As of 2024 around 43.3% of all websites globally are built on WordPress CMS. Considering the scale of websites built through WordPress, how important is the role of WordPress site maintenance becomes?
As per one research, Over 17.68% of WordPress sites are highly vulnerable to malware attacks. 35.3% of WordPress sites are running on an older version & around 13K WordPress sites get hacked daily.
Given these stats, how costly it can be, to not invest in maintaining your WordPress website?
Most website owners simply don’t know when and why their website site needs periodic maintenance.
So the big question is, how do we know if your WordPress site needs maintenance?
What are the tell-tale signs we should not ignore before it’s too late?
In this article, we’ll walk you through the top seven signs that you should not ignore for your WordPress site.
As someone who specializes in WordPress site maintenance and support, we’ve seen firsthand how regular upkeep is vital for keeping your WordPress site in good shape.
Ready? let’s look at the first sign (which most people ignore)
One of the first signs that your WordPress site needs maintenance is slow loading times.
When was the last time you stayed with a website that took longer time to load? Can’t think of any, right?
In today’s uber-fast world, users expect websites to load quickly. If your site takes more than a few seconds to load, visitors are likely to leave and never come back.
Slow-loading sites are like a constant leak in the bucket. No matter how good your website is, if it doesn’t load quickly, you are losing potential customers every second. With every second delay in mobile page load, conversions can fall by up to whooping 20%
It’s not only limited to poor conversion; Google considers site speed as one of its ranking factors. This means a slow-loading site not only pushes your visitors away but hurts your SEO rankings too.
Curious how to speed up your website? We have written an exclusive blog around the topic that might help.
How Regular Maintenance Can Improve Site Speed?
Regular WordPress site maintenance, such as optimizing images, cleaning up the database, and updating plugins and themes, can significantly improve your site’s speed if done periodically.
Another big red flag is frequent downtime. Downtime can be detrimental to your business, as it not only frustrates visitors but also leads to lost revenue.
Imagine a customer trying to purchase on your website, only to find that your site is down. Chances are bleak that the customer would stay for a long.
Downtime leads to losing potential leads and hurts your brand reputation. We don’t want our future customers to contact us with messages like, “Your website is down.”
That’s a bad way to start a customer relationship. It explicitly conveys this –” If you are not serious about your business, how would you be for me?”
It damages trust and doesn’t convey a sense of security to people browsing your website.
So let’s understand what causes downtime in the first place.
What causes downtime?
Downtime can be caused by various factors, such as server issues, plugin conflicts, or even malware injections.
We remember when one of our clients experienced frequent downtime due to an outdated plugin that was no longer compatible with the latest version of WordPress. It might seem like a small issue, but plugin conflicts are real.
The Role of Maintenance in Ensuring Site Reliability
Regular WordPress site maintenance can help you avoid downtime by ensuring that your server, plugins, and themes are all up-to-date and functioning properly.
Monitoring your site for uptime and quickly addressing any issues can keep your site running smoothly.
If you don’t know how to get your website up and running after a severe downtime, we recommend reaching out to an expert WordPress developer who can support you in this area.
Plugins and themes play an important role in a WordPress website, but most of the time, WordPress site owners neglect to keep them updated with the latest versions.
Using a WordPress site with outdated plugins and themes can pose serious security risks and cause compatibility issues. Hackers often exploit vulnerabilities in outdated plugins to gain access to your WordPress site.
Updating plugins and themes is more than just clicking the ‘update’ button. It’s important to take a backup before updating them.
Best practices for updating your plugins and themes is a different topic we will cover another time, but for now, keep this in mind: don’t let your WordPress site run for long periods with outdated plugins and themes.
If you don’t have time to upkeep your plugins and themes, investing in a good WordPress site maintenance plan can take care of your regular updates.
Security is becoming a major concern for WordPress websites. As we read earlier, every day 13,000 WordPress websites fall prey to hackers.
Not keeping your WordPress website updated and not investing in a good maintenance plan opens the door to hacking incidents.
What are some common signs of a hacked WordPress site?
