A Quick Checklist

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There is a laundry list of tasks that should be done to keep your website running smoothly. The most time-sensitive of these are website security updates and patches. Without these, your website has the potential to be an actual danger to those who click on it.

With that in mind, here is a list of website maintenance tasks that should be completed regularly:

To be done weekly

1.            Check that all of your pages are loading without errors

2.            Run a backup and make sure a previous version of your site is stored

3.            Make updates to website software and plugins

4.            Check that all of your forms are running properly

5.            Remove any spam comments from pages and posts

6.            Check your pages to see if there are any broken links

7.            Search for 404 errors and fix or redirect

8.            Write one or more blog posts to keep your community engaged and encourage SEO traffic.

To be done monthly

1.            Check the load speed of your website and ensure that nothing is bogging it down

2.            Review your security scans and make sure nothing is out of place

3.            Analyze website statistics from the previous month

4.            Check your blog to see if there are any articles that could be updated

To be done quarterly

1.            Review your website design and structure  – can be it improved?

2.            Check graphics and images – should anything be updated?

3.            Review SEO and meta titles and descriptions to ensure they are as effective as possible

4.            Test and tweak popups, forms, and calls to action

5.            Review your workload for efficiencies to see if anything can be automated

6.            Test your website on all devices and browsers to see if it displays correctly

7.            Review advertising and marketing campaigns to see if anything needs to be changed or updated.

8.            Restore a previous version of the website to check your backup health

To be done yearly

1.            Update any reference to the current year

2.            Review each page for content accuracy, grammar, typos, and relevancy

3.            Check any active email addresses and see if any are excessive and can be deleted

4.            Ensure that your website domain name is renewed

5.            Consider whether a website design update is due

6.            Review all of your top performing blog articles and see if they can be updated with new content