A Checklist for taking care of your Divi-powered WordPress website is critical for performance, security and to maintain the functionality of your site. Caring for our website with a regular maintenance routine has the potential of offering your website visitors an improved and optimised user experience.

Use my checklist to keep your Divi powered WordPress website in tip top condition.

Before you start, it’s important to know that every time you carry out updates that your website goes into maintenance mode. So pick a suitable time to do those.

1. Backup Your Website

1. I recommend weekly backups wherever possible of the entire website, including the database and files using all of the options below to ensure you have a complete and uncorrupted copy to restore from.
2. Use a reputable and reliable backup plugin such as Updraft Backups or Backup Buddy to have a copy for yourself and also…..
3. Use your web host’s backup services, noting that some providers like Australian Ventra IP conduct regular acronis backups as part of their web hosting packages. (hourly incremental backups)
4. Document backup and restoration procedures to have clarity around what needs to be done.

2. Improve Security

1. Strong Passwords: Use strong, unique passwords for your WordPress login and hosting accounts. Try combinations of uppercase and lowercase letters, incorporating numbers and symbols. E.g., STAR-Field.16?+ (making up your own combination) which is harder to guess than a word number combination alone. Hackers use lightning fast apps to decipher passwords so make it difficult for them to figure it out.
2. Security Plugin With A Firewall: Protect your site from malware and hacking attempts with a plugin that includes a firewall and malware scanner. (Wordfence Premium offers full protection)
3. Limit Login Attempts: Set limits on login attempts as a preventative measure against brute force attacks and hackers.
4. install SSL: The presence of an installed SSL certificate on your website provides your users with a sense of trust and reassurance, as evidenced by the visible security symbol in their browser’s address bar. By implementing an SSL certificate, you can ensure the secure transmission of online data on your website, effectively preventing unauthorized interception of information left by site visitors through your web forms, such as those used to contact you. It is worth noting that Google marks websites without an SSL certificate as unsafe, thus having one in place establishes credibility and fosters trust with your site visitors and customers.
5. Regularly Scan for Malware: Use your security plugin to scan for malware and vulnerabilities. Pay attention to what your scanner is telling you an make the necessary adjustments to remedy the situation.
6. Health Site Status On WordPress Dashboard:  Monitor your site health screen to know the state of the health of your WordPress website and view the recommended actions.
7. Monitor User Accounts Regularly & Control User Access: From time to time make sure to look at who has access to your WordPress Dashboard. Look out for unusual or suspicious accounts. Also see the roles each user is assigned.

3. improve Performance 

1. Optimize Images: Optimise images to improve load times. Use only the recommended sizes on your website and convert images to compatible web versions such as Webp.
2. Minimize and Combine Files: Minify files and minimize the number of CSS and JavaScript files by also combining them when possible.
3. Cache: Use a caching plugin to speed up your site. There are many to choose from on the WordPress repository. Choose a popular one that is regularly updated and is compatible with your WordPress version.
4. Content Delivery Network (CDN): A CDN service can speed up performance by delivering content more quickly to users around the world. It works by replicating and storing content close to where the user is accessing content from so it can be delivered even faster.
5. Check Page Load Speed: Page load speed can be tested regularly using Pingdom, GTmetrix or PageSpeed Insights.
6. Content and SEO: Without SEO your web pages are virtually invisible.  Use onpage and technical SEO cleverly with relevant keywords to boost your websites visibility organically. (equates to UNPAID Marketing on the search engine.).
7. Regularly Update Content: google loves fresh content. Add new, refresh your page content and update existing content to keep it relevant.

4. Keep Your Website Updated

1. Conduct Safe updates:Ensuring that you back up your website before conducting these updates to create a restore point should your site become unstable. Keep in mind that these updates are security focused to patch the latest security vulnerabilities.
2. Conducting  Regular Updates: Update the WordPress Core and Theme As soon as updates become available. Keep all plugins updated as outdated plugins can pose security risks.
3. Remove Unused Themes & Plugins –  keeping no more than one additional theme for your website to revert back to in case its required. Note: if your website has a child theme and a parent them, also keep them plus one additional theme.   Otherwise all unused themes and plugins can be deactivated and removed..

5. Use Monitoring Tools

1. Monitor Uptime: Keep a close eye on your website’s uptime with alerts to know how often your site goes down. The acceptable uptime is 99%.
2. Check for Broken Links: Use a plugin or service to identify broken links on your website and fix them.

By following this checklist, your Dvi WordPress website will be well-maintained, secure, and performing at its best. Regular maintenance and monitoring are crucial for ensuring the long-term success of your website.

Want to take care of your Divi Website Like A Boss?

Check out my How To Take Care of Your DivI Website Like A Boss Freebie

Need To Free Up Your Valuable Time?

ACT Websites can take care of your WordPress updates and more. See my plans using the link below or Contact Sandra to customise a plan to suit your business needs. WordPress Maintenance Plans If you don’t have the Divi theme you can check it out here. By Sandra Ciminelli WordPress Web Designer/Developer located in Canberra.