PRESENTS

THE ESSENTIALWORDPRESS

MAINTENANCECHECKLIST

75 TASKS TO KEEP YOUR SITES

RUNNING SMOOTHLY 

IntroductionMaintaining a WordPress website means performing daily,weekly and monthly tasks so your site continues to runsmoothly and load properly for visitors and users. Theseimportant tasks are also known as website maintenance. Use this website maintenance checklist to help you maintainWordPress sites either for yourself or for your web designclients. This checklist includes one-time tasks for newerWordPress sites and repetitive maintenance tasks that willneed to be performed on a regular basis. In this checklist, website maintenance tasks are divided intothe following groups:

BackupsSecurityThemes & PluginsCommentsUptime MonitoringBlog

Ready to dive in? Let's go!

ImagesPagesUsersContact PagePortfolioSEO & Analytics

1. Install a WordPress backup plugin likeBackupBuddy to start running automaticWordPress backups. 2. Confirm automatic WordPressbackups are running at scheduledintervals (such as daily, weekly ormonthly). 3. Confirm backup files are delivering to asafe, off-site storage destination. 4. Set up redundant backups (two or morebackup file storage locations). 5. Confirm backup files include WordPressdatabase and all files (media library,themes, plugins, etc.) 6. Consider using a real-time WordPressbackup system (like Stash Live) if youmanage a site with daily activity orfrequent transactions. 7. Delete any old locally-stored backups(these are backups stored on your ownserver). Check your BackupBuddy settingsto automatically delete local backups. 8. Delete old backup files stored off-site toreduce storage usage. 9. Keep a current version ofthe ImportBuddy script file on hand tomigrate or restore your site.

WordPressBackupTasks

Having an ongoingWordPress backupstrategy is animportant part of thehealth of aWordPress site.

10. Update WordPress core to the latest version. 11. Install a WordPress security plugin likeiThemes Security to help performWordPress security tasks and monitorsecurity activity on your site. 12. Run the WordPress SecurityCheck feature to activate recommendedsecurity features. 13. Enable the Banned Users setting toblock specific IP addresses and useragents from accessing your site. 14. Review your WordPress security logs.For an easier visual summary of your logs,active the WordPress Security Dashboardto see a real-time overviewof the security activity for your website. 15. Enable WordPress brute forceprotection to protect your site againstattackers that try to randomly guess logindetails to your site. 16. Enable Network Brute Force Protectionto protect your site against knownattackers before they reach your site.

MoreWordPressSecurityTasksBeing proactiveabout your site'ssecurity meanstaking steps to lockdown WordPress, fixcommon holes, stopautomated attacksand strengthen usercredentials.

17. Run a WordPress malware scan. 18. Enable User Logging to log useractions such as login, editing or savingcontent and other actions. 19. Disable the File Editor in WordPressTweaks. 20. Harden WordPress by using the AwayMode setting to limit access to yourWordPress login and admin area (forexample, overnight or while you’re onvacation). 21. Whitelist your own IP Address toavoid unintentional lockouts. 22. Review WordPress file permissions. 23. Remove the Admin user. 24. Change your WordPress salts andsecret keys. 25. Activate and set up WordPress two-factor authentication. 26. Enable Passwordless Login to addanother secure way for users to log in.(Passwordless login is a great alternativeto using a weak password and no formtwo-factor authentication).

WordPressSecurityTasksContinued

27. Confirm premium theme andplugins have current licenses (licensing isusually how version updates arecommunicated to your WordPress site).

WordPressTheme &PluginTasks

Your themes andplugins require a fewmaintenance tasks toensure they are up-to-date and workingproperly.

32. Approve & reply to any pendingcomments on your posts or pages. 33. Empty spam comments. 34. Activate an anti-spam service likeAkismet to help reduce comment spam.

CommentTasksDon't let commentsstack up with thesetasks.

Note: Always run a backup beforeupdating themes, plugins andWordPress core.

28. Update current theme to the latest version. 29. Update active plugins to latest version. 30. Delete and completely remove unusedthemes and plugins. 31. Review notices for new plugin andtheme features for implementation.