Based on our expertise in debugging and recovering countless WordPress sites from malware attacks, we found the following common indications of a hacked WordPress site:
If you are experiencing any of the signs listed above, it is recommended that you get your WordPress site assessed by an expert WordPress developer.
How Regular Maintenance Can Improve Your Site Security?
Regular WordPress site maintenance, such as security scans, malware code removal, and firewall configuration, can help defend your site from these types of cyber attacks.
Furthermore, adopting some basic practices such as changing your admin passwords, using a unique admin slug, and enabling two-factor authentication for each login can help protect your website from hacking attempts in the future.
Imagine you’re browsing your favourite website and stumble across an intriguing blog post that you want to dig deep into. Suddenly, you receive a 404 (Page Not Found) message.
What a disappointment!
Broken links are like bugs hiding under the carpet. You don’t see them on the surface, but if you ignore them long enough, they begin to cause serious harm.
The point is, that broken links are your website’s secret demon. They not only harm the user experience but also hurt SEO rankings.
Why does this happen?
These issues frequently occur when content has been deleted or moved without updating the related links. To avoid such broken links on your website, do a broken link scan once a month.
The Benefits of Routine Checks and Fixes in a Maintenance Plan
Regular WordPress site maintenance involves looking for broken links and missing images to ensure that all content is accessible and properly presented.
There are several tools available that can help you find broken links on your website. The following are a few free broken link checker tools that we use internally to detect broken links on our clients’ websites.
1. Deadlinkchecker
2. AHREFS Broken Link Checker
In 2024, having a mobile-responsive website is no longer optional but a critical aspect of your digital strategy. More & more people are browsing, shopping, and searching for services on their smartphones than ever before.
As per Google, 74% of users are more likely to return to a mobile-friendly site. 90% of users access the internet via their mobile devices daily.
With the increasing usage of mobile devices, having a mobile-friendly site is essential. Google also uses mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor, so a site that isn’t optimized for mobile can suffer in search engine rankings too.
Signs That Your Site Isn’t Mobile Responsive
Here are three main signs that indicate your website might not be mobile responsive.
1. Text and Images Do Not Scale Properly:
2. Navigation is Difficult:
3. Unusable Forms and Input Fields:
Bonus Tip: Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to quickly check if your website meets mobile responsiveness standards.
How Maintenance Ensures Your Site Stays Mobile-Friendly?
Regular WordPress site maintenance is not limited to updating plugins and themes but also includes thoroughly testing your site across various devices to ensure smooth performance and usability on all screen sizes.
It also includes implementing responsive design techniques, such as flexible grids and media queries, to automatically adjust the layout based on the device’s screen size.
Have you ever noticed your website loading super slowly, pages crashing, or buttons not responding? These are signs of performance issues that can annoy visitors and make them leave your site. No one likes waiting around for a slow page to load, right?
Here are some common functional issues to watch out for on your website:
By keeping an eye on these issues and fixing them quickly, you can make sure your website is always working well and looking good for visitors.
How does Maintenance help Maintain Optimal Performance and Functionality?
Regular WordPress site maintenance is like a health check-up for your website. It makes sure everything is running smoothly and efficiently.
This includes tasks like optimizing your database, updating your software, and testing your site on different devices to ensure it looks and works great everywhere.
By doing this regularly, you can keep your site user-friendly and ensure visitors have a positive experience.
In summary, regular WordPress site maintenance is crucial for keeping your WordPress site running smoothly, securely, and efficiently.
It’s like giving your car a tune-up – it keeps everything running smoothly and prevents bigger issues down the road.
By addressing issues such as slow loading times, frequent downtime, outdated plugins and themes, security vulnerabilities, broken links, poor mobile responsiveness, and decreasing performance, you can ensure a positive user experience and protect your investment.
If you’ve noticed any of these signs on your WordPress site, it might be time for a maintenance overhaul. Don’t wait until small issues turn into major problems.
Reach out for a free site audit or consultation today and let us help you keep your WordPress site in top shape.
Take proactive steps now, and your website will thank you later.
