Should I manage my own WordPress website once it's built?

Your businesses website is all built, it’s up and running, all the hard work is over right? It’s not as easy as that. If you’re considering building a website with WordPress, or already have one, you also have to factor in whether you can manage once it’s functional. The website on it’s own isn’t going to generate sales.

Here’s a few things you’ll have to consider when deciding whether you can manage your own WordPress website:

1. Content

Fortunately, creating and producing content with WordPress is a fairly straightforward task. That is the easy part. The hard part is actually having the time to commit to writing a specified amount of blog posts per day, week or month. Your original content will generate leads that could potentially become conversions. You will need to consider a few things:

• Do I have the time to commit to writing a blog? Writing a blog post isn’t as simple as just sitting down at a computer and writing. You have to generate the idea, research the topic, write the piece and edit drafts, optimise the content to include photographs, videos, backlinks, paragraphs, publish the piece and then promote it. HubSpot found most marketers spend 1-2 hours writing a 500 word blog post. While there is no set timeframe, and each person will take a different amount of time, it is something to factor in, especially if you’re aiming to produce a high volume of content.

• What is my schedule for producing content? How many blog posts do I want to produce per day, week or month? You’ll be able to build a bigger community if you decide on a schedule for how often you are going to produce new content. Google will also push your business higher in it’s search results if you consistently produce new content. Consider your writing capacity and how much you can realistically produce in a certain time frame, and stick to that.

• How is this content going to be publicized? Social media? On other blogs? Of course, there are many other ways to promote your blog post other than social media. The time spent promoting your content is another factor to consider.

• Do I have enough staff to write a big enough volume of content? Should I outsource my writing? If you’ve decided on how much content you are going to produce within a certain time frame, you also have to consider your staff’s capacity. Does your staff have enough time to commit to producing good, quality blog posts? If you’re working on your own, can you time manage well enough to juggle clients, the website and content production? Should you outsource and hire a content writer?

2. Updates, plugins and themes

When you’re managing your own WordPress website, you’ll want to keep it as functional as possible and minimise its security threat. You don’t want to end up with a broken or hacked website. Security plugins such as iThemes Security will help increase your website’s level of security. However, there are a few extra ways in which you can minimise your risk of being hacked.

Updates

• Updating WordPress: if there is a minor update, WordPress will generally update automatically. However, sometimes major versions need to be updated manually. It’s best to keep an eye on your WordPress installs if a major version update is announced.
• Updating plugins and themes: your plugins and themes will generally be updated because of feature enhancements, bug fixes, security patches or to make them compatible with the latest version of WordPress. To ensure your website runs smoothly, it’s best to monitor when the plugins and themes need updating. On your WordPress Dashboard, you’ll be able to see a number next to the “updates” tab, which tells you how many plugins and themes need updating. To avoid problems, make sure your plugin is compatible with the version of WordPress you have.

3. Download legitimate themes or plugins

Premium themes and plugins cost money that some people just don’t want to spend. It’s therefore very tempting to pirate a theme or plugin and install it for free. However this raises your risk of having downloaded a malicious theme or plugin and raising your risk of being hacked or having software on your computer. It’s best to make sure you’re only downloading themes and plugins from a reputable source. If you’re not sure, you can ask other WordPress users for a good source to download from. It’s a good idea to research a plugin or theme before downloading. There are 1,305 WordPress plugins vulnerabilities. When looking at the top 10 most vulnerable WordPress plugins, 5 were commercial, and one was even a WordPress security plugin.

4. Reporting

Reporting is a vital tool when trying to improve your SEO and website. Analysing your report data will allow you to see how many people are viewing your website, their demographics, where they have been on your website and at what point they left your website. This will allow you to optimise your website and marketing campaigns to gain more conversions. If you’re not undertaking frequent reporting, you could be targeting the wrong demographics and be missing out on potential sales. Reporting tools you need to be using for your WordPress website are

• Google Analytics
• HubSpot
• Kissmetrics

5. Backups

If something goes wrong, you’ll have peace of mind if your website is backed up. If it get hacked or you accidentally break your website, all you need to do is refer to the backup. If your WordPress website isn’t backed up, you’re going to have problems.

Fortunately, you can install plugins which will backup your data. Some plugins worth installing are:

• Snapshot Pro
• WordPress Backup to Dropbox
• Vaultpress

Make sure you download a backup plugin, and undertake backups frequently to avoid any future problems.

If you feel you are able to handle all the aspects of a WordPress website, then you will efficiently be able to manage your own website.