Test & Monitor

In researching WordPress Tips and Tricks two points were consistent themes across multiple sources which are test and monitor your WordPress site. Of course security is a consistent entry to such WordPress tips and tricks lists and is a worthy inclusion. For me, test and monitor include many entries.

The most obvious would be to test your sites performance regularly with tools such as GTMetrix and Page Speed Insights which will test page load speeds and provide grades and detailed reports. Such tools are critical in their assessment of page load speed and often miss interpreted by a website owner who might miss some key configuration options that could have a big impact on the resulting score. Also, it is important to test multiple pages. Google Analytics will give insight on high traffic pages that you can focus efforts on testing and improving those pages first.

In regards to monitoring, as mentioned above, Google Analytics is great for providing user insights as to how many users traffic your site, who your users are, and user activity. This can help in identifying what types of content are peaking the most interest. Also, monitor and interact with comments regularly. It is best to control your content by requiring comments to be approved prior to them being published. Not every human has the best intentions.

To close, test and monitor the critical elements of your site are the most consistent consistent entries on WordPress tips and tricks lists. Test site performance as well as SEO. Set up and monitor tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Also, monitor and interact with comments frequently as good contributors don’t like to feel ignored.