How to Improve the Workflow of Your WordPress Website
While WordPress may be one of the easiest platforms to build a website on, managing a site requires a lot of work. As such, learning how to improve your WordPress site’s workflow is essential.
Not only do you need to keep producing a steady flow of high-quality, SEO-friendly content, but you also need to make sure everything is running smoothly. Thus, you need to come up with a game plan and optimize it.
Luckily, WordPress is home to thousands of plugins, and many of them can help you optimize your workflow and improve your productivity. It all comes down to finding the right strategies and tools that can help you achieve your goals.
Today, I will share several methods on how you can improve your workflow in WordPress.
What Is A Workflow in WordPress?
A WordPress workflow is an outline for creating and publishing content that describes the process step by step. It should be detailed enough so that if another writer were to use it, they could replicate the process.
If done correctly, a workflow will help maintain consistency across your content, improve search engine optimization (SEO), and plan routine updates and reviews of content in the future.
While you can find examples and templates for existing WordPress workflows, the truth is that each one is unique.
While there are many similarities amongst most content creation, the order and process can be very different. As creators may use different tools to help them and have different priorities when creating content.
As such, it is highly recommended to make your own workflow to better fit your content creation process. It may take several iterations to get perfect, but the sooner you get started, the more time you can save when it is perfected.
Methods to Improve Your WordPress Workflow
The methods here are in no particular order, as each content creator is going to have their own method. Instead, the focus is on highlighting specific methods that can help improve your workflow and tools you can use to achieve it when applicable.
1. Outline Your Content Creation Process
This may sound obvious, as it is core content of any workflow, but that just proves it is the most important step. You should start by creating a simple outline of your current content creation practice, like so:
- Research Keywords
- Create Title
- Choose A Featured Image
- Select Categories & Tags
- Write Content With SEO in Mind
- Review Content
- Publish Content
- Share Content on Social Media
- Update Content After Time Passes
Once you have the basics down, you can add more details to each process. For example, consider the very first step, Research Keywords. You should add more details, including what tools to use and the criteria for a keyword to be acceptable.
Essentially, it should be a full roadmap explaining everything that you do before deciding on what keywords to use. Each process on this outline should have the same level of detail and be clear enough that anyone reading this could repeat.
Again, the goal is to ensure consistency amongst multiple authors and editors. Of course, what was mentioned above would be for a blog. If you were an eCommerce site, the workflow would be very different, but the idea is the same.
2. Utilize A Project Manager
A project manager can help you keep track of who is in charge of what task, when it will be done, and when it is time to start the next one. Luckily, there are a variety of tools you can use as a project manager.
One of the most popular options is Asana. It offers a free personal plan and has a plan for small teams that you can use for free. Asana is widely popular because it offers a simple design that makes it easy to keep track of projects.
Asana can also help staff avoid forgetting project deadlines by sending out email reminders. You can also leave comments on assignments in case any questions or points need to be further explained.
Naturally, Asana is not the only option. Another popular option is Trello. One of the key features it offers is access to visual workflow boards. Here you can bring your WordPress workflow to life and mark each step as complete.
Another fine option is Jira. It offers a free plan for up to 10 members and works similarly to Asana.
3. Improve Site Performance With Plugins
One thing many people ignore when planning out a work schedule is the amount of time they need to spend to ensure the website is running correctly. Having a website that is slow will not only harm traffic but also cause projects to take longer to create.
For this reason, you need to ensure that your website is running optimally, and thankfully, some plugins can help with this.
While there are several options to consider, WP Rocket remains one of the best choices. This caching plugin can help manage nearly all of your website’s performance issues. The core features include:
- Page Caching
- Lazy Loading
- GZip File Compression
- Database Optimization
- Content Delivery Network (RocketCDN)
You may think it would take time to implement all of this, but that’s not true when using WP Rocket. Upon activating the plugin, most websites can see an 80% increase in page speed. Most of these settings only take a single click to enable.
That said, there are more customization options for more advanced users, but for the average site, this plugin will largely eliminate the need to worry about optimizing your content, as the plugin will handle everything without any input from you.
4. Use An Image Compression Plugin
Every post will need a featured image in WordPress, and images happen to be one of the biggest reasons why pages run slowly. Depending on what tools you use to create the image, the file size could be far too large.
The larger the file size, the longer it takes for that image to load.
While you can spend the time getting everything optimized in something like Photoshop, you can get the same result by just taking the image and using an image optimizer plugin. While there are many options, Smush remains one of the best options.
