April 1, 2025 • 16 mins
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Have you ever checked your website only to realize something major was broken, and you had no idea how long it had been that way? That happened to me when I discovered my WooCommerce store was stuck in “coming soon” mode for weeks. Yikes! That’s why in this episode, I’m diving into website spring cleaning—because just like our homes, our websites need a deep clean to stay secure, fast, and conversion-friendly.
I’m breaking website spring cleaning into three key areas: security and performance, user experience, and content. You’ll hear why outdated plugins can put your site at risk, how to uncover hidden issues that might be driving customers away, and simple tests that will completely change how you see your site. Trust me, you don’t want to skip this!
If you’re ready to give your website the refresh it deserves, grab my free WordPress Maintenance Checklist to make sure nothing slips through the cracks. Tune in now to learn the quick and easy fixes that will keep your site running smoothly and bringing in sales!
03:04 - Three main benefits to website spring cleaning
04:44 - What to check on your website to ensure security and performance is top notch
07:34 - A user experience audit for you to try
09:29 - Steps for quickly reviewing the content on your site
11:16 - How to implement your website maintenance schedule without overwhelm
Links & Resources:
- Free WordPress Maintenance Checklist
- GTmetrix
- Google Pagespeed Insights
- Episode 134, Stop Leaving Your Website’s Front Door Unlocked - 3 Ways to Protect Your Site From Hackers
- Episode 18, How to Maintain Your WordPress Website
- Follow me on Instagram @kristendoyle.co
- Check out my Everything Page: a one-stop shop for savvy selling!
- The Savvy Seller Collective
- Join my private Facebook community: Savvy Teacher Sellers
- More resources for growing your TPT business
- Rate & review The Savvy Teacher Seller on Apple Podcasts
Show Notes: https://kristendoyle.co/episode141
Tired of constantly hustling to sell your digital products? Check out my free 19-minute training where I show you how to turn all those products you already have into a profitable, automated business.
Get more freedom and less stress ➡️ watch now at kristendoyle.co/training
Check out my Everything Page at https://kristendoyle.co/everything
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kristen Doyle (00:00):
When was the last time you actually looked at your
own website, not just the backend, where you add new products
or blog posts, but logged outand really looked at it through
your customers eyes? I recentlylearned the hard way how
important that is, because myWooCommerce store was
(00:21):
accidentally set to coming soonmode, and it stayed there for
weeks before I noticed.
More on that in a minute, buttoday we are talking about
spring cleaning for yourwebsite, not just the routine
maintenance that you should bedoing every week, but a deeper
spring clean that keeps yoursite secure, running fast and
(00:41):
actually converting visitorsinto buyers.
Are you a digital product orcourse creator, selling on
platforms like teachers payteachers, Etsy or your own
website? Ready to grow yourbusiness, but not into the kind
of constant hustle that leadsstraight to burnout? Then you're
in the right place.
Welcome to The Savvy Seller. I'mKristen Doyle, and I'm here to
(01:04):
give you no fluff, tools andstrategies that move the needle
for your business withoutburning you out in the process.
Things like SEO, no stressmarketing, email list building,
automation, and so much more.
Let's get started y'all.
Back to my WooCommerce incident.
See, I had been absolutelyswamped with client work in my
(01:28):
web design and coachingbusiness. Plus it was baseball
season, so we're constantly onthe run as a family, and for
several weeks, I had just nottaken the time to actually look
at my teaching resource website,you know, the one where I sell
all the digital products in myWooCommerce store.
(01:48):
I was doing the bare minimummaintenance, updating plugins
when I needed to, making surethe backups were running, but I
wasn't actually visiting thesite like a customer would. Big
mistake. What I didn't realizeis that during one of
WooCommerce updates, there was aglitch that randomly put my
store into coming soon mode, andso for somewhere between two and
(02:09):
three weeks, my store isbasically closed without me
knowing it.
Now with my clients, when wemake updates, we have a
procedure and we go and wevisually check the site every
single time, but because I wasin busy mode and I was doing the
bare minimum for my own site, Ijust didn't do that check. It's
(02:29):
a good reminder for why we havethat protocol as a team and why
we do that for our clients.
