Is your WordPress site gathering digital dust? No judgement, trust me I’ve seen my fair share of neglected websites. I get it, it’s one of those things that forever stays on your to-do list.
But just like a cluttered office (or home) can make you feel a bit bleurgh, an outdated website can have the same effect. It can slow down your site speed, hurt your user experience, and drag down your search engine rankings.
Spring cleaning isn’t just for physical spaces – it’s the perfect time to refresh your online home. A few quick fixes can make a huge difference, helping you attract new leads, improve site traffic, and keep potential customers engaged.
This spring cleaning checklist is designed to be simple and effective, so you can get your site in tip-top shape. While it’s geared toward WordPress sites, most of these tips can apply to any website.
BONUS: After doing some website and business spring cleaning myself, I was feeling super inspired – so I put together a nifty checklist you can download at the end.
Oki dokie, put your gloves on! Here are 10 simple ways to refresh your site and keep it running smoothly.
1. Update WordPress, Themes & Plugins
Just like your phone needs updates, your website does too. Running outdated plugins and skipping software updates can expose your site to security vulnerabilities. With the rise of AI we’re seeing more and more security breaches and spam bots. Seriously… 2024 was crazy with the amount of security breaches we saw online, I don’t want to talk about how much time I spent on security! Can hackers just not?
- Check for WordPress core, theme and plugin updates and apply them.
- Easiest way to do this is to navigate to the Updates section from your website dashboard.
- Delete any unused plugins and themes to reduce security risks.
- From your plugins page you can filter by inactive and remove as needed.
- Ensure your theme and plugins are actively maintained by their developers.
- Check when they were last updated and if any bad reviews in the WordPress repository
2. Fix Broken Links & Redirects
Broken links frustrate site visitors and confuse search engines, affecting your search engine optimization.
- Use a free tool like Broken Link Checker to find and fix broken links.
- A lot of premium SEO plugins have this feature, I personally use SEOPress Pro for myself and client sites.
- Set up 301 redirects for old URLs to avoid losing site traffic.
- Any time you delete a page/post/product you should always set up a redirect so that people don’t land on a 404 page.
- Ensure external links open in a new tab/window while internal links stay in the same tab.
- The last thing you want to do is send people away from your website so make sure any external links open in a new tab. Internal links however you want to open in the same tab to ensure a seamless user experience.
3. Check Website Speed & Performance
A slow page affects site visitors, conversions, and SEO rankings. Site speed should always be a priority when looking after your website.
- Run a website speed test using PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix.
- Both these websites will give you details of any issues and more information about how they can be resolved. They can get technical so focus on low-hanging fruits.
- Use a content delivery network (CDN) to boost your site’s speed.
- I personally use and recommend Cloudflare for all my clients.
- Consider upgrading hosting if your web page loads in more than 3 seconds.
- I cannot tell you how many times a new client has come to me and simply changing their hosting provider gave their website the speed boost it needed. I have my care plan clients on customised servers but I also highly recommend Cloudways.
4. Enhance Mobile-Friendliness
More than half of internet browsing happens on mobile devices. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re missing out on potential customers.
- Do an online Mobile-Friendly Test to check usability.
- Bing has a free Mobile Friendliness Test Tool. Just enter your website address and it will tell you if your website is mobile-friendly.
- Manually check your pages on different devices and web browsers.
- If you don’t have different devices you can test on (like me), you can use a tool like Responsive Design Checker to see different size devices.
5. Run a Security Audit
A compromised website can lead to stolen personal information, hacked email service accounts, and exposure to cyber threats. Are you guilty of using the same password a million times over? I know it’s a pain but it’s so important for your cyber security.
- Install a password manager and use it to generate and store strong, unique passwords.
- Enable two-factor authentication or multi-factor authentication for logins.
- I know, I know… this is also a pain. But it’s something that a bot or AI can’t get past. Whether you get a code sent to your phone or use an authenticator.
- Install a security plugin
- I use Wordfence and the free version is more than enough.
- Scan for malware and security vulnerabilities
- This is easy peasy with a plugin like Wordfence, it’s done automatically but you can also do manual if you need.
6. Audit & Update Your Website Content
Your website content should align with your current branding, business, and services. Over time, things change – you may have new offerings, team members, or updates that aren’t reflected on your site. For example, your About page might mention how long you’ve been in business, but is it up to date?
A content audit helps ensure your site stays accurate, relevant, and engaging for visitors.
- Review all pages, have a read through to make sure the content is accurate and relevant.
- Review blog posts that may not be relevant to your audience or what you offer.
- Before hitting delete on that blog post it’s worth checking to see if it is bringing in traffic. If it is see if you can tweak the content or call-to-action to be relevant to what you currently offer.
- You also want to make sure you redirect any blog posts that you remove so people don’t end up on a 404 page.
- Add fresh content like testimonials, case studies, or videos.
- If you don’t have any new testimonials or case studies it’s no biggie, but… it could be a good reminder to reach out to clients/customers to get that valuable social proof!
7. Review Forms & Contact Information
What’s the point of having a website for your business if people can’t easily contact you? If your contact form isn’t working it’s a bit useless isn’t it?
- Test all forms and check if submissions are being received.
- If your contact form submissions aren’t being received, the most common culprit is the lack of an SMTP plugin. WordPress doesn’t send emails reliably by default, so an SMTP plugin helps ensure messages are delivered properly. There are many options available, I’ve previously used FluentSMTP and WP Mail SMTP, both of which are solid choices.
- Update your contact information (email, phone, address).
- Add a chatbot or FAQ page to improve user experience (and free up your time).
- Both FAQ pages and chatbots can free up your admin time by answering common questions.
8. Declutter Your Database
Just like cleaning out your trash folder or spam folder, decluttering your database can improve site speed.
- Use WP-Sweep to remove old files and revisions.
- IMPORTANT: Always take a back up before using either of these, if it accidentally removes something important you can restore the back up.
- Delete spam and unapproved comments.
- Easily managed from the comments tab in your website dashboard.
9. Check Legal Compliance (GDPR, Privacy, Terms & Conditions)
It’s ALWAYS a good idea is to ensure your site is legally compliant with data protection laws.
- Update your privacy policy and terms of service.
- Don’t have policies? No problem, you can buy templates online from places like Legal123 (Australia) and The Contract Shop (USA)
- Add a cookie consent banner if required in your country/state.
- Ensure opt-ins for email marketing meet compliance regulations.
- This varies country to country and although you can look this up yourself it’s always best to consult a legal professional on your obligations.
- VERY GENERAL RULE is you need consent to send email marketing to people.
10. Remove Unused Media & Optimise Images
Your hard work creating a beautiful website shouldn’t be slowed down by old files and large site clutter. Nothing pains me more than when I log into a website for the first time and see the hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of images cluttering up a website.
- Delete old images and unused media files.
- There are plugins like Media Cleaner that will scan your website for unused images but USE WITH CAUTION, these are not always accurate and aren’t always compatible with your website theme. Again always take a back up before using a plugin like this.
- Optimise images for site speed
- Check out my free image optimisation guide if you’re unsure how to do this.
- Convert images to WebP for a fast-loading website.
- Probably the easiest way to do this install a plugin like Imagify, this will compress and convert images that are already uploaded.
Well there ya go!
This spring cleaning checklist is a great opportunity to give your small business website the TLC it deserves.
If you’ve made it to the end and thought, this feels too hard / I can’t be bothered / I’d rather focus on my business, then let’s chat!
Happy websites make me happy, and I’d love to take this off your hands. Head over to my contact page, and let’s see how I can help.
