As we head into a new year, it’s time to run a little maintenance on your WordPress site. Unfortunately WordPress doesn’t stand still – neither does the internet. New security protocols come out, as bad guys figure out new ways to scam us. To keep up, you need to run maintenance on your site. We recommend at least a quarterly schedule if you have a site that is a few pages and really is just an online brochure. If you have a blog, and publish regularly, then you need maintenance almost daily. Lucky for you – we can do that for you! For the DIYers – here is our exact method when we run maintenance on our clients sites and on ours.
While it is easy to say that the website is ‘changing’, specifically we’re looking for errors in best practices, security, SEO or software. Any of these errors can impact a company’s online reputation, which is nearly impossible to recover from. So we added in a few checks for password strength and minimal user permissions too.
We’ll do this step by step for all the DIY’ers in our midst. If you are the done-for-you’er feel free to contact the support desk for help!
Let’s go through a few items in the categories Security, Design, SEO, Conversions and Analytics. We’ve marked each item as needed weekly (W), monthly (M) and annually (Y). Jump to the form to get the pdf version.
W) – review these weekly
(M) – do these monthly
(Y) – perform these annually.
Save this post for later!
Security
Starting with security, best practices here haven’t changed much at all over 2023. Of course we still believe YOU create the most secure website. We do not and have not, recommended a security plugin. If our stance on this changes, we’ll let you know through our newsletter. And update content here as well.
Here are the bloggers’ tasks for security issues.
Password Tips:
Use 16+ characters. We use LastPass to store our passwords. We’ve learned the hard way not to rely on Cathy’s memory. 🙂 Do not use proper nouns or any word found in a dictionary. That would take an AI bot 2 seconds to crack.
Perform Upgrades
We consider upgrades part of security as outdated plugins are the #1 source of hacks in WordPress. WP, themes & plugins need to all be in the latest versions.
Moderate Users
Navigate to Users tab. Filter by ‘Administrators’. Delete any administrator that no longer needs access. When you click ‘delete’ always assign the posts/pages to yourself. (Even if they do not have any – we’ve learned the hard way!) Change the password of all other administrators to 16 character passwords.
Service Providers
- Are you using a quality web host (not a friend who is letting you squat on their acct)?
- do you have cpanel access to your domain, hosting and CDN(optional)?
- are plugin and theme licenses in your name?
- check ‘whois.com’ and run your domain name. View expiry date, registrar data and public information. This is the information about you that is available to anyone.
Free Security Scan Provider
Run a security scan at malcare.com (you’ll need to signup for a free account) to doublecheck your security efforts.
Design & User Experience
Have a quick look at what your readers see when they view your site. Look specifically for interstitial ads or overwhelming popups – both users and Google frown upon that.
Extra credit: Review this list of 52 different items that make your site more effective.
How to Review Site Incognito
A few quick steps to get you seeing the same thing that your visitors see. Be sure to follow these instructions on your desktop. Reviewing on mobile is a tricky business since 99% of our mobile devices ‘help’ us with sticky caching.
- Log out of your site.
- Clear browser cookies.
- Open an incognito tab in Chrome browser.
- Navigate to your site. You are now viewing your site like a visitor.
Change Copyright Dates
You may change the copyright date in the footer of your site, using a widget or customizer and in some cases, a unique template just used in the footer. Each theme handles this differently. Once you find the container for your copyright, you can use this snippet in the html/text block or widget:
@copy;2024 [your site name]If you have a Kadence theme you can use this
{copyright}{year} {site-title}Notices
We’re talking about those pesky notices and advertisements that popup in the dashboard. I’ll summarize them ALL for you:
- please donate or rate the plugin
- if you loved this, see what else I can sell you
- don’t forget the settings!
You’re welcome. Delete them.
Update Privacy Policy
Once a year, take an hour to update the policy. We’ve updated the instructions for 2025 on the Blogger’s Privacy Policy Template post.
