WordPress is the world’s most popular website builder, with over a quarter of the internet’s websites currently using it. It is simple, requires no coding or developer experience to use, and allows websites to be built with minimal costs.
However, WordPress site maintenance can take up a lot of your time, especially if you aren’t an experienced developer. Maintenance is very important to make sure that your site remains in optimal condition for search engine crawler bots, to prevent broken links from popping up too often, and to make sure that your page load speeds stay fast.
If you don’t have a lot of time to spend on maintenance, then you need to design a low maintenance site. Below are our top five tips for building a low maintenance WordPress website:
- Find a decent host:
Different hosting providers work differently. In general, you should stay away from cheap ones with a poor reputation, as they can cause your website to load slowly, can lead to data loss, and can have a lot of downtime. Try and find a low maintenance hosting provider who offers instant restores, one-click backups, and other features.
- Don’t use too many plugins:
Things like plugins and toolkits can stop working or work differently with different updates, which means that you should choose your plugins carefully. Only use those which are essential, and do your research before choosing which ones to use.
- Choose a simple theme:
Rather than choosing a theme based on its looks and features, choose a theme based on the potential for future maintenance. In general, simple themes will be the ones which require the least maintenance in the future. Choosing something simple and well-coded means that there is less chance of it breaking after an update, and less chance of maintenance being required to keep your site up and running.
- Keep your website simple:
If you want a low maintenance website, then you need to keep it simple. The more content and pages you have, the more chance there is of things going wrong. Stick to the essentials, and you will find yourself spending minimal time on website maintenance.
- Only link to high authority sites:
Broken links are a major problem for website owners. They can case penalties when your site is analysed by search engine bots, and can cause lower than expected visitor numbers. If you want to reduce your risk of having broken links, then only link to high authority websites who are unlikely to disappear or remove their content.
Final Word
If you aren’t an experience web developer, then website maintenance can take up a lot of your time. The key to reducing maintenance time is keeping things simple. If you think about your website design and layout carefully, it is relatively simple to create an effective website which doesn’t require a lot of maintenance. Do your research, speak to people who know what they are talking about, and most importantly, have fun building your site!