But what happened is anyone whotried to make a purchase during
that time just couldn't. I don'teven want to think about how
many sales I missed, all becauseI hadn't taken those few minutes
after I did my updates to go andlook at my site from the front
end like a logged out user.
(02:50):
Now this is exactly why we needto do more on our websites than
just routine maintenance. Yourwebsite needs a deep clean every
now and then, kind of like yourhouse needs a deep clean every
now and then. You can think ofit like spring cleaning for your
digital home.
There's three main benefits todoing this. First of all, you'll
get better site performance. Seeeverything you add to your site,
(03:11):
everything you have installed,every plug in, every image,
every script adds to youroverall load time. And when you
clean things up and you removewhat you don't need, your site
gets faster. And we all knowfaster sites are better, right?
Second, you'll have bettersecurity. See those unused
plugins and themes, things likethat, are basically like unlock
doors for a hacker, and even ifthey're deactivated, if they're
(03:33):
still installed, they createproblems. The same thing goes
for unused admin accounts,outdated software, things like
that.
And third, you get a better userexperience when you make sure
everything is working like itshould, that customers can buy
your products, that contactforms work, that nothing is
broken or outdated. This allcontributes to a better user
(03:55):
experience, which keeps peoplesticking around your site and
actually taking the action youwant them to take.
Now, I've got other episodes onbasic maintenance that I
recommend you do every singleweek, and I'll link to that in
the show notes, as well as to afree checklist on WordPress
maintenance. But today we'retalking about that deeper clean.
I recommend you do it once aquarter, or at least once a
(04:18):
year, to go through and do amore thorough review on your
site.
Trust me, the 15,30, maybe 45minutes that you spend on this
could really save you fromlosing a bunch of sales like I
probably did. So let's walkthrough what you should actually
check during your website'sspring cleaning. I'll break it
(04:38):
down into three main areas,security and performance, user
experience and your content.
All right, first up, securityand performance. Now I also did
a full episode recently onprotecting your site from
hackers, and I dive into a lotof the security things there.
It's episode 134 and I'll linkthat in the show notes as well,
but I won't rehash all thosedetails since that. Is available
(05:00):
for you.
But as a quick refresher, youwant to make sure to review your
plugins. Remove any that you'renot actively using. Even
deactivated plugins can createsome security vulnerabilities.
They can slow down your website.
I know sometimes we leave aplugin installed on the site
because we used it once, and wemight need to use it again, and
we don't want to forget whatplugin we used, but if it's not
something that you're using on aregular basis, and you're just
(05:24):
saving it as an in case, thenyou really should just delete it
and add it back if you ever doneed it in the future.
Now what I do for this, so Idon't forget, is I keep a list
inside my Notion account. That'skind of where I store all of my
databases of things in mybusiness. I keep a list in
Notion of plugins that I like touse for what purpose, and a link
(05:46):
directly over to the plugin so Ican install them really easily
if I ever need to again, and Idon't have to go searching for
it or trying to remember what Iused before.
Another thing you want to do ismake sure all your themes and
your plugins are up to date. Youshould be doing this every week,
but while you're in there foryour spring cleaning, check is a
good time to catch up if you'vegotten behind on those updates.
(06:06):
You want to check and make sureyou don't have any extra admin
accounts that aren't necessary.
So anyone who is not actively,currently working on your site
who truly needs administratorlevel access should either get
removed completely or reducedown to editor or author level
permissions instead of adminaccess. See an admin on your
(06:27):
site has access to literallyeverything, and that means that
they can completely break yourwebsite if they so choose to do.
Most people would never do thaton purpose, but they might
accidentally. The bigger issue,the bigger concern, is really
that if their password getshacked, then the hacker has
(06:48):
access to everything. So anyonewho doesn't need to be an admin
should get reduced down to lowerlevel permissions, and anyone
who isn't currently working onyour site, like that VA or that
web designer you hired a year ortwo ago who isn't doing anything
on your site anymore. Thoseshould just get removed.
