Website maintenance

Maintenance tasks and typical frequency

Typical patterns; the right frequency depends on how the site is built and used.

Problems that happen silently

Many website problems give no warning to the owner. A contact form can stop delivering emails after a hosting change, so enquiries disappear without anyone noticing. A security certificate can expire, showing visitors a warning. A plugin update can break a page that nobody visits until a customer does. Regular maintenance is largely about catching these quiet failures before they cost enquiries or trust.

Testing the form by actually submitting it, and confirming the message arrives, is one of the most valuable checks a small business can make.

A basic maintenance routine

Maintenance differs by platform

• Self-hosted CMS

  Core, theme and plugin updates are your responsibility, along with backups and hosting.

• Hosted website builders

  The platform handles software updates; you still own content, forms, integrations and accounts.

• Custom-built sites

  Framework and dependency updates need a developer and testing.

• Static sites

  Fewer moving parts, but forms, hosting and content still need checking.

Keeping performance in check

Sites tend to slow down as images, scripts and plugins accumulate. Google's Core Web Vitals give a useful yardstick: web.dev describes a good experience as Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint of 200 milliseconds or less and Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less, measured at the 75th percentile of page loads. Reviewing these periodically, rather than only at launch, shows when a site is drifting.

Setting up maintenance properly

1. 01

   Inventory

   Platform, plugins, hosting, domains, accounts and integrations listed.

   Output: Site record

2. 02

   Baseline

   Backups, forms, speed and security checked.

   Output: Starting report

3. 03

   Routine

   Tasks and frequencies agreed, with who does what.

   Output: Maintenance plan

4. 04

   Records

   Each update and check logged.

   Output: Maintenance history

Accounts and access

Maintenance includes looking after the accounts behind the website: hosting, domain registration, the content management system, analytics, email delivery and any connected services. Former staff or suppliers often keep logins long after they stop working on the site. Reviewing who has access, removing old accounts and making sure each person has their own login reduces security risk and makes it clear who changed what.

Domain and hosting renewals also belong here; an expired domain can take a whole site and its email offline.

Keeping a record

A simple log of updates, checks and incidents makes maintenance visible and useful. When something breaks, it shows what changed recently. When a new provider takes over, it explains the site's history. It need not be elaborate: a dated list of what was done and any problems found is enough.

Doing it in-house or with help

Some routine tasks, such as content reviews and form checks, are easy for a business to do itself. Software updates, backup testing and performance work are often better handled by someone familiar with the platform, especially on self-hosted sites. Many businesses split the work: owners keep content current, while a provider handles the technical routine.