To help you out, we\u2019ve organized these tasks by how often you should perform them: yearly, quarterly, monthly, or weekly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Annual Website Maintenance Tasks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n1. Perform User Testing.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
You worked hard to build a website that\u2019s intuitive to users and drives the kind of actions you want them to take. But the way people use the web has an inconvenient tendency to evolve over time. A website design that felt natural and intuitive in 1998<\/a> wouldn\u2019t work for users today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To make sure that your website continues to make intuitive sense for visitors across all common browsers and devices (including those you can\u2019t anticipate now who knows what people will be using in 2-3 years), mark a time on the calendar to perform usability testing<\/a> once a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bring in people that aren\u2019t associated with your business or brand who can give fresh eyes to browsing your website. Make sure your testing includes all browsers and device types visitors may use so you get the full picture. And create a maintenance schedule for making any updates your testing determines are necessary. The testing itself isn\u2019t worth much if you don\u2019t turn the insights you gain into action.<\/p>\n\n\n You\u2019ve invested so much in your website. Now imagine you woke up tomorrow morning, opened your browser, attempted to pull up your website and…instead you found a page saying the domain name expired. Even worse, your domain registrar filled the page with information on how someone else<\/em> can purchase it-and maybe they\u2019ve even already listed it on a domain auction site \u00f0\u0178\u02dc\u00b1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You may feel like that sounds unlikely, but it\u2019s happened to plenty of people and businesses before you<\/a>. Losing access to your domain name could mean losing all the work you\u2019ve done to build up your website\u2019s authority and visibility on the web. And for busy business owners, it\u2019s a surprisingly easy thing to let slip through the cracks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not a risk you want to take. So at least once a year, check on your domain name renewal status. The best way to keep your domain name (and website by extension) safe is to set up auto-renew. Then you rarely have to worry about it, except to keep your payment information up-to-date. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Your header and footer are the main parts of your website that stay the same across web pages. And they probably include some important information! <\/p>\n\n\n\n If, for example, your header includes contact information, your address, or the hours your business is open, you want to make sure that information is up to date. You don\u2019t want someone showing up to your old address or when you\u2019re closed, only to be disappointed they can\u2019t do business with you after all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if your header is simple, and just provides your logo and main menu, this is a good opportunity to make sure the web pages and categories you include here are the most important ones to highlight on your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The website footer likely includes your website\u2019s copyright information, including the date of copyright. You want to keep that up to date as well, to protect all new updates you\u2019ve made to your website in the last year. And confirm here as well that any links you include in the footer are the ones you most want to call visitor attention to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And I know you probably don\u2019t want to hear this, but you should also check with your lawyer to make sure your Terms of Service and Privacy Policy are up to date. Laws change. It\u2019s better to catch outdated legal information on your website before<\/em> you can suffer any consequences because of it. Your Privacy Policy in particular may need to be revisited in the wake of GDPR and other privacy laws<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As far as eCommerce website features<\/a> go, the most important type of functionality on your website is the purchasing function. If it stops working, or even if it\u2019s glitchy, you could lose out big on profits until you catch the problem and fix it. Most of your visitors won\u2019t take the time to alert you that they couldn\u2019t make a purchase, they\u2019ll just hop over to a competitor\u2019s site and buy what they need there instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So at least once every couple of months, have someone in the company make a few test purchases to see how the process works. Have them do this on different devices and in different browsers so you can figure out if there are any snags in the process that only happen in some cases and not others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If there\u2019s anything about the process that isn\u2019t seamless, you want to find out and update it ASAP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If your website includes any contact forms<\/a> you want visitors to fill out, you want to be confident these all work properly as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time that you make your test purchases, go through the process of filling out all the forms on the website. In this case too, make sure you try them on all the devices and browsers your visitors might use. And make sure whoever\u2019s meant to be on the receiving end of the form gets all the information provided. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If any of your forms aren\u2019t working right, you could be missing out on valuable leads, so make sure you catch the problem sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every time someone clicks on a link that leads to a 404 page<\/a>, it\u2019s disappointing. When that dead link is on your website, it makes your business look bad and leads people away from the page you want them to be on, which is why you need to perform preventative maintenance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n No matter what you do, you\u2019ll end up with broken links on your website from time to time as other websites you link to move or die or change domains. You may not be able to avoid them completely, but you can make sure they don\u2019t stay on your website long by making it part of your regular website maintenance. Every few months, check for broken links and either remove them or replace them with updated links.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finding broken links is actually easier than you might think. There are a lot of free tools available that automatically check websites for broken links, such as Google Search Console<\/a> (which offers plenty of other useful features to boot). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Because these tools make the process so simple, you should easily be able to fix any broken links you find quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You hear about high-profile security breaches all the time and you can only assume that there are even more low-profile ones you never hear about. Securing your website from hackers<\/a> has to be a major priority for anyone that runs a website and it\u2019s even more important for eCommerce businesses who deal with customers\u2019 private data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the most important website maintenance practices you should plan on for security is checking that all your platforms, plug-ins, and scripts are up to date<\/a>. Usually when developers release updates for these, it\u2019s to improve the security or patch up a vulnerability they found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After you make an update, take a minute to check that your website is still working properly. If you use WordPress, occasionally a WordPress update can cause compatibility issues with a plugin you use, and you want to know about it if you lose important functionality in the process. And while the possibility of losing functionality may sound scary, don\u2019t let that stop you from completing this step. It\u2019s a lot less scary than getting hacked! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t procrastinate making those updates, or you could be putting your website and visitors needlessly at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s happened to all of us: you work on a project all day long, and then something goes wrong with your computer and you lose your entire project. If this has happened to you, you probably got really good at staying on top of your computer backups to save you from future trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re not careful though, the same thing could happen to your website. If a hacker does somehow get through, they could wipe you out in one fell swoop. But if you have a current website backup solution,<\/a> fixing the problem will be much easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can invest in a backup system like CodeGuard<\/a>, to save you the work of treating this as a separate website maintenance step. If you don\u2019t though, make sure you put it on the calendar to create an updated backup of your website at least once a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of the work you put into your website has a chance to pay off if visitors get impatient while it\u2019s loading and click away. And now that we\u2019re years past the days of dial up, when waiting was a normal part of using the internet, people do get impatient. They expect websites to load fast<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At least once a month, test out your website speed to get a feel for how quickly it\u2019s loading for visitors. Don\u2019t just test it out in your browser on your own computer-that can only tell you so much. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Google provides a Page Speed Insight<\/a> tool that offers more information about how your website\u2019s working across different types of networks, browsers, and devices. And conveniently, in the same tool, you\u2019ll see steps for ways to improve your website speed<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\nYou might like…<\/h4>
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/shared-150x150.png\")
<\/a><\/span>Shared Hosting<\/a><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/website-builder-150x150.png\")
<\/a><\/span>Website Builder<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\n\n2. Check Your Domain Name Renewal Status.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
3. Update Your Header, Footer, and Legal Policies.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Quarterly Website Maintenance Tasks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
4. Make Test Purchases.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
5. Test Out All the Forms on Your Website.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
6. Fix Any Broken Links.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Monthly Website Maintenance Tasks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
7. Check for Security Updates.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
8. Regularly Backup Your Site.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
9. Test Your Website Speed and Make Necessary Improvements.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/image-3-1024x629.png\")
Weekly Website Maintenance Tasks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
10. Review Your Key Metrics.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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