You'll also want to run a quickspeed test. You can use GT
(07:10):
metrics or Google Page SpeedInsights. I like to use both of
those because they do sometimesgive different information, and
they can both help you see howyour site is loading in terms of
performance, and identify anyperformance issues that you
might need to fix. Keep in mind,everything that you have
installed on your sitecontributes to that overall size
and load time, so the leaner youcan keep it, the better your
(07:32):
site will perform.
Next up, let's talk about doinga little bit of a user
experience audit. Now this issomewhere that I see a lot of
website owners drop the ball,and it honestly is exactly where
I made that pretty costlymistake with my WooCommerce
store. You need to regularlyexperience your website like
(07:53):
your customers and your visitorsdo. This means logging out of
your admin account, ideallyopening the site in a private
browser window or an incognitowindow, so that you can click
through and experience itwithout any caching or cookies
in place to help you make iteasier and faster.
When you do that, here's whatyou want to check. Click through
every important page on yourwebsite. Start with your home
(08:16):
page and just kind of follow theflow that a visitor might take.
Clicking through all the links.
Test all your main navigationlinks to make sure that they
lead to the right pages wherethey should, that they open in a
new window. If they need to.
Fill out your contact forms, tomake sure those are working
properly, that you receive theresponse in your inbox. If you
have an appointment scheduler onyour website, schedule a call
(08:37):
with yourself and make sure thatthose automations trigger the
way that they should, thateverything goes through the
right way. And make testpurchases in your store. I
recommend creating a couponcode. You can do that for 99%
off, or something like that, soyou can create a purchase and
complete it with actual dollars,but without spending too much.
This verifies that your checkoutprocess and your payment
(08:59):
processor is working cleanlyfrom start to finish, and then
view your site on desktop and onmobile to make sure that it's
responsive and that it's lookinggood on different devices. If
you have access to multipledifferent types of devices in
your house, look at it on allthe different types that you
have to make sure that it'slooking good everywhere.
When you're doing this audit,pay attention to how things
(09:19):
feel. Is the navigationintuitive? Does the site load
quickly? Would a first timevisitor know what to do next?
Really try to put yourself inyour customer's shoes for this.
All right, the last thing youwant to do is take some time to
review the actual content onyour site. But I don't mean
every single blog post oranything like that. That would
take ages, and honestly, it'sjust not necessary to do,
(09:42):
typically.But what you want tolook at is check for outdated
information, especially on thoseimportant pages, like your about
page, your products or yourservices pages, FAQs, places
where information might havechanged, check and make sure
everything is up to date there.
Look for broken links or imagesthat aren't displaying the way
that they should. And payspecial attention to pages that
(10:04):
directly lead to sales thingslike your product listing pages,
your sales pages, and maybe evenyour about page. Another thing
to check is anywhere you mighthave listed timelines for
something. So if your about pageincludes some content about how
much experience you have in yourindustry, that number changes
every single year, so check upon that and make sure that those
(10:26):
things have been updated.
You also want to make sure yourcall to action buttons are
working and that you have good,strong phrasing in those that
really encourages actionsomething better than click
here. One thing I like to dowhen I'm doing this content
review is read my content outloud. It is amazing how much
easier it is to catch awkwardphrasing or outdated information
(10:47):
when you hear it, as opposed tojust reading it visually,
because a lot of us, when weread visually, we are skimming
in our brain, and we are justnot paying as much attention. So
I recommend reading it out loud.
Keep in mind that website isreally the first impression that
people have of your business alot of times, and so you don't
want to have outdated content orbroken functionality or links,
(11:07):
because that really sends themessage to people that your
business might not be as activeor as professional as you want
it to look like you are.
All right, now that you knowwhat to check, let's talk about
how to kind of implement thismaintenance schedule so it
doesn't feel too overwhelming. Ifind that breaking it into
different levels of frequencyworks well for people,
(11:27):
especially when we're busy. Soyou might want to try doing a
quick check once a quarter.
