Our experienced WordPress staff will help you boost your website and provide assistance 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our infrastructure, which is powered by Google Cloud, prioritizes scalability, performance, and security. Allow us to demonstrate the Kinsta difference!
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