Website maintenance is the process of continuously monitoring and improving the overall health of your website with the aim of allowing for better functionality and usability.
The point of website maintenance is to make sure your site looks good, that it is well designed, that traffic flows in freely, that users stay engaged, and that everything such as buttons and widgets function properly.
So, what are some of the most common website maintenance tasks, and how often should they be performed?
How Often Should Website Maintenance Be Performed?
Here are some of the most important website maintenance tasks that you need to undertake on a regular basis. Below, we’ll talk about the most crucial types of website maintenance tasks, as well as the frequency at which they should be performed.
Content
Content, including product descriptions, images, and blog posts, as well as news articles, press releases, and pricing, all need to be updated to maintain accuracy. This should be done on a regular basis. Whenever you have a new piece of content, or whenever old content needs updating for whatever reason, it should be done immediately.
*While some might say that website maintenance tasks can be divided into ones that need to be performed on a monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly basis, or on a yearly basis, the reality is that most maintenance tasks should be performed as needed on an ongoing basis.
Software
Software updates are another important aspect of website maintenance. This is especially important when it comes security software. If any software is out of date, it should be upgraded.
In terms of security updates, these should be done as soon as they become available. However, other software updates, such as for plugins, CMS, or server software, can be done on a monthly or quarterly basis.
Security
As mentioned above, security updates should be ongoing. Whenever a security update is released, it should be implemented immediately. Conduct regular scans to see if any malware is present and do this on a weekly basis.
Backup
Backups to make sure that vital information is stored somewhere safe are important as well, and this should be done on a weekly or even a daily basis, depending on the amount of information you need to store.
Performance
Website performance optimization should also be performed continually. This involves updating the loading speed of your website to provide a better user experience, compressing images to reduce page load times, implementing caching mechanisms to improve site speed, and ensuring great mobile responsiveness.
Broken Links
Links should be checked monthly to see if they are broken, and if necessary, updated or removed.
Search Engine Optimization
The process of optimizing your website so that search engines view you in a favorable light is something that should be done on a regular basis. SEO is an ongoing website maintenance task that should be done with every new piece of content that you add. Content, images, and even page titles all need to be optimized so that Google ranks you highly.
User Experience
The overall user experience of the website should be improved on a continuous basis. Testing on various aspects that affect user experience, such as navigation, forms, and other interactive elements should be tested on at least a monthly basis.
