Creating Your Website: Ongoing Maintenance and Occasional Updates

Now that you’ve created your website, you’ll want to keep it maintained.

Update WordPress and Plugins When Available

You can set WordPress to update automatically when there’s a new version or you can update it manually, whichever you prefer. Most plugins don’t need updated a lot, but they do have updates and bug fixes from time to time, especially when there’s a WordPress update.

If you’re not blogging and not logged into your WordPress dashboard frequently to see those updates as they pop up, I recommend setting a calendar reminder for at least once a month to just login and look to see if there are updates available. Just click them to update when they’re available.

Backup Your Entire Website

Your web host probably stores an occasional backup, but you’ll still want to create and save your own website backups, even if you’re not blogging. You never know what could go wrong, so it’s good to be prepared with file backups.

WordPress makes creating backups super simple and easy. There’s a plugin for that, of course 😉

If you search for ‘backup’ under Add New plugins, you’ll find several options. Jetpack even offers an option for backups, but it’s part of the paid upgrade.

I’m currently using UpDraft to backup directly to my Dropbox. It’s super simple and fast to set up. There are several other backup plugins that do the same thing, UpDraft is just one popular and easy to use option.

To do a single backup with UpDraft, all you have to do is click the backup now blue button, you will be shown a pop up, which gives you a couple options.

The first option says to include the database in the backup. You almost always want this checked. The database includes all your content, your posts, your pages, your comments, your categories, or tags, all that kind of stuff. The next option is to include any files in the backup. Again, this is another one you’ll probably check. This one include your plugin files, your theme files, your Media Library, such as images you use in your blog posts, all that kind of stuff. So next all you have to do is click the Backup Now button.

You can set it up to automatically trigger a backup, so you don’t have to do it manually. Just click on the Settings tab.

A lot of people just choose weekly if they’re blogging at least once per week. You can decide what schedule works best for you. Even if you’re not blogging, I recommend backing up at least monthly.

Homework and Action Steps:

• Set a monthly calendar reminder to check for WordPress and plugin updates.
• Install a backup plugin and schedule backups on a schedule that makes sense for you.

Recommended Resources:

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