Maintaining your blog will be extremely important if you want to have a successful site. If you don’t keep your blog maintained, you run the risk of your blog breaking, or worse your blog being hacked or spammed. Today we are going to talk about what goes into maintaining a blog and how often you should perform maintenance on your blog.  Please note that many of these suggestions and tips pertain only to WordPress Blogs.

What Goes Into Maintaining a Blog?

Maintaining your blog is actually a pretty simple process. WordPress and other blogging software will let you know when there are updates available for either the blog software itself or for the plug-ins and add-ons you have. WordPress in particular lets you know immediately when there is an update to their software and it is recommended that you update as soon as possible.

If any of your plug-ins need updating, you will be notified with an orange alert (see below). Similar to the blogging software, I highly recommend you update your plugins as soon as possible if your server will allow you to. Some plugins may break if you do not update them regularly because they are no longer compatible with the new version of the blogging software.

What happens if I don’t keep the maintenance up on my blog?

For the most part, failing to update a couple plug-ins is not going to destroy your blog, however, some plug-ins specifically should be updated ASAP if you see they have an update available. You should pay special attention to security plug-ins such as AKISMET, updating these items will be crucial. Those plugins should be kept up-to-date at ALL times. If you don’t keep these things updated you could run the risk of your blog breaking, especially if you update your main blog software but not your plugins. There could be conflicts and it could mess up the look of your blog. Be sure to review over your blog once you have made these updates. Another possible problem you could run into if you do not maintain your blog is the issue of being hacked or being bombarded with spam. The spammers and hackers out there love when people forget or don’t bother updating their software since it gives them clear and easy access to your information. This is a main reason why some plugins are updated constantly, because they are constantly patching security holes.

How Often Should I Perform Maintenance on my Blog?

I try and update my blog software and plugins at least once a month. Some do it immediately some wait even longer. I would suggest checking for updates to your blog software and plug-ins at least once a month.

I hope that you can take some of these recommendations and make the most out of them. I can’t tell you how many times we have had a client tell us they have been attacked by spammers only to find out their software is two years old. If there are any additional tips or recommendations you may have I’d love to hear from you, I’m always looking for better ways to keep my blog up-to-date.