Spend about 15 minutes on this.
This is kind of a quick scanjust to catch major issues.
Double check and make sure yourplugins are up to date,
although, like I said, youshould be doing that weekly, not
quarterly. Update any plugins orthemes that need to be updated,
and then log out. Visit yoursite like a customer and just
(11:48):
check the main things that aremost important. Check things
like, can people opt in? Canthey make purchases? Double
check your site on mobile tomake sure everything still looks
good, but just give it a quickcheck.
This is literally something youcould do in one day while you're
drinking your coffee onemorning. It doesn't have to be
an exhaustive dig througheverything. You're just hitting
the most important parts. Andthen once a year, like in the
(12:12):
spring, for your springcleaning, set aside half hour,
45 minutes to do a more thoroughreview of your site. This is
when you'll go through thatentire checklist that we just
talked about, do those speedtests, maybe set aside some time
in your calendar to implementthose optimizations you need to
from those speed tests.
Make the test purchases, reviewand update content that might be
(12:32):
outdated on those importantpages. You can also spend some
time during this annual kind ofdeep clean, cleaning up your
media library and getting rid ofthose unused plugins. Check all
your forms, the integrations,the automation, just make sure
everything is working. Now Ilike to either plan this when I
know it's a slow season in mybusiness and I'm going to have
extra time to work on things, orwhen I'm working on planning out
(12:54):
goals, setting aside time forthose sorts of things. It's a
good way to make sure yourwebsite's ready to support
whatever you're doing ongoing inthe future in terms of launches
or promotions.
The key to this websitemaintenance really is
consistency. So I want you toadd these check ins to your
calendar right now. Seriously,pause the episode if you need
to. Go to your calendar, putthem in and make them recurring
(13:17):
tasks. Once a year, a springcleaning. Once a quarter, a
quick check. Without thosecalendar reminders, it is just
way too easy to let thatmaintenance slide until
something is broken.
Like I said, I learned thatlesson the hard way with my
WooCommerce store incident, andnow I have people on my team in
charge of checking that for me,because they do a great job
(13:39):
checking that stuff on all theclient sites when we make
updates, and sometimes I getbusy and don't take time to do
that for my own business. Somake sure that you're creating
those protocols like I had todo, so that you don't find
yourself in the same situation.
All right, this week, I want youto block out 15 minutes just to
do that quick check of yourwebsite. Visit your site like a
(14:00):
customer would try to buysomething, fill out your contact
form, just click around thosemain pages and make sure
everything looks good, and thenpencil in some time into your
schedule to fix anything thatjust isn't working right. Go
ahead and get that springcleaning time scheduled in as
well, and make sure you put iton that recurring task.
If you made it to the end ofthis episode and you want to
(14:22):
learn more about how to keepyour website in tip top shape
year round, I've made a freeWordPress maintenance checklist
for you, so just head over tokristendoyle.co/maintenance, and
you'll find a clickable link inthe show notes here to grab that
checklist and download it so youmake sure you don't miss
anything when you're doing thesechecks, I'll talk to you soon.
When was the last time you actually looked at your
own website, not just the backend, where you add new products
or blog posts, but logged outand really looked at it through
your customers eyes? I recentlylearned the hard way how
important that is, because myWooCommerce store was
(00:21):
accidentally set to coming soonmode, and it stayed there for
weeks before I noticed.
More on that in a minute, buttoday we are talking about
spring cleaning for yourwebsite, not just the routine
maintenance that you should bedoing every week, but a deeper
spring clean that keeps yoursite secure, running fast and
(00:41):
actually converting visitorsinto buyers.
Are you a digital product orcourse creator, selling on
platforms like teachers payteachers, Etsy or your own
website? Ready to grow yourbusiness, but not into the kind
of constant hustle that leadsstraight to burnout? Then you're
in the right place.
Welcome to The Savvy Seller. I'mKristen Doyle, and I'm here to
(01:04):
give you no fluff, tools andstrategies that move the needle
for your business withoutburning you out in the process.
