Performance and maintenance are two key non-functional aspects that contribute to the success of a site. We discussed several ways of improving performance in Chapter 10, Troubleshooting WordPress, in the Fixing slow WordPress sites recipe. We will be further improving the performance by limiting the unnecessary data as well as cleaning unused data from the database.
Maintenance is another important aspect that is often neglected by site administrators until an issue breaks the site's functionality. A WordPress site requires several maintenance procedures; some of the tasks require technical skills while some of the tasks can be executed by anyone familiar with backend features. We will be looking at common maintenance tasks such as backing up the database and files, tracking site activities, and preparing the site for the update process...