Your website has been running fine for months, so you leave it alone and focus on the business. Then a customer mentions they never got a reply to their enquiry. You test the contact form and realise it stopped sending emails weeks ago.
The frustrating part? Your website can look perfectly fine while problems like this go unnoticed. The good news is that you can catch many of these issues with a few simple checks each month.
Let’s look at the website maintenance tasks worth adding to your routine, how often to do them, and what you might pay for professional help.
Essential Website Security and Maintenance Checks
As we said, a few regular checks can help you catch security gaps, fix problems, and keep your website working as it should. Below, we cover three checks to add to your maintenance routine.
Backing Up Your Site and Scheduling Security Scans
Imagine your website crashes after an update, taking your latest content and customer orders with it. Without a recent backup, you could lose that data permanently or spend hours trying to recover it.
That’s why you should set up automatic backups. If something goes wrong, you can restore a saved copy instead of rebuilding your site from scratch. But how often should you back up your website? That depends on how often its content changes. An online store processing orders every day may need daily backups, while a small business site that rarely changes might only need weekly copies.
Don’t stop at creating backups, though. You also need to know you can restore them. Test the process at least once a quarter, ideally on a staging site, and keep a copy somewhere separate from your website’s server.
Security scans deserve regular attention, too. If your site runs on WordPress, tools such as Wordfence can scan for malware and suspicious changes. If a scan flags something, don’t ignore it or assume it’s a false alarm. Check what the tool found and deal with the problem before it has a chance to affect more of your site.
Updating WordPress Plugins and Themes
Outdated plugins and themes can leave your WordPress site open to attacks. Patchstack found that plugins accounted for 91% of newly disclosed WordPress vulnerabilities in 2025, while themes accounted for the remaining 9%. That’s a good reason to check for updates every week and install security fixes as soon as possible.
Before updating, though, check the release notes. An update can conflict with another plugin or change how a feature works. Back up your site first, then update and check that everything still works as expected. If something breaks, you’ll have a backup to fall back on.
Keep WordPress itself up to date, too. Install security releases promptly, and check that your plugins and themes support a major version update before installing it. If you use a different website platform, follow its update recommendations instead.
Fixing Broken Links and Testing Forms Each Month
Have you ever clicked a link on a website only to land on a page that no longer exists? Your own site can develop the same problem when you delete pages, change URLs, or link to content that disappears from another website. Visitors who follow those links might miss important information or leave your site altogether.
To catch broken links, run a monthly check with a tool such as Broken Link Checker for WordPress. It scans your site’s links and flags those that no longer work. Review the results, update links that point to the wrong page, and set up redirects if you’ve moved content to a new URL. Start with your main service pages so visitors can still find the information they need.
Links aren’t the only things worth testing. A contact form might look fine on the page but fail to send your enquiry. Submit a test message yourself and check that it reaches the right inbox. If your site accepts bookings or orders, run through those steps, too, to make sure everything works from start to finish.
Website Performance Checks to Keep Your Site Running Smoothly
Your website might load quickly when you first launch it, but that doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way. As you add images, install plugins, and update pages, your site can gradually become slower.
You might not notice the change if you visit your site regularly on the same computer. Visitors using phones or slower internet connections, however, could have a harder time loading your pages. That’s why it’s worth checking your site’s speed regularly rather than waiting for someone to complain.
Start with Google PageSpeed Insights, which tests your pages on mobile and desktop. Run a check once a month on your homepage and important service pages. If you run an online store, test your product pages and checkout, too, so you don’t overlook problems on the pages customers rely on to make purchases.
Pay attention to Google’s Core Web Vitals, which measure loading performance, responsiveness, and visual stability. For example, Google recommends a Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) time of 2.5 seconds or less. You can find the full recommendations in Google’s Core Web Vitals guide.
If a test shows that your pages are slow, don’t rush to change everything at once. Start with these checks to narrow down what might be causing the problem:
- Compress Large Images: Large image files can take longer to load, especially on mobile connections. Resize images to fit the space they occupy and compress them before uploading. You can use tools like TinyPNG to do this.
- Remove Plugins You No Longer Use: Go through your plugin list and remove tools your site no longer needs. Some plugins load extra scripts or other resources that affect performance, so removing unnecessary ones can help reduce that overhead.
- Check Your Hosting Plan: If your site remains slow after you’ve checked its images and plugins, your hosting could be part of the problem. Limited server resources can affect loading times, particularly when traffic increases. Ask your hosting provider to investigate before deciding whether you need a different plan.
- Review Recent Changes: Think about when you first noticed the slowdown. If it started after you installed a plugin, changed your theme, or updated your software, test whether that change is responsible before making further adjustments.
If you’re not sure where to start, we recommend checking your images and plugins first. They’re good places to look for performance issues before moving on to more complex fixes.
Once you’ve made a change, run PageSpeed Insights again and compare the results with your earlier test. Keep a record of your monthly scores, too, so you can spot performance trends and see whether your fixes have helped.
Website Content Checks and Updates
Your website could be running perfectly and still give visitors the wrong impression. An old price, a discontinued service, or an outdated phone number can leave potential customers confused.
You don’t need to rewrite every page to keep your content current. Focus on these three habits.
- Publish Useful Blog Posts: Think about the questions customers regularly ask by phone or email. Answer one of them in a helpful article each month. This gives visitors useful information and adds another page to your website that search engines can discover.
- Review Older Pages: Check your main service pages and popular articles each quarter. Update prices, staff details, service information, and anything else that’s changed. If a page includes information that’s no longer accurate, correct it.
- Check Images and Internal Links: Make sure your images display properly, and your links lead to relevant pages. When you publish a new article, link to older pages that help readers explore the topic further. And we mentioned this before, but compress new images before uploading them to keep your pages from becoming unnecessarily slow.
Quick Tip: Review your main pages and popular articles every quarter, and update prices, contact details, or service information as soon as they change. That way, your content stays accurate without requiring you to check every page constantly.
What Should Your Company Expect to Pay for Website Maintenance?
Website maintenance plans can range from around $35 to $500 per month, depending on the provider and the support included. Use the following figures as a general guide:
| Plan level | Typical monthly cost | What’s usually included |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | $35 to $75 | Software updates, regular backups, and uptime monitoring |
| Standard | $100 to $250 | Basic services plus security scans, speed checks, and small content updates |
| Full support | $300 to $500 | More involved performance work, SEO checks, and priority technical fixes |
Before choosing a plan, check whether it covers the maintenance your website needs. Some providers offer little more than uptime monitoring, while others include content updates, performance checks, and priority technical support. Compare those services with your requirements, rather than choosing the cheapest plan and discovering later that essential work costs extra.
Keep Your Website Secure and Running Smoothly All Year
There you have it. Regular website maintenance doesn’t have to be complicated. Start with the tasks you can handle yourself, such as backing up your site, installing updates, and checking links. Then build a schedule that fits your business and helps you catch problems before they affect your visitors.
If you’d rather spend less time managing your website, Emaglink can help. We design and build websites for small businesses, so contact our team to discuss your website maintenance needs. Get in touch for a free consultation.