SEO
Getting found in search engines can make or break a business’s success. And for bloggers who depend on traffic, you’ll need to master the SEO basics. This time of year, we’ll stick to the quick-review type of things you can do in 5 minutes. For the full treatment of SEO, we have tutorials, plugins, keywords and services.
Speed & Core Web Vitals
Check your site loading time at GTmetrix. This program will also measure all your core web vitals and give you all the details you need to fix any errors or lag time. (We recommend WP Rocket & Ewww.io for optimization)
Check the speed for both desktop and mobile versions of your WP site. To use GTMetrix’ mobile tester, you’ll need a paid account, but we prefer this tool as it gives you real time data. PageSpeed insights is free, however it is sometimes lab data, sometimes real user data. And most of the time the stats are an average of the last 28 days. So do not use PageSpeed to check for recent changes.
Which SEO Stats to Track
We recommend an SEO spreadsheet as your basis for tracking how you’re doing. This is what ours looks like (and what we create for you, if you purchase an SEO service). The spreadsheet has a separate sheet / tab for each of these:
- General Stats
- list of keywords by impressions
- list of keywords by rank
- list of top posts by traffic
For 2. Keywords by Impressions, add your keywords in Column A. Next to that, in Column B add the post(s) that the keywords are found in. In column C add the impressions that the keyword obtained in the last 30 days.
- Next month simply add a new column, and add the new impressions number.
- For extra credit you can create a formula to put in an adjacent column to calculate the increase/decrease for you if you find that helpful.
Copy that sheet and title it: 3. Keywords by Rank. Your keywords are in Column A, along with posts in Column B, erase column C and replace with Rank.
- Every month, simply add a new column and add the new rank per keyword.
- You will want to cross-reference the top-ranking keywords with the top-impression keywords to be sure you are working on posts that actually earn traffic!
4. Top Posts by Traffic. Create a new sheet, and add the list of posts in Column A. In B, add its keywords (beginning with those that are ranking), and in Column C, add the pageviews received in the last 30 days.
- every month, add a new column and update the post’s pageviews
- for extra points, add a new column beside the post for each of the top 8 – 10 keywords then you can cross reference these with the list of keywords and see their rank & impressions
- this is handy so you can sort by the post title, keyword and traffic
In General stats we have found recording the following data useful for an overall picture of how the site is doing in ‘SEO’.
- Domain Authority
- Avg Rank of entire site
- # of keywords in spots #1-3
- # of keywords in #1-10
- # of pages in #1-10
- # of pages in #1-3
Google Search Console
It is important to login to google search console and check that there are no notices and warnings in this dashboard. If Google is unhappy with your site, there will be a notice of “manual action” in the dashboard.
Conversions
You want to know who clicks your forms and how they are ‘converting’ page visitors to loyal readers or even buyers. Review these stats constantly so you know what your readers are responding to and how to connect with them. This morning I did a review for a client and found that the standard signup form had a conversion rate of 0.6% but one of the opt-in incentives was getting 20%! So we switched out the incentives to best meet the desires of her readers!
Most form plugins will have an admin tab that gives you data for how effective your forms are.
We use fluent forms (that is overkill for most of you) that looks like this:
Most email marketing software platforms will also provide data on the conversions for each form that you create. Flodesk has conversion data for each form on the little graph icon on every form screenshot.
Analytics
Other than the SEO stats, there are others that some of you will need to track. Again, we love a spreadsheet for this.
- ecommerce sales per 1000 impressions(conversion rate)
- membership conversion rate
- list customers by lifetime value
- list sales volume by month
- list products by sales per month
Use these statistics to better meet the needs of your business. Usually a primary way to use content marketing to meet business needs is to write better and more effectively – so keep an eye on those stats so you can meet the needs of your readers!
Printable Checklist
Email Marketing Checklist
Looking at email marketing? We show you how to 4x your open-rates right away! We also break down opt-in incentives, sign-up placement, evaluations and put it all in a quick checklist format! You’re welcome!
Cathy Mitchell
Single Mom, Volunteer, Lifelong Learner, Jesus Follower, Founder and CEO at WPBarista.