It is essential to clean up your WordPress website — it keeps things tidy and in check. In fact, think of your WordPress website as your home, and like any home, it needs maintenance.
New content. New files. Newly installed themes, plugins, and codes. These things will eventually clutter your site space. When you keep adding, your site gets overloaded. The larger the website and the more systems you have, the more congested and slow it becomes, and the more difficult it is to manage. This will also have a negative impact on how visitors can access your site.
You don’t have to sacrifice content and quality for speed when you can do a basic clean up to maximize site functions. Here’s how you can clean up and optimize your website. That said, before resetting your WordPress website, you must take a backup of your site.
- Keep site software up to date
An updated site is a fast site. Upgrading to a newer software will guarantee your site runs smoother and can troubleshoot bug issues that the older version can’t. It’s modified to fix software loopholes and will make your website perform better.
When you update, you prioritize the WordPress site itself down to the plugins and themes which can be found on the WordPress dashboard. Consistently run the latest updates when they become available to enjoy the benefits of up-to-date software.
Another area that needs to be updated is the user information. User data tends to congest your site space, and the usage of archaic and incorrect details can misinform you and your visitor. Just remember to delete inactive users, update information for the active ones, and double-check which users you will give control access to.
Cleaning up also means enhancing user experience. This means that links must be up to date.
Links are an essential part of cleaning up as they enhance user experience. If content has been moved or deleted, the links that direct to them will be broken. Aside from manual clean up, you can install the Broken Link Checker plugin that will automatically inform you of any mislink.
- If you don’t need it, delete it!
There is no need to hoard unused themes and plugins. Although those items are very handy, they may also cause loading delay. You should choose a theme and specific plugins, stick with them, and remove the rest. It’s necessary to go over your unused themes and plugins to pick out the best fit for your website interface.
Aside from those, old revision posts also cause site bloating. With the WP Revisions Control plugin, you can easily modify your database when you delete revisions so you can pinpoint which ones to scrap or save. If you prefer, you can also tweak your site’s wp-config.php file that would entirely disable any revision post.
- Deal with media files
Another item on the list to be deleted are media files. Unused media files still take up space. To avoid manually deleting images, you can use the Media Cleaner plugin that will automatically dispose of unused media files. But don’t worry, these will be placed in a folder so you can double-check before permanently deleting them.
Now, if you don’t modify the images left in your media library, it will still slow down your site. A way to optimize it is to make the file smaller without compromising the pixel quality. Although you can modify images before uploading, there are various plugins available that can do it faster. Just make sure that the plugin of your choice will automatically modify new and existing media, so you don’t have to do it repeatedly.
- Remove unused tags and spam comments
Tags can be necessary for organization. However, disposing unused tags can save space. Clearing out tags can be done manually through your WordPress dashboard – under the tags option, delete unnecessary and irrelevant ones.
Spam is not just a threat to your content, but it can also deliberately slow down your site. There are several plugins designed to deal with spam. You may scour the comments section and manually delete it, or you can install the Spam Comments Cleaner plugin to automatically delete spam comments.
- Review content
An essential clean up of any site is dissecting the content. Double-check the existing posts, pages, and tags. Dispose of what is not needed, update what is necessary, and replace what requires to be replaced. Good quality content is the backbone of every site.
Tidying up your WordPress website will be a long and tedious task. However, find time every now and then to reinvent and polish your website for improved user experience. You can get the ball rolling with a website audit. Here’s why you need a website audit.
At Them You & Me, we help you create, audit, optimize and clean up your WordPress website. If you’d like to discuss maintenance for your website, give us a call.
To know about what we do and the services we offer, please visit our website.
*Please consider our content as recommendations and not concepts to apply as is, without questioning it. Every business is unique, so find the solution and strategy that works especially for you. You may keep what you need and disregard what you don’t.
