WooCommerce website management involves many activities beyond product management, order fulfillment, and content management. If you are running a WooCommerce store, make sure to maintain it regularly. In this blog post, we have shared a few checkpoints that you must conduct periodically to ensure the best possible performance of your e-commerce website.
1. Check Website Loading Speed
The loading speed of a WooCommerce website is essential for its success. According to various online studies, even a few seconds of delay can affect an e-commerce store’s overall sales. Given this, you must include your WooCommerce loading speed as the first checkpoint of your web maintenance process.
How to test your WooCommerce store for loading speed?
There are many free online tools, such as https://tools.pingdom.com and https://gtmetrix.com, that can scan your site and show you its loading speed.
2. Test the Checkout Process
The checkout process of a WooCommerce store, or of an e-commerce store for that matter, is the backbone of the business. A minor glitch can stop users from checking out and result in losses. Even if your website has a glitch-free checkout system at present, you must keep checking it every few weeks because it may stop working for technical reasons, such as plugin conflicts, outdated PHP versions, etc.
3. Update Plugins Safely
When you see a notification to update your WooCommerce plugins, don’t just click randomly; update them carefully. Any incorrect update can affect your website, especially if a plugin customized by your web developer is updated without proper arrangements, which can bring your website down or affect some of its essential features. Perhaps, if you can, it would be good to hire a WooCommerce developer to maintain your online store regularly.
4. Update WordPress, Theme & PHP Version
Similar to plugins, updating the WordPress core, themes, and the PHP version on your server is crucial. If you don’t update them regularly, they can slow down your site’s performance, and in some cases, compromise it.
5. Scan for Malware
Nothing breaks users’ trust more than an unsecured online store. Before it’s too late and your website becomes vulnerable, it’s recommended that you regularly scan it for malware and viruses. And if you find that your website is infected with malware, you must hire a web developer immediately who can repair and remove the malware from your WooCommerce store.
Use a plugin like “All in One WP Security” or “Wordfence” to scan your site for malware.
6. Check Critical WooCommerce Pages/Sections
Below are some of the critical pages/sections of your WooCommerce store that you must check regularly:
– Cart page
– Checkout page
– Payment gateway integration
– Discount coupons
7. Clear Cache & Optimize Database
Every WooCommerce store must have a cache plugin, such as WP Fastest Cache” or “WP Super Cache,” to clear the website cache regularly. It helps the website render quickly while also allowing users to view updated content. Cache plugins help your website remove old scripts and optimize database queries, which speed up page load times. When you hire a website manager to maintain your site, they will ensure the database is cleaned and optimized to improve your online store’s performance.
8. Test Payment Gateways
Even if everything works well on your WooCommerce site, if the payment gateway is not working, you will still not get orders from the site. Therefore, it’s necessary to monitor all available methods on your WooCommerce site. Whether it’s PayPal, Stripe, or another payment method, ensure everything works smoothly and facilitates seamless transactions.
9. Verify Email Notifications
Another essential thing to check regularly in your WooCommerce store is the email notifications. All the necessary notifications must be tested, like order confirmation emails, abandoned cart emails, and admin notifications. If email notifications don’t work, make sure your SMTP settings are configured correctly. You can install a plugin like “Post SMTP” or “WP Mail SMTP” to ensure email notifications work properly.
10. Backup Your Website
Last but not least, always ensure to take a complete backup of your e-commerce website every week or every day, depending on the frequency of orders that you receive. When you hire a website agency for your e-commerce web maintenance, they will make sure to back up your website regularly.