35. Monitor WordPress uptime to trackhosting performance. 36. Review uptime/downtime stats foruptime percentage, total downtime andnumber of downtimes. 37. Enable email notifications fordowntime.

UptimeMonitoringTasksMonitor your site'suptime, downtimeand performance.

38. Review top-performing posts from thelast month/year for improvements andupdates. 39. Add or confirm your email newslettersignup is working by testing a newsignup. 40. Confirm social sharing buttons areworking and linked to correct accounts. 41. Add/update featured images for posts. 42. Review post drafts and then deleteunneeded post drafts. 43. Empty posts stored in trash. 44. Install a WordPress Content Upgradesplugin to start offering a download (like anebook or checklist) in exchange for anemail opt-in within your posts.

Blog TasksGive your blog someattention with a fewtasks to improve andrefresh content.

45. Optimize all images for the web(reduce file sizes for any images above600KB). 46. Delete unused images from yourmedia library (this helps to reduce the sizeof your site's backup files). 47. Add appropriate alt tags to all imagesincluded in posts and pages. This helpswith SEO.

ImageTasksThese tasks reviewthe size and usage ofimages on your site.

48. Audit older pages for content updates. 49. Empty unnecessary page drafts storedin the trash. 50. Review parent/child pagerelationships to better organize content. 51. Add featured images for pages.

PageTasksReview, refresh andupdate your site'spages.

52. Update your online portfolio withscreenshots or images from your latest projects. 53. Add new testimonials from customersand clients.

PortfolioTasksKeep your portfolioand testimonialsfresh.

54. Delete unused or unnecessary useraccounts. 55. Encourage Admin users toenable WordPress two-factorauthentication for their login and to useWordPress password security. 56. Review user access levels and adjustroles as necessary with a WordPress RoleManager. 57. Encourage all users who write contentor reply to comments (Admins, Editors &Contributors) to set up their Gravatarprofile images.

User TasksReview users on yoursite and theirpermissions.

58. Confirm your current contactinformation (email, social, address, phone,etc.) is correct and up-to-date. 59. Test and confirm that your contactform confirmation emails and submissionnotification emails are working. 60. Reply to any missed contact form submissions. 61. Consider setting up conditional formlogic to deliver canned responses. 62. Update your FAQs to reflect commoncustomer or client questions.

ContactPageTasksTasks to check onyour contact pageand contact form.

63. Install a WordPress SEO plugin likeYoast SEO to help with basic SEO tasks. 64. Connect Google Analytics and activateGoogle Search Console (if you haven'talready). 65. Submit an updated sitemap. 66. Audit pages and posts for keyword-focus. Make improvements to content forbetter SEO. 67. Add missing meta descriptions forposts and pages. 68. Review analytics data for total pageviews and unique visitors. 69. Review referral traffic & inbound links. 70. Review Google Console data (SearchTraffic, Google Index and Crawl info). 71. Set up and review Goals in GoogleAnalytics. 72. Review Behavior Flow. 73. Review page load times to makeimprovements. 74. Consider Page Speed suggestions. 75. Audit site for mobile-responsiveness.

SEO &AnalyticsTaksReview your SEOand analyticsstrategy with thesemaintenance tasks.

Save Tons of Time withiThemes Sync Pro

Maintaining a WordPress site can get pretty time-consuming, especially if you have more than one website.Using a WordPress maintenance tool like iThemes SyncPro can save you a lot of time. Why? Instead of having to log in to each WordPress site 'sadmin area that you manage, you can have one centraldashboard to perform WordPress maintenance tasks.With Sync Pro, you can perform a lot of the tasks includedin this checklist from one dashboard for all your websites.

See all available updates forthemes, plugins and WordPress forall your websites in one place Update themes, plugins andWordPress for all your sites at once Get email notifications when newupdates are available Run remote WordPress backups Add/edit automatic backupschedules Manage remote backup files storedin BackupBuddy Stash Edit users Approve and reply to comments Add new posts and pages View Uptime stats View a summary of Google Analytics data Generate reports for SEO, GoogleAnalytics and more.

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