What are the checklist for WordPress website maintenance?

[loganmary689]

I'm looking for a complete checklist for WordPress website maintenance. What are the essential tasks I should regularly perform to keep my site secure, updated, and running smoothly?

 

[jhtwphf]

Hello, Add plugins to protect your site to keep it secure. I'm no expert but I use the free versions of 'Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protection' and 'Jetpack'. To keep it running smoothly, I keep the plugins, WordPress and the theme updated as required on a weekly basis. It's important to backup your website regularly too. Your webesite host probably includes daily / weekly automatic backups but before doing any updates, I always take an independant backup and additionally save it to a discreet location (Google Drive in my case). I currently use WP Staging (WP Plugin - paid for option) as my backup option as it's quick to execute and restore from immediately if required, but there are others plugins available most of which offer free versions, e.g. UpdraftPlus.

 

[MariWPUmbrella]

We (WP Umbrella) put together the below list, hope it helps
(we've split the tasks into daily/weekly/quarterly/annually in an article in our blog, if you'd like to dive deeper)

1. Monitor your uptime
2. Make regular backups of your WordPress site
3. Perform malware scans
4. Update WordPress, plugins and themes
5. Update your widgets
6. Empty your WordPress cache
7. Check and delete spam comments
8. Remove broken links
9. Replace broken images
10. Remove unused themes and plugins
11. Check your Google PageSpeed score
12. Test for browser and device compatibility
13. Fix 404 errors
14. Fix PHP errors
15. Test your contact forms
16. Change all your WordPress credentials
17. Check and remove inactive WordPress users
18. Check images’ alternative texts
19. Check premium licenses expiry date
20. Review WordPress security logs
21. Optimize your WordPress database
22. Check your site’s feeds
23. Clean up your media library
24. Perform a Thorough Content and SEO Audit
25. Disavow toxic links
26. Review about us page and copyright
27. Send a maintenance report to your client