🧰 The Website Maintenance Checklist That Prevents 3AM Emergencies

Almost every website emergency we get called for — hacks, expired domains, broken pages — was preventable with an hour of maintenance a month. Here's the checklist, whether you do it yourself or pay someone to.

Weekly (10 minutes)

Open your own site on your phone like a customer: homepage, one product/service page, the contact form (actually submit it). Glance at anything that looks off. That's it — most owners never even do this, and it catches problems while they're small.

Monthly (30–60 minutes)

✔ Verify a backup exists and is RECENT (a backup you've never checked is a hope, not a backup). ✔ Update the CMS, plugins and themes — outdated plugins are the #1 hack door. ✔ Delete plugins and admin accounts you don't use. ✔ Click through your main pages for broken links and images. ✔ Check your Google Business listing still shows correct hours and phone. ✔ Skim Search Console for security warnings or sudden traffic drops.

Yearly (the expensive-if-forgotten ones)

✔ Domain renewal — set auto-renew with a card that won't expire, and calendar it anyway (read our expired-domain guide for why this one hurts most). ✔ SSL certificate renewal if not automatic. ✔ Review hosting plan against your traffic. ✔ Update the year in your footer — small thing, but "© 2021" tells customers nobody's home.

DIY or pay?

The checklist is free to run yourself. A maintenance plan makes sense the day your time is worth more than the task, or the day you skip two months in a row — which is how every "my site's been hacked" story starts.

Want a number instead of a guess? We do remote website support worldwide — any platform, fixed USD quote before work starts. WhatsApp your country, site and problem and get a straight answer.