logo

WordPress Specialist Agency

020 3355 8747

Book A Call
  • Home
  • About Impact®
  • Our Services
  • Case Studies
  • Insights
  • Contact Us
WordPress Specialist Agency
020 3355 8747
logo logo
Book A Call
Back
Menu
  • Home
     
  • About Impact Media
    Learn More About The Impacters
  • Our Services
    Discover How We Can Help
  • Case Studies
    Under The Hood Of Our Web Builds
  • Insights
    Read Insights from the Impact Team
  • Contact Us
     
020 3355 8747
Mon - Fri • 9am - 5pm
Book A Call
Close
Download Our Agency Price Guide
Download and discover our hourly, day and retainer rates including our bulk hour discounts.
Close
What To Expect From Booking Your Discovery Call with James
photo
1
Book your time using the scheduler below.
Let’s find a good time for us both to speak so we can dedicate the time to understand your frustrations and challenges.
2
Receive a Short Email Questionaire
If I have any questions before our call I will email you, this could be for me to carry out some initial research so I’m all up to speed.
3
Video Conference Call
To discuss your challenges, being able to see my screen I can demonstrate ideas and tactics to help reach your objectives.
photo
What To Expect From Booking Your Discovery Call with James
1
2
3
Book your time using the scheduler below.
Let’s find a good time for us both to speak so we can dedicate the time to understand your frustrations and challenges.
Receive a Short Email Questionaire
If I have any questions before our call I will email you, this could be for me to carry out some initial research so I’m all up to speed.
Video Conference Call
To discuss your challenges, being able to see my screen I can demonstrate ideas and tactics to help reach your objectives.
Home / Insights / Are You Doing These 9 Things With Your WordPress Website?
Home / Insights / Are You Doing These 9 Things With Your WordPress Website?
Back

Are You Doing These 9 Things With Your WordPress Website?

Published 10.09.17
9th October 2017
Last Updated 01.20.21
20th January 2021
Newer
5 Min Read
Martin Coates
Martin Coates
Maintenance
Older
5 Min Read
 
Martin Coates
 
Maintenance

Managing a WordPress website can take time out of your day to keep maintained and healthy. Are you doing any of these 9 things in your WordPress website?

WordPress logo imposed on background of code

1. Updating Your WordPress Core Files And Plugins

WordPress can be a beast at times and requires some regular TLC to keep it ticking.

Did you know there are over 46,000 plugins available for WordPress?

With all of these plugins leaves you vulnerable for nasty little hackers to find exploits in these and take advantage of trying to slow down or break your site.

A very strong recommendation is to check each week for new plugin releases and check their compatibility with other plugins as well as the latest stable release of WordPress.

Keeping on top of this will reduce the chances of letting in the bad guys and fix any improvement to the plugins.

2. Optimising The Loading Time Of Your Website

Did you know…

For every 1 second delay in page load time, conversion rates are decreased by 7%?

So that’s less sales or leads to your business!

We live in busy times and don’t have time to be waiting for a simple page to load. We need to do everything we can to reduce page loading time and much of this can start with optimising how your website loads.

See for yourself by entering your website into the following page speed tests: Google Page Speed, GT Metrix, Pingdom

What to look out for when running tests:

  • Website Caching & CDN – many website hosts should provide this facility to serve static content quicker.
  • Minifying Scripts – where possible try to reduce the load of scripts by minification (please note that this is not always possible with 3rd party scripts loading that you don’t have control of.)
  • Optimising images – (more on this below.)

One thing to keep in mind is not to become too concerned if your score is not 100.

In some cases depending on what 3rd party scripts are loading it may not be possible.

3. Optimising Images

You probably spend so much time finding the right images for your blog post & page content, right? You spend time resizing them ready for posting, but did you know that on many mobile devices your fantastic images could be deterring visitors from viewing all of your content because it takes longer to load?

A simple solution we use at Impact is Smush it! View Smush Plugin

Use this fancy plugin to help reduce image size but keep quality on your existing images and everything you upload moving forward.

4. Run Regular Tests

Have you run your own test on your important enquiry forms or tested the sales order process? When was the last sales or lead?

As weird as it sounds but with the multitude of devices we have to access your website as well as required updates to run some things can break!

We recommend as a minimum to regularly test your main website features. For example:

  • Sign up to your own newsletter
  • Buy one of your own products
  • Sign up to become a new paying member
  • Make sure you get that email with the download
  • Test the job application form
  • Check the language is still translating
  • Carry out that stockist search
  • Apply for your own job

5. Run Regular Security Scans

In the past 5 years security threats have risen drastically with websites being attacked and hijacked all around the world.

Don’t think you have to be a big brand name to get attacked.

Your website could assist many bad guys with the ability to run scripts and malicious code for them without you even knowing! So it is a good idea to protect yourself with choosing a good host that has the correct protection as well as running regular scans for infectious files (yes, it is starting to sound like your old windows computer with Norton Antivirus or McAfee.)

We now need to carry out similar tasks for your website. Some great 3rd party solutions we recommend are:

  • WMPUDEV – The Defender plugin
  • Sucuri

6. SSL Protection

If your website has a data capture form (which it should have!) then from October 2017 if your site is not protected by an SSL certificate, it will be flagged as NOT SECURE by Google Chrome.