Things like SEO, no stressmarketing, email list building,
automation, and so much more.
Let's get started y'all.
Back to my WooCommerce incident.
See, I had been absolutelyswamped with client work in my
(01:28):
web design and coachingbusiness. Plus it was baseball
season, so we're constantly onthe run as a family, and for
several weeks, I had just nottaken the time to actually look
at my teaching resource website,you know, the one where I sell
all the digital products in myWooCommerce store.
(01:48):
I was doing the bare minimummaintenance, updating plugins
when I needed to, making surethe backups were running, but I
wasn't actually visiting thesite like a customer would. Big
mistake. What I didn't realizeis that during one of
WooCommerce updates, there was aglitch that randomly put my
store into coming soon mode, andso for somewhere between two and
(02:09):
three weeks, my store isbasically closed without me
knowing it.
Now with my clients, when wemake updates, we have a
procedure and we go and wevisually check the site every
single time, but because I wasin busy mode and I was doing the
bare minimum for my own site, Ijust didn't do that check. It's
(02:29):
a good reminder for why we havethat protocol as a team and why
we do that for our clients.
But what happened is anyone whotried to make a purchase during
that time just couldn't. I don'teven want to think about how
many sales I missed, all becauseI hadn't taken those few minutes
after I did my updates to go andlook at my site from the front
end like a logged out user.
(02:50):
Now this is exactly why we needto do more on our websites than
just routine maintenance. Yourwebsite needs a deep clean every
now and then, kind of like yourhouse needs a deep clean every
now and then. You can think ofit like spring cleaning for your
digital home.
There's three main benefits todoing this. First of all, you'll
get better site performance. Seeeverything you add to your site,
(03:11):
everything you have installed,every plug in, every image,
every script adds to youroverall load time. And when you
clean things up and you removewhat you don't need, your site
gets faster. And we all knowfaster sites are better, right?
Second, you'll have bettersecurity. See those unused
plugins and themes, things likethat, are basically like unlock
doors for a hacker, and even ifthey're deactivated, if they're
(03:33):
still installed, they createproblems. The same thing goes
for unused admin accounts,outdated software, things like
that.
And third, you get a better userexperience when you make sure
everything is working like itshould, that customers can buy
your products, that contactforms work, that nothing is
broken or outdated. This allcontributes to a better user
(03:55):
experience, which keeps peoplesticking around your site and
actually taking the action youwant them to take.
Now, I've got other episodes onbasic maintenance that I
recommend you do every singleweek, and I'll link to that in
the show notes, as well as to afree checklist on WordPress
maintenance. But today we'retalking about that deeper clean.
I recommend you do it once aquarter, or at least once a
(04:18):
year, to go through and do amore thorough review on your
site.
Trust me, the 15,30, maybe 45minutes that you spend on this
could really save you fromlosing a bunch of sales like I
probably did. So let's walkthrough what you should actually
check during your website'sspring cleaning. I'll break it
(04:38):
down into three main areas,security and performance, user
experience and your content.
All right, first up, securityand performance. Now I also did
a full episode recently onprotecting your site from
hackers, and I dive into a lotof the security things there.
It's episode 134 and I'll linkthat in the show notes as well,
but I won't rehash all thosedetails since that. Is available
(05:00):
for you.
But as a quick refresher, youwant to make sure to review your
plugins. Remove any that you'renot actively using. Even
deactivated plugins can createsome security vulnerabilities.
They can slow down your website.
I know sometimes we leave aplugin installed on the site
because we used it once, and wemight need to use it again, and
we don't want to forget whatplugin we used, but if it's not
something that you're using on aregular basis, and you're just
(05:24):
saving it as an in case, thenyou really should just delete it
and add it back if you ever doneed it in the future.
Now what I do for this, so Idon't forget, is I keep a list
inside my Notion account. That'skind of where I store all of my
databases of things in mybusiness. I keep a list in
Notion of plugins that I like touse for what purpose, and a link
(05:46):
directly over to the plugin so Ican install them really easily
if I ever need to again, and Idon't have to go searching for
it or trying to remember what Iused before.
