When was the last time you gave your website some TLC? I don’t mean putting new content on, but actually making sure that its working as well as it can. There are some tasks that you can do in just 15 minutes that will give you peace of mind that all is well. If you schedule this activity once a month then as time goes on the tasks won’t take so long as you will be keeping on top of them.
Here’s your 15 minute workout list
- Update your WordPress if it needs it. You should always try and be on the latest version of the software to keep your site safe from attack.
- Check for broken links. Use this tool here , put your website address in and let it run. It will present you with a list of broken links that you need to fix.
- Maintain your comments on your website and delete all spam ones.
- If you’ve made any code changes its a good idea to validate your site again.
- Clean out your plugin list. Are you really using them all?? if not get rid of them
- Back up your site.
- Check in with webmaster tools. You can check for multiple things in here but take a look at page speed, and make sure there are no messages from Google. If for example it sees a dramatic difference in something (for example server errors) it will highlight those to you so that you can do something about it.
- Eyeball your site just check all looks well and that your not missing anything. Its a good idea to get someone else to do this for you as well.
Whilst doing this for my website I also like to look after my email, its a good idea to back this up as well. Depending on how you access your email will dictate how you back the email up. I can simply download my .pst file as I use outlook, but make sure you know how to achieve this for your email.
15 minutes a month is all it takes but it will make a huge difference to how your site runs and will give you peace of mind should you ever need to recover it!