Website Maintenance Checklist

Implementing a proper maintenance schedule ensures your site will continue to work for your as one of your most valuable marketing tools. We’ve developed a checklist of tasks to keep your site working great for website visitors and to keep you ahead of the competition.

Before you begin:

• Install Google Analytics
• Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools and confirm your site
• Set up a backup service and set daily database backups and at least weekly full site backups. Store these on a separate web server. For backup services we recommend BackupBuddy and for remote server’s we recommend Amazon S3 (or Dropbox or Google Drive).
• Use a third-party SMTP service to send emails from your web server. We recommend Mandrill or Sendgrid.
• Monitor website security with automatic scanning. We highly recommend Sucuri.
• Monitor website uptime. We recommend Uptime Robot and Pingdom Tools.

Weekly Website Checks

• All pages on the front end of the website are loading without errors
• Backups are performed daily and stored off site
• Update Content Management System software and plugins
• Check all forms to ensure they are working properly
• Review and resolve any issues with emails sent from the web server
• Check and remove spam comments, form submissions and user accounts
• Check for any broken links
• Check for 404 errors and resolve these by fixing links or redirecting
• Marketing: write one blog post and share it with your networks

Monthly Website Checks

• Check website loading speed. If more than 3 seconds then consult with your web developer to improve speed
• Review security scans and resolve any issues
• Review website statistics. What is your most popular content? What is your least popular? Where are visitors coming from? What is your best conversion source? Tweak your content to suit
• Review your local search visibility
• Marketing: send an update to your email list

Quarterly Website Checks

• Review website – what could be improved?
• Web Graphics and photos – are these up to date? Could they be improved to be more current?
• Check your website content – what is dated and what could be improved?
• Review and tweak meta title and meta description tags
• Test and tweak forms and automated messages to improve conversion rates. Ensure this automatically integrates with your CRM and email marketing system
• Improve automation: What tasks do you have to perform regularly? Could these be automated?
• Test the website to ensure that it looks and displays properly on the most popular browsers and mobile devices
• Validate your site. (CSS/HTML, Accessibility, Mobile-friendly)
• Review and adjust website advertising campaigns
• Check backup health by restoring the most recent backup to a separate web server
• Check the uptime logs. If uptime is less than 99.9% then consult with web host. Consider alternative web host if they can’t provide a solution

Yearly Website Checks

• Update the copyright date in your website footer and in any other references
• Review each page of the site for content accuracy
• Renew your website domains name(s)
• Review your website strategy to align with your business goals
• Consider updating the website design

Disclaimer: Some of the links contained in this article are affiliate links. We only ever link to sites and services that we have tested ourselves and would recommend to our grandmothers.

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We can save you time and keep your website running smoothly for your customers. Get in touch with us to learn more.