If you have a WordPress website, then you made a good choice. WordPress is open source which means its development is supported by a huge community of developers constantly updating and improving it at no cost to you. Your WordPress website has the capability to develop and grow to match the growth and development of your business. With WordPress, you’ve got control over your site, which means you can add and amend content yourself as it happens.

However, with control comes responsibility and in particular, maintenance! Just as your business needs nurturing and developing, so does your WordPress website or it will soon become an expensive cost rather than an important investment in your business’ future. So which of these maintenance mistakes are you making with your site?

1.    Not regularly backing up your WP site

It’s easy to forget, especially when there are no problems and everything is going smoothly, but just like with your computer, the first time it fails you realise the importance of making sure just a few minutes were set aside to back up your site. There are a few plugins that do this automatically and they need to be checked regularly that it is still performing backups, especially before you install any updates or add content.

2.    Not updating the latest WP versions and Plugins

It’s easy to think that just because it’s all working fine, there’s no need to do anything with the update notifications that appear in the dashboard. But ignore them and you could be leaving your site vulnerable. As well as including more features and improved usability, updates also contain improved security that will prevent your site from being hacked or compromised.

3.    Not checking for invalid links

Links that go nowhere or to a ‘page not found’ are, at the least, irritating to the reader, but also affect your status with search engines. Links can become bad when pages are removed. It might be from your own site if you’ve been shuffling content around or renaming pages, or it might be an external link to another website, that’s had a make-over or just doesn’t exist any more. They can also slow the page load of your site, particularly if the bad link is to an image or video. So it’s important to check and validate links regularly.

4.    Not making full use of Meta-tags

Meta-tags are the invisible code that search engines use to index the pages within your website. They include title, description, image alt texts, and heading styles, particularly the H1 style. They should contain the keywords and keyword phrases that you want to be found by. The plug-in All-in-one SEO is an easy to use plugin that’s on my recommended plugin list but does need updating as more posts and pages are added.

5.    Not keeping your site current with articles and blog posts

All WordPress websites have the capability of blogging. In fact, WordPress started life as a blogging tool, so take advantage by posting articles and tips. Search engines like fresh content and by posting regular new content, they will keep visiting your site to check for it and help maintain your rankings.