How Often Should Websites Be Maintained?

How Often Should Websites Be Maintained?

Posted on May, 4, 2022 I Elise

Many people assume that a website is something you set up and then forget about. After all, the hard work is creating the site and filling it with content, right? Not so. Websites require regular maintenance. If neglected, a site can easily develop problems and may even be subject to a hostile takeover by malicious actors.

Here is a guide to website maintenance and the main problems that maintenance can prevent or fix.

Annual Maintenance

All websites need checking at least once a year. Add a reminder into your diary to run some basic checks on your site to ensure it is still meeting search engine requirements and other regulations that might have been implemented in the previous 12 months.

Google regularly introduces new changes to its algorithms, which if ignored can be catastrophic for online visibility.

Monthly Maintenance

Monthly maintenance is fine for websites that don’t need a lot of attention, such as online brochure sites or hobby sites. Once a month, have a look at your website analytics to see if things look as expected. You might a sudden downturn in traffic, or even a spike in traffic to a particular page. Viewing monthly conversion figures is often more valuable than poring over them weekly, as monthly trends are likely to be easier to spot.

Weekly Maintenance

Bigger websites, e-commerce sites, and sites built using a content management system like WordPress should be checked weekly. This is the time to update plug-ins, review your SEO metrics, update content, add new content, and make tweaks. At the very least, you should be adding new blog posts and products to your store if you run an e-commerce business. Sites that are updated regularly are more likely to be prioritised in the search engine rankings.

Things to Check and Why

Always check the functionality of the site, especially if you run an e-commerce website. Verify that navigation buttons work and things like shopping cart functionality are seamless.

Is the content up to date? If you regularly publish news articles, these need updating more often than evergreen content.

Do all the links work and are they still relevant? It is common for external links to break after time has passed, as websites close, content is moved, or taken down.

Create a Maintenance Strategy

It is important to have a website maintenance strategy in place. This is not something you can afford to think about sporadically. Decide how often certain tasks should be carried out and who is responsible for them.

Some tasks can be automated, such as plugin updates, and content can be queued to automatically upload at a set time. This will save time, but if you prefer to outsource website maintenance, consider using a service like the one offered by ALT Agency. Outsourcing website maintenance makes sense when you don’t have the internal resources to manage the task or you need additional technical support.

Finally, be sure to have a budget in place for website maintenance, especially if you plan to outsource the task to a third party.