is the only website maintenance checklist you’ll ever need //

You may have the best product or service on the planet. You may even have the most slick, compelling branding in the entire world. All of this can be ruined by one simple, but massive, mistake.

You’re not doing a good job of maintaining your website.

Website maintenance is easy to overlook, especially if you don’t have a dedicated team for your website. Website maintenance is still a vital part of any business’s success. With a handy check-list, even small and large companies can manage website maintenance.

We’ll cover:

Let’s get started.

What is Website Maintenance?

Website maintenance is simply the process of making sure your website is secure, runs smoothly, and delivers a great experience to users.

Website maintenance, in its most specific form, is a term that encompasses several activities which are essential to the success and functionality of your site.

These activities include:

Many other activities fall under the category of website maintenance. These depend on a variety of factors, including the type of website, the platform on which it runs, your industry and many others. Ecommerce sites, for example, tend to be more concerned with website maintenance, since they are responsible for cart functionality and accepting payments.

Why Website Maintenance is Important

The benefits of website maintenance go beyond the obvious benefit of “your site just works.”

Remember that great brand, product, or service? Your website will be in top shape when you maintain it well. This allows you to focus on creating the best product, service and experience.

How to maintain a website

Websites are complex machines with many moving parts. It should be no surprise, then, that website maintenance involves many different processes. You don’t need to do all website maintenance at once. Instead, you can break it down.

Follow this checklist for website maintenance to give your brand, customers and products the platform that they deserve.

Back up your site

It’s vital that your website is alive. (Alive can wait.) In a matter of minutes, a simple article or plugin update can lead to blank pages. Regular backups of your site prevent these glitches from becoming countless lost hours.

Automatic site backups should be set up by your host or CMS. Be sure that these are activated to prevent any site-wide disaster. You should also download your website to a safe hard drive.

How frequently:Monthly plus after major site updates

Check the site speed

The speed at which your website loads is a major factor in your online success. Remember that conversion rates for sites with quick loading are higher.

Check the load time of your website using a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights. It’s important to do a technical audit. This will help you determine the cause of your slowdown. should also be used to check the page speed of your website on different devices and browsers.

How frequently: monthly + after major site changes

Update your security.

If your website is not secure, its performance will be of little value. Your customers and brand are at risk when your security is not up to date.

It is a good idea to check your CMS/platform monthly. Don’t forget to update plugins, because outdated plugins may have security flaws that could put your site at risk.

Check that your site is still working on all devices and web browsers after you’ve run any updates. Also, ensure your load time hasn’t been affected.

How frequently:Monthly

Remove unused plugins

Delete plugins that you are no longer using. You can reduce the risk of security breaches by removing outdated plugins.

How frequently:Monthly

Check out the content analytics

Regularly review your content’s performance using an analytics tool.

It’s possible that a technical problem is affecting your SEO if you notice an overall decline in traffic. If you notice that a particular page or article suddenly performs much worse than before, check for broken elements.

Use tools such as Google Analytics for and Google Search console to get a deeper understanding of content performance and URL metrics.

Content analytics is important for website maintenance. However, your marketing team can also check it. No matter who is checking analytics, it’s important to encourage communication between departments so that both your marketing/content team and the tech team are aware of what’s happening.

How frequently:monthly

Find broken links

Broken links can negatively impact your user experience. This in turn will affect your bounce rate, search engine optimization, and reputation. Use a broken link checker as part of your regular website maintenance.

Ahrefs, for example, offers a broken link tool which will show you quickly what links on your website lead to 404 error pages.

Replace broken links by updated content or remove the link if there is no replacement destination page.

How frequently:Monthly

Check browser compatibility

Your site may perform well on Chrome, but crash and burn on Edge or Safari. It’s the same for mobile devices and tablets.

Use the major mobile browsers (including tablets) and run the speed test on your website. Be sure that your site’s speed is the same for all experiences, and take note of how users feel. Is the site navigation easy on your phone? All elements are displayed correctly?

How frequently:Quarterly plus after major site changes

Test Site Forms

Lead forms and contact forms are only useful if they work. All forms on your site need attention, whether they are new landing pages or old contact forms.

