With 2018 well underway, have you made any New Year’s resolutions for your business? Well, the New Year is the perfect time to revisit your website.
We’ve created 8 WordPress New Year’s resolutions if you’re in need of some inspiration. Choose one, tackle them all or create your own—it’s up to you! Hit the ground running in the New Year.
1. Do a site audit.
When was the last time you went through your site page-by-page to look for errors or other issues? Take some time and look for typos and spelling errors, broken images, slow loading pages, etc. and fix them. In the end, you’ll have a better, error free website that works for you.
2. Find and update all broken links.
Have you ever clicked on a link only to get a “404 page not found” error message? Broken links are annoying, and they create bad user experience. On top of that, its bad for your website’s SEO. Use a free online toolto check your entire website for any broken links. This will streamline the process, so you can fix these links faster!
- How to fix broken links in WordPress: WP Beginner tutorial
- Guide to broken links
3. Optimize images on my website.
Are you optimizing your images for the web? Optimizing images will reduce your page loading times, reduce bandwidth and improve the browsing experience for visitors. Even in the era of retina displays, images should not climb higher than 600KB in size.
Shrink your image’s size with free online tools and plugins, such as:
- Smush Image Compression & Optimization (WordPress plugin)
- CompressJPEG or CompressPNG (online tools)
Is your image dimensions too large? Resize Your Photo:
- Pic Resize: http://www.picresize.com/
- Resize Image: http://resizeimage.net/
TIP: Please remember that whilst compressing an image will reduce file size, quality can also be notably reduced if you compress an image too much.
4. Blog more.
Blogging may be at the bottom of your to-do list, but writing a blog has many benefits, like positioning your brand as an influencer in your field and boosting your site’s SEO. You can blog daily, weekly or bimonthly. Just start writing! Need blogging ideas and inspiration? View our 52 blog ideas article for inspiration.
5. Update my website’s design.
Is your blog looking tired or outdated? Is 2018 the year you need to roll out a new website design? Perhaps it’s time for a complete overhaul or a “freshening up”? (Related article: The effects of a bad website).
6. Update my portfolio.
What did you accomplish in 2017? Did you complete any major projects or events? Did you share it on your website? Spend time updating your portfolio with project photos, summaries and client testimonials.
7. Backups! Backups! Backups!
What would happen if you woke up tomorrow and your website was gone or hacked? A backup is your insurance policy that should your site disappear or become corrupted, you can restore your backup & your site will be back online again quickly. Creating and storing website backups is one of the most important things you can do to manage your website.
Here are a few WordPress backup solutions or plugins you can use:
- BackupBuddy or UpdraftPlus
- Ask your hosting provider what types of backup solutions they provide
How often should you backup? That all depends on how frequently you are making changes to your site (whether that be styling changes or adding blog posts).
8. Update all out-of-date themes, plugins and WordPress core.
Are you running out-of-date versions of WordPress core or any themes or plugins on your site? If so, you could be running software with known security vulnerabilities. While it may seem like a chore to keep up with constant updates, keeping everything updated is a very important part of maintaining your WordPress website.
The new year is the perfect time to reevaluate your website. Even if you only make good on a few of these resolutions, you’ll be ahead of the game.
Here’s to an amazing 2018.
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