If you have a WordPress blog, then you already know how hard is it to maintain and keep it working. Yes, it’s not same as running a whole company, but if you are generating revenue from your blog, then you can easily compare it. Today we will share with you a few things you should take care of when running a WordPress blog.
One thing is clear if you are thinking of starting a blog – WordPress is the best option in the market right now. Even an internet giant like Google couldn’t keep up with their Blogspot as the competitor. That’s how WordPress is dominating the world of blogging.
But it’s not come easily, and it won’t run smoothly if you don’t take care of your WordPress blog. There are certain things you need to fix or keep in check to make sure your blog would run flawlessly.
Why maintaining a WordPress blog is important?
- WordPress is an open source and free content management system, it will take care of almost everything, but it needs a human observation so that it won’t get down
- There are bugs and spam everywhere on the internet; if you don’t do maintenance on your blog, you wouldn’t know what problem is your blog having
- For the readers and visitors, you need a blog which looks perfect and gives a wonderful experience, so that your visitors come back again
- There are certain factors which might affect your user experience and which directly affect your earning
- If your blog is based on a company, a bad and neglected blog can ruin your company reputation
Now we understand the morality of the situation, and why WordPress needs to be taken care of. But you need to know what to do, when to do and where to look for and that is why we have made this list just for you.
Things you should take care of when running a WordPress blog
Appearance
What would be the first thing your visitor would notice when they visit your website? The design. How well does your site look like, how easy it is to go through from one menu to another? Is it user-friendly or a nightmare?
We know that when you build your WordPress blog for the first time, you must have chosen the right theme and all the right elements, but are they still there?
When a theme gets older, or the creator neglects one and doesn’t update anymore, it makes it our problem. Sometimes when you try to add a code or tweak something else, you can accidentally affect your theme. From your admin panel, everything might look good, but only your visitor would notice the changes. Make sure that you are always in control of your theme.
Reinstall WordPress
If you have a famous WordPress blog or e-commerce site which you use to sell products, often people try to hack your website. If you don’t update the WordPress or don’t maintain it, sometimes it creates loopholes which might land you into a big problem.
If you have been hacked, and can’t fix the situation, you might need to reinstall WordPress. Most of the hosting companies offer one-click WordPress install, but if you forget how to do it or you are doing it for the first time, you should know how to Install WordPress. This guide on 000webhost will help you.
Once you complete that, you won’t need to worry about any hacking attacks or site shutdowns. This guide will help you even if you are a complete beginner and just started to make a WordPress blog.
Security
Your blog needs to be protected. As we mentioned earlier, there are millions of people who get hacked, and if your blog gets caught in the middle of it, you will lose everything. So, it is essential that you take care of the security:
- Use a security plugin like Security Ninja
- Make sure to install only those plugins which are safe. Only download a plugin from wordpress.org and check their ratings and download. If you are buying plugins, make sure they come from a renowned source or networks
- Make sure to put a hotlink into your pictures, so that if anyone tries to steal your photos, it will ultimately lead to your website
- Make sure to add a link to guard your content against content theft, so that if someone copies your content, they will get the link too
- Configure your WordPress blog to take automatic backups, so that if your site gets hacked, you would at least have the backup
- Do not advertise your WordPress version and make sure to put an extra lock on your WordPress admin folder.
These are only some of the things you need to take care of when it comes to security.
Speed
You never know that something is slowing down your website if you don’t give it full attention to your WordPress blog. As you know, Google will give priority to websites which open faster. So if your site would take time while opening, you would lose your rank and your visitors too. These are steps which can help you speed up your WordPress blog:
- Make sure you’re using the fastest WordPress hosting provider
- Use CDN or content delivery network, as they help your blog to load faster. They would have data centers near the visitor, and the blog will be connected directly from their servers
- Use optimized images. Nowadays, when we try to upload pictures, we forget to check their size, as the HD images are larger. It will take time to open them. It is important that you optimize them, so they won’t let your blog run slowly
- Do not upload videos directly to your blog; it will take space and load slower. Rather upload it to YouTube and simply give the link to the video or embed it
- Keep your WordPress site updated all the time. That includes WordPress core, plugins and themes
As we know that visitors have the shorter attention span and they get annoyed easily when the site is loading, it’s important that you keep at its fastest.
Fixing errors
Yes, WordPress is an amazing platform, but it’s not perfect so you can expect to see errors every now and then. One of the errors which make people worried is Error 403 which means that you have lost access to your site. If you own the blog, then why you don’t have permission to access any of the pages? Sometimes this error even occurs when you try to log in.
Most often than not, it happens because of a corrupted .htaccess file, or if someone has changed the permission of your files and folders. Sometimes it’s just a faulty plugin. Whatever the reason may be, we need to make sure that it will get fixed soon. Here is a fantastic guide on 000webhost that will help you fix Error 403 in WordPress.
This is just one error, and you need to make sure that you don’t find any new ones. Try using your website as a visitor and check every single page. Don’t forget to open the console from your browser and check for JS errors as well. That way you would get an idea what’s not working, and you will be on your way to fix it.
Get an SSL certificate
If you have noticed, most sites use HTTPS and not HTTP. What is the difference?
HTTPS uses SSL certificate to guard the data. SSL means Secure Sockets Layer. It makes sure that every data transaction is secured and encrypted between the server and browser.
But why is this important? If you have a blog for a company or even if you are using your blog to earn money, you need some kind of protection. One of the weakest points is the connection between server and client. When the user clicks on your blog link, it will send a message to the server, and they will fetch your website from your hosting server. So if someone needs to hack your website, they can exploit those loopholes. Having the certificate will reduce risk tremendously.
As an e-commerce website, you need to make sure that users who buy things from you are protected. You don’t want to jeopardize their credit card numbers or login data. SSL certificate would help you do that.
Google will give priority to websites who use SSL and have HTTPS on their websites. So, better go to get one now.
Maintain your database
You don’t know it, but you need to take care of your WordPress blog database, as it has your login detail, your posts, your indexing and tags and also your comments. Sometimes you may get an error like “Error Establishing a Database Connection” which is quite scary as it could be shown on your dashboard and you don’t know what to do.
There is a number of reasons it could happen. You may have used the wrong login details, or maybe your server is down. One of the scariest is that your database is corrupted. If you find that error, you need to fix it right away!
000webhost has a guide to fix Error Establishing a Database Connection Problem in WordPress.
Conclusion
Starting a blog is easy, but maintaining one takes time. So, put your patience hat on, start with the things we listed, and you will be a step closer to a better blog.