Website maintenance: what’s involved and why it matters

Hello! We’re John and Brian, and we’ve been building and looking after websites for small businesses from our office in Preston, Lancashire since 2009. Creating a great website is just the first step. Once it’s live, it needs regular maintenance to stay secure, fast and useful. But what does website maintenance actually involve, how often should it happen, and should you do it yourself? Here’s our plain-English guide.

What is website maintenance?

Website maintenance is the ongoing work that keeps your website secure, working properly and up to date. For a typical small business website, it covers:

• Updating the software your website runs on, such as WordPress, its theme and its plugins
• Taking regular backups and making sure they can be restored
• Monitoring security and dealing with any threats
• Checking that pages, forms and links still work
• Keeping the site fast
• Updating content, images and contact details
• Reviewing how the website is performing and making improvements
• Renewing domain names and security certificates on time

A website maintenance checklist

Every website is different, but this is a sensible rhythm for most small business websites:

Why is website maintenance important?

Security

Out-of-date software is a common way for websites to get hacked. Updates for WordPress and its plugins often fix security problems, so the longer they’re left, the bigger the risk. Regular updates, security monitoring and backups keep your website, and your customers’ details, much safer.

Using real data to make improvements

When you first launch a website, you only have your own opinions, and perhaps those of a few people you asked, to go on. Some things, like a form that’s too long or a page people leave quickly, only show up once real visitors have used the site for a few weeks or months. Regular maintenance means you can use that data to make changes. For example, you might shorten an enquiry form, or remove a step from your checkout to make buying easier.

Keeping your design up to date

Web design styles, from colours and typography to layouts, change over time. Without attention, parts of your website can start to look dated and less professional. Regular maintenance lets you make small, steady improvements, rather than waiting until a full redesign is needed.

Fresh images and content

Maintenance is also the chance to update the images and content on your website. Up-to-date, professional photos show your products and services at their best, and current content shows visitors that your business is active, which helps build trust. Out-of-date prices, old staff photos and last year’s news do the opposite.

WordPress maintenance: the essentials

• Update WordPress, your theme and plugins. WordPress’s own guide to updating recommends taking a backup first.
• Check after updating. Occasionally an update causes a conflict, so check key pages and forms afterwards.
• Remove what you don’t use. Inactive plugins and themes are still a potential security risk.
• Keep the server software current. WordPress runs on PHP, which also needs to be kept on a supported version. This is usually handled by your host.
• Back up off-site. Keep backups somewhere other than the website’s own server, and test that they can be restored.

Should you maintain your website yourself?

If you’re comfortable with WordPress and have the time, you can handle a lot of maintenance yourself. Many business owners find it daunting, though, and it’s easy to let it slip when you’re busy running your business. That’s when problems creep in. Having someone else look after it means it gets done regularly, and there’s someone to call if something goes wrong.

How we look after our clients’ websites

For the websites we build, maintenance is part of our support as standard. In fact, our business is built on it. Your monthly support fee covers hosting on our managed UK hosting platform with Catalyst2, and our support covers things like:

• Running security updates, installing plugins and sorting out plugin issues
• Organising backups
• Adding blog posts or new pages from content you send us
• Changing phone numbers, images or contact forms
• Updating content to target new search phrases, and advice on SEO

Our websites are built in WordPress with Wordfence security and LiteSpeed Cache for performance. Support requests land in our help desk, and we work through them as our first job every working day. We very rarely raise an additional invoice for this kind of work.

We usually only support websites we’ve built ourselves, because we build on technology we know and trust. If your current website isn’t being looked after, we can build you a new one while your old site stays live.

Website maintenance FAQs

How much does website maintenance cost in the UK?

It varies a lot depending on what’s included and who provides it. With us, maintenance is part of a monthly support fee that also includes hosting, and we confirm the figure in your quote. Our guide to how much a website costs explains how our pricing works.

How often should a website be updated?

Software and security updates should be checked at least weekly. Content should be reviewed whenever something in your business changes, and the whole website at least once a year.

Does a brand-new website need maintenance?

Yes. Updates for WordPress and plugins are released all the time, so even a new website needs looking after from day one.

What happens if I don’t maintain my website?

It becomes more vulnerable to hacking, things gradually stop working, and the content goes out of date. Fixing a neglected website usually costs more than maintaining it would have done.

Want your website looked after?

If you’d like to talk about a website that’s looked after properly, give John and Brian a call on 01772 822626 or get in touch online. You’re welcome to pop into our Preston office for a coffee too.