Test your email and any forms you have on your website. Make sure that not only does the email go to your inbox but also that the form captures the correct information.


Make sure that your test pulls in all relevant fields from the form.

Test the same form on different browsers and devices, as certain forms may not work properly on mobile devices or tablets right away.

How frequently:Quarterly/Whenever You Launch a New Landing Page

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Perform a content audit

Auditing all content on your website is important, including your blog, press releases and landing pages. The bounce rate of your site can be affected by content that is outdated or missing information, and bloated images will slow down the speed of your site.

Create a spreadsheet, and then go through your entire site looking for:

In an ideal world, you would perform a audit at least once every quarter. If it’s not possible for your company, at least perform a content audit once a year.

How frequently:Quarterly/yearly depending on resource constraints

Image File Size Reduced

The page will load slower if you use large file sizes. One large image is enough to lower your Google Core Web Essentials score.

Take note of images larger than 1MB during the audit. There are a number of compression tools that can be used to compress these images. Reupload the image to the page after compressing it.

One our favorite image compression software.

You don’t have to worry if you have an ebook, infographic or another visual-heavy item. You can offer a small preview of your piece on your website, and then allow your audience to expand it by clicking it.

How frequently:Quarterly/When new articles are published

Update/add new visuals

As you publish new content and revisit the old, look for opportunities to spruce things up with (responsibly-compressed) visuals.

Addition of images can make your content more interesting, engaging and SEO-friendly. It also helps to break up long text pieces, which may result in a lower rate of bounce. All of these factors contribute to the overall performance of your website.

How frequently:Quarterly/When new articles are published

To see how well your website performs, try the Website Grader

Update your headers and footers

Header and footer text is often overlooked, but they contain some of the most vital information about your organization.

Even though our footer (above), for example, may appear sleek, it still contains important information. Click the legal button. We dare you.

It’s important that the information is always up-to-date and accurate, even if it can be the same. Your header may need to be updated if your organization undergoes any major legal changes, such as a copyright change or moving offices. It’s also a good idea to change the links in your footer. ).

Checking your header, and footer should be part of a yearly routine for website maintenance. You should involve your legal department, in case they have any legalese to master.

How frequently: Annually/Following significant changes

Create a 404 Page (if you do not have one).

Links are not immune to mistakes. There’s a good chance that someone will type in the wrong URL, or a broken link. A helpful 404 page will greet your audience when this occurs.

Create a 404 error page if you don’t already have one. This page will inform your audience that they are not on the correct page. Give them links to useful resources, and popular pages of your website. It allows them to find (hopefully what they are looking for) and prevents them from leaving your site. This is a good way to create some links within your site, and boost your SEO.

We don’t want to brag, but you can get some inspiration from our 404 page. We’ve included links to our most popular resources, and the page is a fun way to show off our voice.

Check your 404 page as part of your annual website maintenance. It’s likely that you have some new resources and others to replace.

How frequently: annually

Cost of website maintenance

The cost of website maintenance, just like maintenance, can vary widely. Website maintenance costs can be affected by the size of your site, whether it’s ecommerce or not, and even what industry you work in.

Estimates vary because of the various factors that influence website maintenance costs. Still, some experts estimate annual website costs at anywhere from $400 to $60,000.

There are some elements you can plan for regardless of the industry or platform.


Types of SSL certificates

Remember that the list above is not exhaustive. You have to be concerned about online stores if you are in ecommerce. If you work in an industry that is heavily regulated, such as health or security, then you may have to pay for additional security certifications.

Mastering website maintenance–regardless of budget

It’s not a secret that website maintenance is a big job. Yes, website maintenance can be expensive. It doesn’t need to.

You’ve reached where you are today because of your expertise, regardless of how big or small your company is. You can use your resources to keep your site safe all year long.

You should try to complete every item on this checklist. If you cannot, then use the resources that you have available, stay organized, and take your time.

How to get the most from a well-maintained site

A well-maintained website takes a lot of work. You should make the most of your website and maximize its value.

Follow our website maintenance check list to build a solid foundation on which you can grow organic traffic. Our guide to driving traffic to your website will give you a good start.

The post WordStream : The only website maintenance checklist you’ll ever need first appeared on WordStream .

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