Like everything else, you website needs to be kept up to date. In this case there are a number of parts to the process. Keeping your content fresh and inviting, and keeping your website software and hosting secure and running well.
This page collects a series of articles on what to do as part of your regular maintenance and how to do it. If you would like me to do this for you then get in touch via the contacts form. If you would like to see something added here then get in touch for that too.
Regular maintenance is something that just has to be done if you want to keep your site healthy, and as safe as it can be. Here are some of the things that I do as part or my regular Maintenance Package for customers. The thing that drives me is your site being the best it can be – so if I’m not doing this for you then have a look and see about doing it yourself.
- Domain Name
- Check on your domain name expiry and privacy
- Check all domain name variations resolve to website
- Website Hosting
- Take independent backups and verify cPanel Backup, Database Backup and File Backup
- Check renewal dates for Hosting
- Check Resource utilization (CPU / Disk / Memory)
- Check for errors in all log locations (Server, PHP, Host, Theme, etc)
- Review Website uptime monitoring statistics (if in place)
- WordPress
- Check your automatic backups are working
- Review and update Core WordPress files
- Review and update Theme files
- Review and update Plug-ins
- Check Databases and Optimize or Repair as required
- Check sitemap is being created correctly and recently updated
- Check email delivery from contact forms and addresses
- Check Redirect Logs if in use
- Update SALTs for security
- Review Google Webmaster and Analytics
- Review the Google Analytics statistics from last month and summarise into a statement of site health with any action suggestions
- Review Google Webmaster information and check sitemaps, indexing, crawl errors, missing pages, malware warnings and HTML suggestions
- Security Scan
You don’t have to do all of these every time – you will know your website and your business better than anyone else. These ideas on website maintenance cover the some of the behind the scenes technical aspects. Remember that you also have to maintain the content and the look and feel to keep it fresh and interesting to your visitors.
