Having a great website is an important part about having a successful business. Your website is often one of the first encounters a customer will have with your business, so you want to leave a lasting impression. If you used WordPress to run and manage your website, make sure you are using tools and strategies that optimize your site.

How to Update It

To make sure your site is customized the way you want it and has all the information you want site visitors to see, you need to update. In addition to updating content, try updating your themes as well. You can search through thousands of free WordPress themes online. Plug-ins can serve a variety of functions including making your site bring in additional traffic, improving the look of your site, and protecting your site from malware. There are over 50,000 plug-ins available for your WordPress site, but you need to keep them updated or else they could slow down your site. Consider the quality and functionality of your plug-ins before you overwhelm your site with too many.

How to Clean It Up

Periodically, you should go through and clean up your website files. Over time you have likely added a lot to your site including new plug-ins, themes, data, and files. Unnecessary files can pile up and slow down your website, requiring you to clean it up. By clearing out all that is unnecessary, you will make your website run smoother and load quicker. First, make sure everything on your site is updated, and make changes as necessary. Make sure that all of your hyperlinks redirect to where you want them to go, and fix broken links. Next, clean out unneeded themes and plugins, and delete unneeded media files.

Use Tools

There are a number of tools you can use to help you easily manage your WordPress site to save you time. Manage WP is a single dashboard that allows you to update themes and plug-ins while backing up your website daily. There are also tools that compress and optimize the appearance of images, which is great if you have an image-heavy website. 

Managing a website can be a full-time job. Make a checklist of what you want to do to keep your website updated and how often you want to complete these tasks. When possible, look for ways to automate your website management to save yourself time and hassle.

Read this next: 3 Social Media Marketing Pitfalls to Avoid