Another thing you want to do ismake sure all your themes and
your plugins are up to date. Youshould be doing this every week,
but while you're in there foryour spring cleaning, check is a
good time to catch up if you'vegotten behind on those updates.
(06:06):
You want to check and make sureyou don't have any extra admin
accounts that aren't necessary.
So anyone who is not actively,currently working on your site
who truly needs administratorlevel access should either get
removed completely or reducedown to editor or author level
permissions instead of adminaccess. See an admin on your
(06:27):
site has access to literallyeverything, and that means that
they can completely break yourwebsite if they so choose to do.
Most people would never do thaton purpose, but they might
accidentally. The bigger issue,the bigger concern, is really
that if their password getshacked, then the hacker has
(06:48):
access to everything. So anyonewho doesn't need to be an admin
should get reduced down to lowerlevel permissions, and anyone
who isn't currently working onyour site, like that VA or that
web designer you hired a year ortwo ago who isn't doing anything
on your site anymore. Thoseshould just get removed.
You'll also want to run a quickspeed test. You can use GT
(07:10):
metrics or Google Page SpeedInsights. I like to use both of
those because they do sometimesgive different information, and
they can both help you see howyour site is loading in terms of
performance, and identify anyperformance issues that you
might need to fix. Keep in mind,everything that you have
installed on your sitecontributes to that overall size
and load time, so the leaner youcan keep it, the better your
(07:32):
site will perform.
Next up, let's talk about doinga little bit of a user
experience audit. Now this issomewhere that I see a lot of
website owners drop the ball,and it honestly is exactly where
I made that pretty costlymistake with my WooCommerce
store. You need to regularlyexperience your website like
(07:53):
your customers and your visitorsdo. This means logging out of
your admin account, ideallyopening the site in a private
browser window or an incognitowindow, so that you can click
through and experience itwithout any caching or cookies
in place to help you make iteasier and faster.
When you do that, here's whatyou want to check. Click through
every important page on yourwebsite. Start with your home
(08:16):
page and just kind of follow theflow that a visitor might take.
Clicking through all the links.
Test all your main navigationlinks to make sure that they
lead to the right pages wherethey should, that they open in a
new window. If they need to.
Fill out your contact forms, tomake sure those are working
properly, that you receive theresponse in your inbox. If you
have an appointment scheduler onyour website, schedule a call
(08:37):
with yourself and make sure thatthose automations trigger the
way that they should, thateverything goes through the
right way. And make testpurchases in your store. I
recommend creating a couponcode. You can do that for 99%
off, or something like that, soyou can create a purchase and
complete it with actual dollars,but without spending too much.
This verifies that your checkoutprocess and your payment
(08:59):
processor is working cleanlyfrom start to finish, and then
view your site on desktop and onmobile to make sure that it's
responsive and that it's lookinggood on different devices. If
you have access to multipledifferent types of devices in
your house, look at it on allthe different types that you
have to make sure that it'slooking good everywhere.
When you're doing this audit,pay attention to how things
(09:19):
feel. Is the navigationintuitive? Does the site load
quickly? Would a first timevisitor know what to do next?
Really try to put yourself inyour customer's shoes for this.
All right, the last thing youwant to do is take some time to
review the actual content onyour site. But I don't mean
every single blog post oranything like that. That would
take ages, and honestly, it'sjust not necessary to do,
(09:42):
typically.But what you want tolook at is check for outdated
information, especially on thoseimportant pages, like your about
page, your products or yourservices pages, FAQs, places
where information might havechanged, check and make sure
everything is up to date there.
Look for broken links or imagesthat aren't displaying the way
that they should. And payspecial attention to pages that
(10:04):
directly lead to sales thingslike your product listing pages,
your sales pages, and maybe evenyour about page. Another thing
to check is anywhere you mighthave listed timelines for
something. So if your about pageincludes some content about how
much experience you have in yourindustry, that number changes
every single year, so check upon that and make sure that those
(10:26):
things have been updated.
