Spring is the perfect time to give your WordPress website a thorough cleaning, ensuring it’s running smoothly, efficiently, and securely.

Here’s a one-page guide to help you streamline your site and keep it in top shape:

  1. Backup Your Website:
    • Before making significant changes, always create a full, off-site backup of your website.
    • This ensures you can easily restore your site if anything goes wrong during the cleanup process.
  2. Update Everything:
    • Begin by updating WordPress core, themes, and plugins to the latest versions.
    • This ensures you have access to the latest features, bug fixes, and security patches.
    • This should be done weekly, or more often if there are security vulnerabilities found during a security scan.
  3. Declutter Your Plugins and Themes:
    • Review your installed plugins and themes.
    • Remove any that are outdated, unused, or unnecessary.
    • Unused plugins can slow down your site and pose security risks.
  4. Optimize Your Media Library:
    • Clean up your media library by deleting unused images, videos, and files.
    • Compress large images to optimize site speed without sacrificing quality.
  5. Check Your Site’s Speed:
    • Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to analyze your site’s speed performance.
    • Optimize images, leverage caching, and minify CSS and JavaScript to improve loading times.
  6. Review User Permissions:
    • Audit user accounts and permissions.
    • Remove any inactive or unnecessary accounts, and ensure remaining users have appropriate access levels.
  7. Secure Your Website:
    • Update passwords, especially for admin accounts, FTP, and hosting.
    • Implement two-factor authentication for added security.
    • Install a security plugin and configure security settings to protect against threats like malware and hacking attempts.
  8. Improve SEO:
    • Review and update meta titles, descriptions, and keywords to improve search engine visibility.
    • Ensure your site’s sitemap is up-to-date and submit it to search engines like Google and Bing.
  9. Test Your Forms and Contact Information:
    • Verify that all contact forms are functioning correctly and that contact information (email addresses, phone numbers) is accurate and up-to-date.
  10. Check for Broken Links:
    • Use a broken link checker plugin or online tool to identify and fix broken links on your site.
    • Broken links negatively impact user experience and SEO.
  11. Review Your Content:
    • Take the time to review and update your website’s content.
    • Remove outdated information, fix typos, and ensure all content is relevant and engaging.
  12. Monitor Your Website’s Performance:
    • Set up website monitoring tools to receive alerts for downtime, security threats, or other issues.
    • Regularly check your website analytics to track performance and user engagement.
  13. Check Your Website’s Pages in Google Search Console:
    • See if and why certain pages are not being indexed.

While this isn’t a complete list, it’s pretty thorough! If you need help with any of these items, these can all be taken care of by me on a much more frequent basis as a part of my WordPress Website Care Plans. Click here to see what’s included in a care plan and choose a plan that works for you!

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