WordPress Management: What You Need to Know 

If you own a website but are not tech-savvy, you must know that what you don’t know can land you in hot water. It can also cost you considerable time and money—which most of us don’t have.

The whole point of WordPress is to provide people with user-friendly content management and all the tools needed to run it in one place. Powering more than 455 million websites worldwide, WordPress is the most popular choice of all Content Management Systems.

WordPress management isn’t rocket science, but mismanagement can lead to general chaos and even result in your website being black listed on some search engines.

These are the essential elements to remember when it comes to WordPress management.

WordPress Management Essentials to Know

Know the Difference Between Self-Hosted and Hosted WordPress

A hosted WordPress website is one where someone else handles all the complicated technical components of owning a website. The great news about using this type of service is that it makes it much easier to get started and lets you focus solely on content and communication with your customers if you’re a business owner.

Hosted services include:

• WordPress
• Squarespace
• Weebly
• Wix
• Shopify

You can go one step further and use a proven management service such as WP Tech Support, so you don’t have to worry about all the security plugins and extras you should be installing.

They take care of things like:

• WordPress fixes
• WordPress updates
• Performance tune-ups
• SEO optimization
• Site Security
• 24/7 monitoring
• Offsite backups
• Website improvements
• Spam comment cleansing

On the other hand, self-hosting means that you download your copy of the WordPress CMS, choose a domain provider, and sign up with a hosting service to host your website on the Internet.

You will have control over everything, including the domain, hosting, and maintenance – and the responsibility that comes with it.

Ensure Your Site is Backed Up Daily

Backups are crucial to the good health of your website. Without them, you could lose essential and sensitive data – such as your customer’s information. What’s worse, you could suffer an intrusion from hackers and find yourself locked out of your website.

Understanding WordPress Themes

A WordPress theme will establish how your website looks. To install one, go to your site’s WordPress admin panel, select Appearance, and then Themes in the menu. You can look through thousands of themes and install the ones you like.

Various themes feature different font styles, layouts, and colors. The best themes should only enhance your website’s presentation, not its functionality.

Keep Your Plugins Updated

Plugins give your site-specific functionality. Here are some of the reasons that you might want to use plugins:

• Add a form to your site
• Add social media integration
• Add a form to your site
• Add e-commerce features
• Add a page builder

Like thousands of themes, many plugins promise to improve your site. The truth is they vary in quality, so if you aren’t sure which to choose, go with something with plenty of users. Also, ensure you choose a plugin or theme with regular updates. If the last update was a few years back, nobody maintains it.

Most importantly, to ensure that your site continues running smoothly, you must update your themes and plugins whenever possible. Remember that these updates could negatively affect your site, so test them after an update.

Know When to Go Premium

Many WordPress themes and plugins are available for free and in premium versions. However, free plugins often cause your site to fail because they aren’t well-built, costing you time and money in downtime.

Choosing to purchase a premium plugin means that you are supporting the continued development of that plugin and active customer support.

Final Word

WordPress is an excellent platform for setting up a website; however, its quality largely depends on how it is managed. The elements mentioned above are the basics of excellent WordPress management.

Knowing whether you will self-host or have a hosted site is imperative. Much depends on your tech knowledge and the time you wish to spend managing your site. Other things to remember include choosing suitable themes and plugins and keeping them updated.