It’s true that you can save time and money with WordPress website development, but you also need to make sure that your WordPress website is performing in the right way.
WordPress is a great platform for developing websites, but it’s also important to remember that it still requires some care & maintenance in order to keep it running smoothly.
Otherwise, you may end up spending more time and money trying to fix problems than you would have if you had just developed the site from scratch.
It could be overwhelming to think about the possibilities for taking care of your WordPress website.
How good it would be if you can get a checklist of important items that you need to focus on for launching & enhancing the performance of your WordPress website?
Luckily, we have compiled a list of key things that you should keep in mind when it comes to taking care of your WordPress website.
Yes, you don’t have to worry about it. We’ve got you covered!
In this blog post, I’ve shared an important checklist for you to follow for your WordPress website launch, security, maintenance, and SEO.
Let’s dive in!
#1 WordPress setup checklist
- Subscribe to a reliable and affordable web hosting company as it is crucial for your WordPress website because your hosting can make or break your WordPress website. A good host will keep your site running smoothly and provide you with the support you need, while a bad host can cause your site to crash or run slowly.
- Hire a reliable WordPress development agency or a WordPress developer. If you’re looking for someone to build your WordPress website, it’s important to hire a reliable web developer who can also provide long-term support and services. A website developer can also make or break your online business. Fortunately, there are lots of WordPress developers who can quote you low website development costs.
- Make sure that your WordPress website has been set up with the latest version of WordPress software. This will ensure that you have all the latest features and security updates to keep your site running smoothly. A professional developer would always ensure to set up WordPress CMS with its latest version.
- Never compromise with the themes. Always purchase a premium WordPress plugin for your website because they provide a faster, more efficient, and overall smoother website experience for your visitors. Consult with a professional WordPress developer if you are not sure about the selection of the right theme.
#2 WordPress launch checklist
- Before you launch your website, make sure that there are no dummy texts on your WordPress website. The last thing you want is for your visitors to see dummy text when they visit your site. Make sure to write unique and engaging content for your visitors.
- It’s important to check for and fix any broken links before launching your WordPress website. This is because broken links can result in a poor user experience, and can also cause search engines to index your site incorrectly. To avoid these problems, simply run a check for broken links before you launch your site.
- Before making your WordPress website live, do make sure to check all the forms on your site. This will ensure that visitors can fill out and submit forms on your site without any issues. Additionally, checking your forms prior to going live will help you spot any potential errors so that you can fix them before they cause any problems for visitors.
- After you launch your WordPress website, check the sitemap and robots.txt files of your website to ensure that the search engine crawlers can easily read your website. This will help the search engines index your site properly and help improve your site’s ranking. A professional WordPress developer would always ensure to create a sitemap & robots file for better crawl-ability.
- After you launch your WordPress website, it’s important to check the loading speed. A slow website can frustrate users and cause them to leave before they even see what you have to offer. There are a number of ways that your WordPress website maker can do to improve your website’s speed, including optimizing your images and using a caching plugin.
#3 WordPress security checklist
- Ask your WordPress builder to activate and set up WordPress two-factor authentication for better security of your website.
- Installing a security plugin like “All in One WP security” is a great way to ensure that your WordPress website is secure. This plugin offers a variety of features that will help to protect your site, including a firewall, malware scanner, and password protection. By taking advantage of these security features, you can help to keep your site safe from hackers and other online threats.
- If you want to better protect your website, ask your website builder to review the WordPress file permissions. This will help ensure that only authorized users can access certain files and that others are prevented from making changes. By taking this step, you can help keep your website safe and secure.
- reCAPTCHA is a free service that protects your website from spam and abuse. By adding reCAPTCHA to your WordPress forms, you can help keep your site safe from bots and malicious users. Fortunately, there are several plugins that your WordPress website maker can use to add reCaptcha to the forms of your website.
- In order to ensure the security of your website, it is important to use strong passwords for the admin, control panel, and FTP accounts. Using strong passwords will help to prevent unauthorized access to your website. Additionally, your website developer can help to secure your website.
