Website maintenance: a simple monthly checklist

A website is never really finished. Software ages, security issues are found and small things quietly break. A short monthly routine prevents most problems before your customers notice them.

1. Check your backups

Make sure automatic backups are running, stored somewhere other than the website server, and that you can actually restore one. A backup you have never tested is only a hope.

2. Update everything

Update the content management system, plugins, themes and server software. Most hacked websites were running outdated software. Test the key pages after updating.

3. Review security

Remove user accounts that are no longer needed, check that two-factor sign-in is on for admins, and look at login and error logs for anything unusual.

4. Test forms, checkout and email

Send yourself a message through the contact form, place a test order if you sell online, and confirm that the emails arrive. These break silently and cost you leads.

5. Check speed and uptime

Open the site on a phone with mobile data. If it feels slow, look at large images and heavy scripts. Uptime monitoring tells you about outages before your customers do.

6. Look at search and content

Check for broken links and pages showing errors in Google Search Console, and update anything out of date such as prices, opening hours or team members.

Make it routine

Put a recurring reminder in your calendar, or hand the whole list to a team that does it for you every month.