You also want to make sure yourcall to action buttons are
working and that you have good,strong phrasing in those that
really encourages actionsomething better than click
here. One thing I like to dowhen I'm doing this content
review is read my content outloud. It is amazing how much
easier it is to catch awkwardphrasing or outdated information
(10:47):
when you hear it, as opposed tojust reading it visually,
because a lot of us, when weread visually, we are skimming
in our brain, and we are justnot paying as much attention. So
I recommend reading it out loud.
Keep in mind that website isreally the first impression that
people have of your business alot of times, and so you don't
want to have outdated content orbroken functionality or links,
(11:07):
because that really sends themessage to people that your
business might not be as activeor as professional as you want
it to look like you are.
All right, now that you knowwhat to check, let's talk about
how to kind of implement thismaintenance schedule so it
doesn't feel too overwhelming. Ifind that breaking it into
different levels of frequencyworks well for people,
(11:27):
especially when we're busy. Soyou might want to try doing a
quick check once a quarter.
Spend about 15 minutes on this.
This is kind of a quick scanjust to catch major issues.
Double check and make sure yourplugins are up to date,
although, like I said, youshould be doing that weekly, not
quarterly. Update any plugins orthemes that need to be updated,
and then log out. Visit yoursite like a customer and just
(11:48):
check the main things that aremost important. Check things
like, can people opt in? Canthey make purchases? Double
check your site on mobile tomake sure everything still looks
good, but just give it a quickcheck.
This is literally something youcould do in one day while you're
drinking your coffee onemorning. It doesn't have to be
an exhaustive dig througheverything. You're just hitting
the most important parts. Andthen once a year, like in the
(12:12):
spring, for your springcleaning, set aside half hour,
45 minutes to do a more thoroughreview of your site. This is
when you'll go through thatentire checklist that we just
talked about, do those speedtests, maybe set aside some time
in your calendar to implementthose optimizations you need to
from those speed tests.
Make the test purchases, reviewand update content that might be
(12:32):
outdated on those importantpages. You can also spend some
time during this annual kind ofdeep clean, cleaning up your
media library and getting rid ofthose unused plugins. Check all
your forms, the integrations,the automation, just make sure
everything is working. Now Ilike to either plan this when I
know it's a slow season in mybusiness and I'm going to have
extra time to work on things, orwhen I'm working on planning out
(12:54):
goals, setting aside time forthose sorts of things. It's a
good way to make sure yourwebsite's ready to support
whatever you're doing ongoing inthe future in terms of launches
or promotions.
The key to this websitemaintenance really is
consistency. So I want you toadd these check ins to your
calendar right now. Seriously,pause the episode if you need
to. Go to your calendar, putthem in and make them recurring
(13:17):
tasks. Once a year, a springcleaning. Once a quarter, a
quick check. Without thosecalendar reminders, it is just
way too easy to let thatmaintenance slide until
something is broken.
Like I said, I learned thatlesson the hard way with my
WooCommerce store incident, andnow I have people on my team in
charge of checking that for me,because they do a great job
(13:39):
checking that stuff on all theclient sites when we make
updates, and sometimes I getbusy and don't take time to do
that for my own business. Somake sure that you're creating
those protocols like I had todo, so that you don't find
yourself in the same situation.
All right, this week, I want youto block out 15 minutes just to
do that quick check of yourwebsite. Visit your site like a
(14:00):
customer would try to buysomething, fill out your contact
form, just click around thosemain pages and make sure
everything looks good, and thenpencil in some time into your
schedule to fix anything thatjust isn't working right. Go
ahead and get that springcleaning time scheduled in as
well, and make sure you put iton that recurring task.
If you made it to the end ofthis episode and you want to
(14:22):
learn more about how to keepyour website in tip top shape
year round, I've made a freeWordPress maintenance checklist
for you, so just head over tokristendoyle.co/maintenance, and
you'll find a clickable link inthe show notes here to grab that
checklist and download it so youmake sure you don't miss
anything when you're doing thesechecks, I'll talk to you soon.
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