Column: You can do WordPress yourself ... but you can screw it up yourself

During this time it becomes more common to do your own business: book your holiday or separate waste to your own insurance and take out a mortgage. For freelancers, there is also a load of tasks, including maintaining your website with WordPress.

I recently sent this e-mail to my hosting provider: “GVRR has arrived again. Would you like to put the last backup on it? (I hope that last night) Removed the wrong plugin. Lost all images. Gvgrr."

Including the “GVRs" The manufacturability of our technological world is often confused with freedom. Just because you can do it yourself doesn't mean you should do it. But from a cost saving point of view that is the starting point. Certainly as a starting entrepreneur, you have nothing to do with anything, and you also have time to have fun with one or the other. A WordPress or MailChimp manual did you find it like that, right?

Step-by-step plan “messing around with WordPress”

My own list that I have compiled:

1. Backup at hosting party? Think of all your pages, blogs, images, scripts and especially hours you have put into your website. Your rankings in Google, the click traffic. Poof! Totally gone. Do not you want to. Make sure that your hosting party runs a backup. Minimum daily.
2. Make your own backup. Because you don't always want to bother your hosting party. Can also attach a price tag. Use a practical backup plugin. Such as UpdraftPlus for example, free and practical. Verify with a specialist that you are using, because a bad plugin has the opposite effect.
3. Schedule a day. After all, if you restore your backup, you do not want to lose your new articles / SEO efforts. Therefore do not write in WordPress but copy paste from a Word file.
4. Check the compatability version. For each theme and plugin you can see which WordPress version they can work with. Not yet on that version number? Then updating is a big risk. Check the website of your theme supplier and plug-in suppliers. When can you expect it? If they no longer develop further (yes, that happens), then talk to your website builder. It is actually quite handy to stay up to date.
5. Why actually? Read the explanation of the updates. Why is it necessary? Is there a big leak that gets fixed with this? Are there any negative sides? Can you find recent reviews? If you only read things that make you nervous, don't do it.
6. Disable cache plugins and empty caches. Do you have these? Like W3C or Autoptimizer? They make your site faster, and yes that is good for SEO. But first turn them off. And empty those caches.
7. Update in steps: first your WordPress, then your theme and then your plugins. Again: is your theme compatible with your desired WordPress version? Yes, then you can start.
8. Test at least one hour. Ok, your website seems to do it. Close and do something else again? NO, check if everything actually works: show images, mobile version, contact form, iFrame page, Mollie or other link for payment (test with test setting), plugin for downloading e-mails such as MailMunch (test with registration), check the mobile version or does the above, check the speed test of Google. Yes, this all takes time. But only after a weekend hearing that your site was completely flat because you did not look well or W3C and Autoptimizer can work at the same time (No, the answer I can now give you) will you cost visitors, leads and positions in Google.

WordPress properly keep up with too much hassle?

That list is still a challenge, I know, certainly for the average freelancer. When choosing a backup plug-in you become uncertain: do I have to take the paid version? And how do I test it safely? You can also outsource it to an external party that specializes in WordPress. See if they are handy WordPress Recovery service offering, with which your site will run quickly again after an error, a hack or a bug. A service for the good update your WordPress website is also super handy, so that you know for sure that you don't have to worry about finding out compatibility, versions and updates.

Source image: Don't Panic through Sarah