It is simply the easiest tool in WordPress, as it will automatically optimize any images uploaded to WordPress once it is installed. You can also optimize any image that has already been uploaded in a single click.
This can save you quite a bit of time, but it’s worth mentioning that you should still make sure your images are properly sized. When you upload a larger image than needed, the file size is also larger, thus even compression tools can’t fix it.
5. Automate SEO With Yoast
Ensuring that your content ranks highly is anything but easy. Sadly, it is one of the most complex things to do, as Google provides very little information on how your website is ranked besides Speed being a factor.
Luckily, there are a variety of plugins that can help you automate nearly every aspect of it, like Yoast SEO. This plugin provides real-time tips to help you rank higher. Some of the key features include:
- Keyword Tracking
- SERP Descriptions
- Internal & External Link Tracking
- Image Alt Text
- SEO Title Analyzer
- Readability Ratings
These features can shave hours of time off any project and help increase the chances that your content will rank highly. Yoast SEO is available for free, but there is also a premium version that offers deeper insights.
Normally, larger sites will have a dedicated SEO team that will perform keyword research, create SEO-friendly titles, and analyze content to ensure it uses the best practices. Yoast SEO does this for free and in far less time.
6. Have A Communication Channel For Staff
This one probably doesn’t need much explaining, but if you have multiple authors, editors, social media specialists, and maybe even an SEO team, you are going to need to communicate with everyone to manage your site.
While you could try to do everything through email or text chains, this just isn’t efficient. Instead, using a dedicated tool like Slack or Discord can help dramatically improve communication between staff.
These platforms allow for real-time communication between staff. There is a dedicated PC and Mobile app for each one.
Slack has become the go-to option for most businesses as it offers a free plan that includes one-on-one video calls and live chat. Members can freely message each other, and you can group users by teams.
Discord is similar in this approach. You can create dedicated channels for teams to communicate in and have access to voice chat at any time for meetings. Discord is completely free to use, but it is not exclusively for business.
7. Utilize A Staging Site To Test Updates
In WordPress, plugins, themes, and WordPress itself need to be updated regularly. Failure to do so can open your site up to security vulnerabilities, thus, it is always recommended to use the latest version of WordPress and any tool you use.
While you may think that automatic updates are the best course of action to make your workflow more efficient, there is a strong case to be made that the opposite is just as true. And this is because updates can sometimes break your website.
It is very common for an update to take place, and then notice that a key feature has stopped working.
Troubleshooting this process can take a lot of time, leading to extended downtime on your site in some cases. As such, a far more efficient option is to set up a staging area for your site where you can test updates safely.
Essentially, you are creating a copy of your site and installing the updates. Then you can test the website and ensure nothing is broken. If that is the case, then you can simply update your main site. You can also use this to test new plugins and custom code.
8. Streamline the Shipping Process
Making a sale is only the first half of the process. The rest is all about getting the product to the customer, or in other words, shipping. Multiple shipping plugins will help streamline the process for you and your customer.
For example, the shipping price is determined by multiple factors such as the package weight and how far it needs to travel. This can drastically alter the price, thus, many plugins today can calculate this in real time.
Thus, customers know exactly how much shipping will cost them during checkout.
While there are many shipping plugins that you can use, one of the best is WooCommerce Shipping Services by PluginHive. This plugin calculates the package weight, connects with most major delivery services (UPS, FedEx, etc.), and allows you to print labels.
Of course, you’ll also need to be on top of things outside of WordPress. Making sure that supplies are organized and easily packaged can make a huge difference in delivery times. It also helps avoid sending the wrong items to customers.
9. Have Anti-Spam Plugins Handle Comments
The comment section in WordPress is a great way for users to interact with your content, however, it also makes an easy target for spambots. Even smaller sites can receive hundreds of comments from spam bots that need to be moderated.
Normally, this could take hours to moderate manually, but by utilizing an anti-spam plugin, you can automate the process.
These plugins will be able to detect spam bots and remove the comment before you, or anyone else, ever sees it. Thus, preserving the comment section for your audience to have a conversation in.
While there are many anti-spam plugins to consider, Akismet is without a doubt the best option. And in most cases, it is installed automatically with WordPress. This plugin also protects other parts of your website from comments.
For example, if you have contact forms on your site, Akismet can help prevent spambots from submitting fake forms. Reducing the amount of spam content on your site will help reduce the total amount of time spent on moderation tasks.
10. Take Advantage of WordPress Patterns & Templates
Gutenberg introduced Patterns in the 5.5 update, and since then, entire Pattern Libraries have been created that allow users to share premade block templates with one another. Naturally, using them can help improve your workflow.