Recommended post: 10 Ways to protect your WordPress website from hackers and malicious codes
#4 WordPress maintenance checklist
- Updating the website content regularly is important to ensure a good user experience and search engine rankings. Fresh, relevant content keeps visitors engaged and coming back for more, and it also signals to search engines that your site is active and worth indexing. A well-maintained website is essential to maintaining a strong online presence.
- It is important to keep testing the backups to ensure that they work properly. This can be done by regularly running test restores and comparing the results with the original data. If there are any discrepancies, it is important to ask your WordPress developer to investigate and resolve them as soon as possible.
- When a new WordPress version is available, it’s important to run core updates to keep your site running smoothly. These updates can include security fixes, performance enhancements, and new features. By keeping your WordPress core up to date, you can ensure that your site is running at its best.
- One of the best ways to keep your WordPress site secure and running smoothly is to regularly update your theme and plugins. Outdated software can leave your site vulnerable to attack, so it’s important to keep everything up-to-date. Not only will this help keep your site safe, but it can also improve performance and speed.
Recommended post: 10 Ways to maintain your WordPress website efficiently
#5 WordPress SEO checklist
- There are a lot of things you can do to optimize your WordPress site for SEO. One of the simplest things you can do is install a plugin like Yoast SEO. Yoast SEO will help you with things like creating better titles and descriptions for your pages and posts, adding keywords throughout your content, and even generating an XML sitemap to help Google index your site more effectively.
- Adding a Google Analytics plugin to your WordPress website is a great way to track visitors and their behavior on your website. By doing this, you can see what pages are being visited most often, what links are being clicked on, and how long people are spending on your site. This information can be very useful in helping you to improve your website and make it more user-friendly.
- To ensure that your WordPress site is optimized for SEO, you need to make sure that all the important SEO tags are in place. These include header tags, alt tags, and meta tags. By ensuring that these tags are in place, you can help your WordPress site rank higher in SERPs and attract more organic traffic.
- An XML sitemap is a great way to help improve your WordPress SEO. This type of sitemap helps search engines index your website more effectively and can give you a boost in search engine rankings. Creating an XML sitemap is not difficult and there are many plugins available that can help you do this.
- Permalinks are the permanent URLs that are used to point to specific content on your site. By making sure that your permalinks are well-structured and keyword-rich, you can make it much easier for search engines to find and index your content.
Recommended post: How can I enhance my WordPress website’s SEO
#6 General checklist
- Before launching your WordPress website, it is important for you or your website creator to check the browser compatibility. This can be done by using different browsers and devices to test the site. After launching, you should also check the compatibility to ensure that everything is working as intended. By doing this, you can avoid any potential issues that could arise from users accessing the site on incompatible browsers or devices.
- It’s important to check your WordPress website for grammar and spelling mistakes, as this can affect both your user experience and your search engine optimization. Poor grammar and spelling can make your site difficult to read and understand, which can turn users away.
- After you launch your WordPress website, it’s important to check for any broken links. This can be a tedious process, but it’s essential to make sure that all of your links are working properly. By taking the time to check for broken links, you can ensure that your website is running smoothly and that your visitors can easily find the information they’re looking for.
- The logo should be linked to the homepage from all pages. This will ensure that your website is easily recognizable and visitors can quickly navigate back to your main page.
- Make sure your WordPress website’s favicon is working. A favicon is a vital part of any website’s branding, so make sure yours is working properly to ensure a positive user experience.
- Your WordPress website shouldn’t take more than 5 seconds to load. People are impatient and if your site takes more than 5 seconds to load, they’re likely to click away. If your site is taking more than 5 seconds to load, contact your WordPress builder immediately to resolve it.
- It’s important to make sure that all the forms on your WordPress website are working properly so that your visitors can submit them without any problems.
- When linking to external websites, it is important to ensure that the link opens in a new tab. This ensures that the user does not accidentally leave your site, and also allows them to easily return to your site if they wish.
- Confirm that your admin email address is correct in order to avoid any issues with communication or access to your account. It is important to have a current and working email address on file in case you need to reset your password or receive updates about your account.
