Last updated on November 27th, 2024 at 12:01 pm
Do you have patience for websites that take more than three seconds to load?
If you had a better choice, you’d leave, right?
Or you can wait, but the first impression? Annoyance.
How about a website that crashes as soon as you arrive?
You double-check the web address. Reload. Same result. Done. Bye-bye then. Zero trust. Better not revisit.
And remember those sites that load all of the text content and take ages to load images? It’s a lot worse on your mobile phone. Your battery is cut in half.
These are just a few obvious signs that those websites, or your site, need an immediate fix. Because it is not well-maintained and is vulnerable to any risks of cyber crimes, it loads slowly, which repels your users, and overeats server resources, which hurts the planet.
That sounds awful.
But. This is a good place to start.
Knowing your site’s behaviors and knowing that they’re issues is the first step to improving it.
In this post, I’ll explore the most obvious signs of a poorly maintained and polluting website that you should fix as soon as possible. Here they are:
#1: Slow Loading Times
If your site takes a long time to load, say, more than three seconds, it might have some of the following issues: inefficient code, large image sizes, bad or too many plugins, no caching system, improperly configured server, too many scripts (e.g. social feeds, etc.).
#2: Frequent Downtime
If your site is down often or you get server errors, your web host might have poor server performance or not enough hosting resources.
#3: Outdated Software
Running your site with outdated WordPress versions (core files), themes, and plugins can leave your site vulnerable to cyber-attacks and lead to performance issues.
#4: Too many plugins
The more tools you put on your site, the more care they need, the space they take, the server resources they eat up, and the time they take to load.
#5: Gigantic Media Files
If you use large images and media files without optimization (resize and compress), they can spike page load times and server resource usage.
#6: No Backup files
This increases your risk of losing data and website content you work hard to create in case of a server failure or security breach.
#7: No Security Measures
Not performing basic security practices can leave your site vulnerable to hackers and malware infections, which can impact your site’s performance and increase electricity consumption.
#8: Lack of Content Optimization
Poorly optimized content or bad website structure can negatively impact both user experience and search engine rankings.
Lastly…
Does your website have any of these signs?
If so, I created content about WordPress maintenance and security that you can use as a guideline to improve your site’s well-being.
One is My *SIMPLE* web maintenance routine: less than 30 mins/week (if no errors) and another, WordPress = Prime target for cyber attacks? & What to do about it?.