If you don’t have an SSL then the first thing to do would be speak to your current website host, as they may have suitable solutions to offer which will be compatible with their setup.

Alternatively depending on the level of cover you require they can be obtained from many 3rd party companies such as:

  • Let’s Encrypt
  • Go Daddy

7. Renew Your Paid Plugins

As you may be aware, WordPress uses plugins and many paid plugins in some cases.

The companies and developers who release these plugins spend further time and resources ensuring compatibility and security threats are overcome with releasing regular updates.

To benefit from these updates a regular payment is required (normally an annual payment) so please ensure you keep on top of this as outdated plugins could become problematic with the website if prolonged.

8. Take Regular Backups

Websites go down, they get problems and sometimes the quickest method of recovery to minimise any further downtime is to restore a website backup.

Some example cases of a website going down could be from:

  • Updating the WordPress version – it decides to not play ball with your plugins.
  • Updating a particular plugin – it again decides not to play ball with the other plugins or WordPress.
  • You update some code in the site – and things go awry, or functionality breaks.

We recommend:

  • Taking a backup before updating anything (e.g WordPress, Plugins, New Code.)
  • Daily backups to be taken automatically of your website including database.

Some great tools that can be used to backup and restore your website:

  • Backup Buddy
  • ManageWP

Furthermore, also speak to your website host as it may be an option they can provide with less hassle.

9. Who’s Got Your Back When Sh*t Hits The Fan?!

In many of the tasks set out above there can be times when things may not go to plan or further investigation may be required.

If this becomes the case who do you have on hand to assist you with additional support ?

We recommend having a company on hand for those sticky times to take the weight of your shoulders with other projects you are probably working on at the same time.

Worst case – If in doubt, give Impact a shout ! If you struggle to get help then feel free to give Impact a shout on 020 3355 8747 (9am – 5pm Mon – Fri) or Drop us a message

Did You Know….

The Impact Media team help our clients save over 5 hours per week by:

  • Running regular website tests
  • Updating and maintaining the WordPress core code
  • Updating and maintaining plugins
  • Paying the renewal fees on many plugins
  • Take regular backups
  • Manage 24 / 7 Website monitoring
  • Be on hand when sh*t hits the fan!

Article Tags

Wordpress Maintenance
Wordpress Maintenance
Share Socially
Martin Coates
Martin Coates
Technical Director, Golf Enthusiast & Ex-Superstar DJ
Martin is Mr Technical. His background is in PHP & WordPress development, however, the thing that keeps him up at night now is how to make websites load faster. Insights on performance optimisation and security is what you'll mostly find Martin sharing.
View Team Profile
See More Articles
Martin Coates
Technical Director, Golf Enthusiast & Ex-Superstar DJ
Martin is Mr Technical. His background is in PHP & WordPress development, however, the thing that keeps him up at night now is how to make websites load faster. Insights on performance optimisation and security is what you'll mostly find Martin sharing.
See More Articles
View Team Profile

Want to experience a new
& exciting WordPress Backend?

Forget what you know about WordPress, we make it even easier. Want to know how?

Continue Reading

Back
Newer
October 24th, 2017
8 Min Read

Avoid Your Visitors Seeing Red On Your WordPress Website With SSL Encryption

James Coates
Older
April 30th, 2017
4 Min Read

Would A Traffic Spike Put Your Website On The Ropes

James Coates
Newer
8 Min Read
Avoid Your Visitors Seeing Red On Your WordPress Website With SSL Encryption
October 24th, 2017
James Coates
James Coates
Older
4 Min Read
Would A Traffic Spike Put Your Website On The Ropes
April 30th, 2017
James Coates
Back
Want to experience a new
& exciting WordPress Backend?
Forget what you know about WordPress, we make it even easier. Want to know how?
Book A Demo
studio@impactmedia.co.uk
020 3355 8747

About Impact

  • Who We Are
  • Company Profile
  • Meet The Impact® Family
  • Why WordPress
  • Our Story
  • Our Process
  • Careers
  • Awards
  • Partners
  • Giving Back
  • 10K Tree Challenge

WordPress Agency Services

  • Website Design
  • UX Design
  • WordPress Development
  • WooCommerce Development
  • WordPress Multisite
  • Replatforming To WordPress
  • Conversion Rate Optimisation
  • WordPress Training
  • WordPress Optimisation
  • WordPress Consultancy

WordPress Support

  • WordPress Support & Maintenance Plans
  • WordPress Support
  • WordPress Maintenance
  • WordPress Multi-Lingual Support
  • Insights
  • Case Studies
  • Contact Us

WordPress Agency London.

86-90 Paul Street,

London, EC2A 4NE

+44 (0) 20 3355 8747

WordPress Agency Essex

Woodland Place, Hurricane Way,

Wickford, Essex, SS11 8YB

+44 (0) 1268 858292
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
© Impact Media® 2003 - 2021
Impact Media is a trading name of IMDMS LTD. Company Reg. 05970261
Impact® & Impact Media®
are registered trademarks of IMDMS LTD