In their simplest form, Patterns are a collection of blocks grouped together. It is essentially a template you can follow.
For example, let’s say you wanted to create a posts page that shows off your latest posts. There are a variety of Patterns you can find online that already have one made. You can either use them as they are, or use them as a starting point for your own design.
In any case, they can help shave off time for any project. It’s also worth pointing out that most themes, especially premium themes, have page templates that you can use. Most of these have high quality designs that you can use to get a head start.
Naturally, you can also find pattern designs and templates online. Just make sure they come from a reliable source to avoid any headaches, as sometime s they can be unoptimized, or contain malicious content.
11. Use AI to Speed Up Production
AI is currently the biggest buzzword in any industry. It has the power to revolutionize every industry in a variety of different ways and web development is no exception. In fact, I would say it is currently theindutsry being impacted the most.
With a single prompt, AI can be used to write an entire blog, and some engines even have SEO friendly practices built in to help rank higher. That said, we are still in the early stages of AI where the quality is sometimes questionable.
That said, there is no denying that AI will have a place in web development in the future.
Aside from generative AI, it can also be utilized to perform routine tasks automatically. Once such plugin that allows you to do this is the AI Workflow Automation plugin. You can create prompts for the AI to carry out tasks based on the triggers you enter.
The plugin is compatible with most AI engines like OpenAI, xAI Grok, Google’s Gemini models, and many more. As such, you can switch between the models to see which one works best for your site.
12. Choose A Reliable Web Host
Perhaps one of the most important choices when starting a website is which web host you choose. A web host rents you a server that your website is stored on and is responsible for maintaining that server.
Naturally, web hosts have a huge impact on your website’s performance. While you have a ton of choices, due to the competitive nature of the industry, the truth is they are not created equally, thus, you need to choose a good one.
Failure to do so can result in downtime for your site. In many cases, when you encounter a problem, you may need to contact your web host, thus ensuring they have quality support staff available 24/7 is a must.
Here at GreenGeeks we strive to deliver an excellent performance to all of our customers at an affordable price.
Our web servers are optimized for WordPress and utilize SSD technology to ensure that your website is as fast as possible. We can also help you move your site from a different web host to us seamlessly.
Most importantly, we achieve all of this while being environmentally responsible. We calculate all of the energy every site uses and purchase three times that amount in clean energy to offset the emissions.
WordPress Workflow FAQ
Since content creation is different for everyone, you probably have a few questions. As such, I have assembled some of the most frequently asked questions and provided answers for them.
Yes, there is nothing wrong with using a workflow template as a starting point. That said, you will usually edit it to fit your needs and to include the tools you use. This will make it more efficient for your team to use.
Absolutely! A workflow is just as useful in a solo environment because it helps remind you what to do and can avoid wasting time correcting mistakes. In fact, it may even be more important for solo creators, as there is no one to review their work.
Most of the time, the answer is yes, but it depends on the tool and your needs. For example, if you have a larger team, you will usually have to pay for tools to work for everyone. Most free tools have limitations on the number of users.
It is different for everyone, thus I can’t give a time estimate. For example, the workflow for managing a blog is very different from the workflow of managing an eCommerce site. It’s also worth pointing out that you’ll often have to update the workflow.
The workflow should be updated whenever a change is made to the process. The point of a workflow is to ensure consistency, thus, you need to make sure it is always accurate. I would recommend reviewing the workflow every six months at a minimum.
Yes, this is a process known as AI workflow automation. Essentially, AI is used to analyze data and complete repetitive tasks automatically to speed up project completion time. You’ll often have to pay for this, and it is better suited for larger teams.
It makes no difference where you create the workflow. WordPress allows you to create flowcharts with certain plugins, or you can use Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or countless other online tools to make one. Just make sure it is accessible to your team.
Create A WordPress Workflow Today
As you can see, there are several methods you can use to improve your WordPress workflow. These methods vary in difficulty, but overall, they are pretty simple to pull off. And in most cases, doing so will save you a lot of time down the road.
The goal is to help speed up content creation while also ensuring quality control and consistency across multiple authors. Luckily, there are a ton of plugins in WordPress that can help with this, like Yoast SEO, Smush, and more.
Similarly, there are plenty of tools outside of WordPress that can be used to optimize the communication between staff, like Slack, or ensure assignments are assigned properly, like in Asana. It’s all about finding the tools that fit your style.
I hope you found this tutorial helpful in improving your workflow in WordPress.
What methods do you use to improve your Workflow in WordPress? How much time has optimizing your workflow saved?
