Every WordPress website needs regular maintenance. Whether it’s a corporate or e-commerce website, you must have a proper web maintenance plan in place. Hiring a web developer or agency to handle your web maintenance is a great idea, rather than taking a DIY approach and wondering what tasks web agencies and experts handle under their maintenance service.
In this blog post, we have shared some crucial activities that an agency does when you hire them for your website management.
#1 Scan & Ensure Website Performance
The most important reason that every webmaster hires a developer to maintain their site is to ensure its performance. Over time, the performance of a WordPress website may deteriorate. It could be due to outdated code or obsolete scripts. Therefore, one of the primary roles of a website maintenance agency is to scan websites and optimize them for optimal performance regularly.
The website performance optimization process may include:
- Optimizing images and media by compressing files, converting to next-gen formats, and removing unused media.
- Improving page speed by enabling caching, minimizing CSS/JS, reducing HTTP requests, and optimizing database tables.
- Enhancing server performance through CDN integration, upgrading hosting plans, and monitoring resource usage.
#2 Website Protection
With the increasing number of website hacks & malware injections, it has become more critical than ever to protect the website’s security. Taking care of the website’s security could involve a few technical steps that only experienced developers can perform. It is therefore advisable to hire a professional agency that provides web maintenance services in Singapore to ensure your website’s security.
Here are a few things that your web agency may do:
- Securing the admin dashboard by enforcing strong passwords, enabling two-factor authentication, and restricting admin access by IP.
- Keeping WordPress core secure by updating themes, plugins, and the WP version regularly to patch security vulnerabilities.
- Cleaning unused elements by deleting inactive plugins, unused themes, and leftover demo content that may open backdoors.
- Installing a security firewall plugin to filter malicious traffic, block suspicious bots, and detect intrusion attempts.
- Scanning the website weekly using malware scanners to detect infected files, suspicious scripts, or injected code.
- Securing the server environment by using the latest PHP version, disabling directory listing, and enforcing strict file permissions.
- Protecting sensitive WP files by securing wp-config.php, disabling XML-RPC, and restricting access to critical core directories.
- Backing up the entire site regularly with automated cloud backups to restore quickly in case of hacks or failures.
- Enabling HTTPS security by configuring SSL correctly, forcing HTTPS redirects, and checking for mixed-content vulnerabilities.
#3 Content Update
Another common reason for webmasters to hire a website expert for their WordPress site maintenance is to keep their content up to date. Although WordPress offers a user-friendly backend for webmasters to edit content, most can’t spare enough time to do so. Therefore, they prefer hiring a website developer or agency to manage their website content.
Below are some of the activities that your website manager can do for the content:
- Refreshing outdated website content by updating old blogs, correcting obsolete information, and ensuring accuracy across all pages.
- Adding new content regularly, such as blogs, service pages, FAQs, case studies, and portfolio items, to keep the site active and SEO-friendly.
- Optimizing on-page SEO elements, including meta titles, descriptions, headings, images, and internal links, whenever content is updated.
- Improving user experience by rewriting unclear text, restructuring long paragraphs, and enhancing readability for better engagement.
- Updating promotional elements like banners, CTAs, offers, pricing tables, and testimonials to reflect current campaigns or business changes.
#4 Plugins & Theme Update
Updating the WordPress site’s plugins & its theme is another crucial task that can’t be ignored in website maintenance. Not updating plugins & themes can weaken your website’s security, leading to consequences such as website hacks, malware injections, slow-loading webpages, etc.
The process of plugin/theme update may involve:
- Updating plugins regularly to the latest stable versions to patch security vulnerabilities and improve performance.
- Updating the active theme to ensure compatibility with the latest WordPress and WooCommerce updates.
- Testing updates on a staging site before applying them live to avoid site crashes or unexpected design/functionality issues.
- Removing unused plugins & themes to reduce security risks and lighten server load.
- Monitoring plugin/theme compatibility after each update to ensure nothing breaks, and rolling back safely if issues occur.
#5 WordPress Core Update
Similar to updating each plugin and active theme of a WordPress site, it’s essential to upgrade the WordPress core regularly. Keeping your WordPress core up to date ensures your website always runs on the latest technologies.
Updating WordPress core is easy; however, it’s always recommended to take a complete backup of the website before doing so. BTW, taking regular backups of your WordPress site is another service your website agency will provide as part of their web maintenance services.