Website maintenance: what it includes and when you need it
Website maintenance is what happens after the launch applause. The site stays on the internet: the system updates, a certificate expires, a timetable changes, a form lands in spam. If nobody looks, the customer hears about the fault before you do.
Not every site needs the same plan. A campaign landing and the store that pays the month’s invoices are not looked after the same way. Here is what we ask a real maintenance plan to include, and how we split it at the studio.
What breaks even if you touch nothing
Plugins, the core of the CMS, the PHP version and the payment gateway publish patches. Skipping them is the most common path to a site down or a “connection not secure” warning. The visitor does not separate a technical lapse from a closed business.
The domain and the hosting expire too. It sounds obvious and it is a real reason a site “has disappeared”. Serious maintenance has the renewal calendar and a recent backup outside the same server. If the disk fails, the copy that lived on it does not help.
Watch and backups
Watch means someone hears if the homepage stops answering, if the form does not send, or if the certificate is about to expire. You do not need a control room. You need an alert and a person who can get in.
Backups have to be tested. A backup that has never been restored is a hope. A serious plan has an automatic copy and, now and then, a check that you can return to an earlier point. That matters more in a store, where a half-finished order cannot be improvised.
Content edits
The other half of maintenance is human: changing a price, adding a piece of work, removing a service, fixing summer hours. If every edit is a new project, the site keeps the text from opening day.
That is why plans differ by how much moves. A quiet site does not need the same bag of hours as a brand that publishes every week. How many edits are included is written in the proposal. It is not left as “however many you need”. The same split is in the questions on the home page.
Which plan fits
Starter is for sites with little movement: keep them current, with backups and a short margin for edits. Pro adds support and more technical watch. Full is for the site the business depends on: direct attention and included edits, with the amount agreed.
No plan buys a new website every month. A redesign, a store that did not exist, or an app is another job. Maintenance looks after what is already published. If the current piece no longer fits, that has to be said first. Sometimes the audit sees it sooner: contact.
Signs the site is on its own
The form has been quiet for weeks and you do not know if messages arrive. The certificate gave you a scare. Plugins are un-updated “because last time something broke”. The phone in the header is the old one. Any one of those four is enough to stop and look.
If you want us to look, the free audit reviews design, speed and lead capture and leaves three improvements in order. Maintenance, if it fits, is agreed afterwards, with the scope written down. You can see looked-after work in projects.
Questions
What does website maintenance include?
Updates, backups, a check that the site responds, and a set number of content edits. A full redesign and new features are separate.
How often should a website be updated?
Security patches, when they ship. The words, when the business changes: hours, prices, services. A site nobody touches for a year is usually lying about something.
Does maintenance rank you on Google?
It stops you losing what you already have: speed, security and pages that load. Ranking for a new search needs content and structure, not only plugin updates.