If you’ve been tasked with updating or maintaining a website, here are all the things you need to know to do your job. This is for a small to mid-sized company website and doesn’t cover some of the more advanced management systems needed for enterprise level website properties.
Not everything needs to happen every day. Some website maintenance tasks are daily, some weekly, some monthly, and some only need attention once a year. Getting the frequency right means your site stays secure and fast without wasting time on unnecessary work.
Here’s exactly when to do what and how often to do it.
Daily Tasks: Set These to Automatic
These should run automatically with alerts when something needs your attention.
- Security scans for malware and vulnerabilities: Run automated daily scans to catch threats before they cause damage.
- Backup creation and verification: Daily backups mean you’re never more than 24 hours away from a clean restore point.
- Uptime monitoring: Set up automated alerts so you know immediately if your site goes down.
- Critical security updates: Apply security patches for WordPress core and essential plugins as soon as they’re released.
Most of these run on their own. You just need to respond when you get an alert.
Weekly Tasks: Quick Routine Checks
Set aside about 30 minutes once a week for these.
- Review analytics for unusual activity: Check for sudden traffic spikes or drops that might indicate problems or opportunities.
- Test all forms: Make sure contact forms, newsletter signups, and other forms are working so you don’t miss leads.
- Monitor site speed and Core Web Vitals: Google ranks faster sites higher, so keep an eye on your load times.
- Install non-critical updates: Update plugins, themes, and WordPress when they’re not urgent security releases.
- Check for broken links on main pages: Scan your homepage, service pages, and other key pages for links that don’t work.
- Scan comments for spam: If you allow comments, moderate them weekly to keep your site professional.
Weekly maintenance catches small issues before they become big problems.
Monthly Tasks: Deeper Optimization
Plan for about 1-2 hours once a month.
- Full site speed test and optimization: Go beyond monitoring to actually improve your load times.
- Review SEO performance and keyword rankings: Check if you’re ranking for the right terms and look for improvement opportunities.
- Update all software, plugins, and themes: Do a comprehensive sweep to catch anything missed in weekly updates.
- Database optimization and cleanup: Clean out accumulated clutter to keep your database lean and fast.
- Fix all broken links sitewide: Expand beyond main pages to check your entire site.
- Review and respond to uptime incidents:If your site went down this month, figure out why and prevent it next time.
- Test all contact forms and shopping cart functionality: Verify everything customers interact with actually works.
- Verify backup integrity: Test that your backups can actually be restored.
- Review security logs: Look for patterns that might indicate vulnerabilities.
This is also when you should generate a monthly report showing what was done and how your site performed.
Quarterly Tasks: Strategic Reviews
Block out 2-3 hours every three months.
- Comprehensive SEO audit: Deep dive into search performance, technical SEO, and growth opportunities.
- Review website content for accuracy and relevance: Update anything that’s outdated or no longer aligned with your business.
- Test site on all major browsers and devices: Verify your site works on Chrome, Safari, Firefox, mobile, and desktop.
- Analyze user behavior with heatmaps or session recordings: See how people actually use your site.
- Review and optimize conversion funnels: Find where people are dropping off and fix it.
- Check page speed on both desktop and mobile: Test and optimize for both experiences.
- Review and update documentation: Keep internal processes current.
- Plan content updates or improvements: Schedule changes that will help your business goals.
Quarterly reviews help you spot bigger patterns and plan meaningful improvements.
Annual Tasks: Big Picture Planning
Set aside a full day once a year for these.
- Renew domain name registration: Don’t let your domain expire. Mark this on your calendar well in advance.
- Renew SSL certificate; If it’s not auto-renewing, make sure you renew it manually.
- Review hosting plan and consider upgrades; Has your traffic grown? Do you need more resources?
- Comprehensive security audit; Do a thorough review that goes beyond routine scans.
- Full content audit and refresh; Look at every page and decide what stays, what updates, and what goes.
- Evaluate design and consider updates; Is your site still modern? Does it reflect your current brand?
- Review legal pages; Update privacy policies and terms of service to stay current with changing laws.
- Test disaster recovery plan; Verify you can actually restore from backup when you need to.
- Review goals and analytics year over year: Compare this year to last year and identify trends.
- Plan major updates or redesign if needed; Decide if it’s time for bigger changes.
This annual review is when you ask whether your website still serves your business goals and what needs to change.
Getting the Frequency Right
The key to manageable maintenance is doing the right tasks at the right intervals. Daily tasks prevent emergencies. Weekly tasks catch small problems. Monthly tasks optimize performance. Quarterly tasks drive improvement. Annual tasks keep you strategically aligned.
Skip the daily and weekly work, and you’re dealing with hacked sites and broken functionality. Skip the monthly and quarterly work, and your site slowly becomes outdated and underperforming. Skip the annual work, and you wake up one day with a website that no longer fits your business.
Stick to this schedule, and your website stays secure, fast, and effective without constant fire drills or wasted effort on unnecessary tasks.
Author:
Jason Long, CEO
Jason Long is the founder and CEO of JHMG and SupportMy.Website. He is a serial problem solver and entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in business building. Jason’s ventures range from agriculture to healthcare with a focus on web-based technology. He has extensive experience in software development and has operated as a developer, UX designer, graphic designer, project manager, director, executive coach, and CEO. At JHMG, he operates not only as the leader of the organization but also as a SaaS Consultant helping businesses start, build, grow, scale, and exit their SaaS businesses.
Jason is also an experienced world traveler who regularly visits destinations worldwide and is passionate about community growth, social issues, fitness, and family.
Jason Long’s Linkedin
Website: JasonMLong.me
X: @jasonmlong