Top Tips For Managing Your WordPress Website

It’s fair to say that your WordPress website is a key component of your brand. Often, it’s the initial contact point with your prospective customers, and that means it needs to be up to date, informative, and easily accessible. 

Unfortunately, it can be challenging to ensure your website remains a top priority, particularly if you lack an IT department dedicated to its maintenance. With this in mind, here are a few top tips to make it easier to manage your website effectively. 

Never Forget Mobile

A lot of your website’s visitors will be viewing your content via their mobile devices. Fortunately, WordPress has made it fairly simple to activate themes that are suitable for mobiles. So long as you’ve updated your version of WordPress, it’ll already be optimised for mobile. 

Therefore, all you need to think about is whether your plugins and popups are mobile friendly. Check your site regularly to make sure it’s still accessible for mobile users, particularly after carrying out any major updates. 

Review Your Website Every Quarter

Having a system for reviewing your website’s content, functionality, and layout on a regular basis is key. You should set a date once a quarter to take a closer look at these elements and to find out where improvements can be made.

Keep Your Site On-Brand 

It can be difficult to be objective when it comes to your own website, so bringing in a 3rd party that can evaluate your website and its messaging makes sense. They will be able to offer you a fresh pair of eyes and an unbiased view of your site so that you can check that everything is in line with your brand message. 

Automate Whenever Possible

Keeping weekly or daily site maintenance as minimal as possible is ideal. If you have a managed WordPress hosting, they can automate updates for all your plugins on your behalf, ensuring your site stays up to date. 

Keep Publishing

Google likes fresh content. Once your site’s technical aspects are in order, focus on bringing your website’s content up to date by adding a blog, or putting more information on existing pages. New content will boost your SEO which, in turn, increases your traffic and revenue. 

Update Your Core Content

It’s easy to focus on bringing your blog up to date with the latest new information while forgetting about your site’s core content. But remember that this is what your users are viewing when trying to decide whether or not to use your business. If you fail to refresh this core content every so often, it may become dated. Therefore, you should audit this content regularly and keep it up to date. 

Consult Analytics

The numbers never lie and analytics are a very useful tool for you to make use of. The good news is that it’s simple to consult analytics these days. KPIs like bounce and traffic will give you vital data about what you should be focusing on when the time comes to maintain your site. 

Ask Your Customers 

There’s something about your site that makes your customers keen to use your services, so ask them what it is. Getting information from genuine people who’ve actually interacted with your site can direct you to what you need to prioritise or update. A social media poll or a personalised feedback form could be a good way of doing this so long as you choose focused questions and value your customers’ feedback. 

Constantly Maintain Your Site

If website maintenance has fallen outside your daily scope of work, it’s all too easy to let it fall behind. If you opt for a managed hosting, this will take over much of the daily operation for you, leaving you with more time to pay attention to the content and aesthetics of your website. However, just because you don’t interact directly with your website each day, that doesn’t mean you should forget it completely. Once you’ve completed your site overhaul, keep planning for the next one. 

Coordination Is Key

Your website isn’t just a marketing device, it’s also a technical asset. Your team of web and marketing experts therefore need to communicate effectively with each other at all times. They should be discussing everything from the next WordPress update to post themes. Your teams need to be working in coordination if visible updates are to achieve their true potential as a marketing tool.

Keep SEO Best Practice At The Forefront

When you have a plan for content creation, you need to pay close attention to SEO best practices. Using keywords in title tags, including both external and internal functioning links, and making sure your content is properly labelled and easy to find will stand you in good stead and ensure that your visitors can find your content easily. 

Manage Plugins 

Your plugins have a vital part to play in your site’s functionality. If you have a managed hosting, your provider will be able to check everything stays up to date while also giving you advice about the best plugins for your website. Nevertheless, you need to decide on the number of plugins you need to use, remembering that there is such a thing as too many! 

Keep Your Themes Compatible

There are huge numbers of different WordPress site themes for you to choose from, and that makes it hard to choose the right one for your site. You need to choose one that’s appropriate for the primary function of your website. 

Think about what you want to achieve, and then select one that’s suitable, making sure to avoid something that is too heavy in features since this could hinder your site’s performance and make it appear cluttered. 

Managing a WordPress website can be a time-consuming job, but if you follow the top tips outlined here, you should find that yours remains fully operational and effective. Taking care to keep your site up to date and running optimally will ensure you meet your business goals efficiently.