Website Maintenance Checklist: Keep Your Site Healthy

Launching a website is only the beginning. Without regular care, sites become slow, outdated and vulnerable to attacks. Broken forms can quietly cost you enquiries for weeks before anyone notices.

The good news is that most maintenance tasks take only a few minutes. Use this checklist to build a simple routine.

Weekly tasks

• Check for updates: Review WordPress core, theme and plugin updates. Take a backup, then update.
• Confirm backups ran: Make sure your automatic backups completed successfully.
• Test your contact forms: Send a test message and confirm it arrives in your inbox.
• Review comments and messages: Remove spam and respond to genuine enquiries.
• Look at the site: Quickly open the home page and key pages on your phone to check nothing is broken.

Monthly tasks

• Run a security scan: Check for malware or suspicious files.
• Review user accounts: Remove old staff or contractor accounts and confirm everyone has the right role.
• Check website speed: Test important pages and investigate any big changes.
• Find broken links: Use a link checker and fix or redirect broken links.
• Review analytics: Look at visitor numbers, popular pages and enquiries to spot trends.
• Clear old data: Remove unused plugins and themes, spam comments and unnecessary media files.
• Publish or update content: Add a new article or refresh an existing page.

Quarterly tasks

• Test restoring a backup: Restore to a staging site or test area to confirm your backups actually work.
• Update key information: Check prices, services, staff details, phone numbers and opening hours.
• Review search performance: Check Google Search Console for errors, security issues or pages that are not indexed.
• Change important passwords: Especially if staff have left or you suspect any account was exposed.
• Check PHP version: Make sure your hosting uses a currently supported PHP version.

Yearly tasks

• Renew your domain and hosting: Confirm renewal dates, and turn on auto-renewal if available so your site never goes offline unexpectedly.
• Check your SSL certificate: Confirm it renews automatically and covers all versions of your domain.
• Review your design: Is the site still easy to use on modern phones? Does it reflect your current brand?
• Audit content: Update or remove outdated pages and blog posts.
• Review legal pages: Update your privacy policy and terms if your data collection or services have changed.
• Evaluate plugins and tools: Replace plugins that are no longer maintained.

Keep a maintenance log

Record each update, change and issue in a simple spreadsheet or document with the date and who made the change. If something breaks, the log helps you quickly identify what changed.

Signs your website needs attention now

• Pages load much slower than usual
• Browsers show security warnings
• Your contact form stops sending messages
• You see unfamiliar user accounts or content
• Visitors report being redirected to other websites
• Your hosting provider reports high resource usage

Do it yourself or get help?

Many tasks on this list are easy for a business owner or staff member to handle using the WordPress dashboard. For technical tasks, such as restoring backups, fixing errors or cleaning a hacked site, it is worth having a developer or your hosting provider’s support team available.

Printable summary

Final thoughts

Regular maintenance protects the time and money you invested in your website. Set calendar reminders and follow the checklist, and your site will stay secure, fast and effective. Need help with your hosting account? Contact the Salama Hosting support team.