WordPress powers a huge share of the web, which also makes it a favorite target. A WordPress site that’s left alone gradually becomes slower, less secure, and more likely to break during the next update.
A maintenance plan turns that into a routine. Here is one you can follow yourself, or hand to a developer.
Set up once
- Daily remote backups to Google Drive, Dropbox, or similar
- A security plugin with a firewall and malware scanning
- Two-factor authentication for every administrator
- A valid SSL certificate with HTTPS forced on every page
- Uptime monitoring that alerts you when the site goes down
- Google Search Console and Google Analytics, connected and verified
- A staging site for testing updates, if your host provides one
Weekly
- Apply WordPress, plugin, and theme updates. See how to update WordPress safely.
- Check the home page, contact form, and checkout (if you have one) still work.
- Confirm the latest backups completed.
- Moderate comments and clear spam.
Monthly
- Work through the monthly WordPress security checklist.
- Run a speed test and compare it with last month. See WordPress performance tuning.
- Review traffic, top pages, and search queries.
- Check Search Console for crawl errors and security issues.
- Fix broken links.
Quarterly
- Test restoring a backup to a staging site.
- Clean up the database: old revisions, spam comments, and expired transients.
- Review plugins: remove unused ones and replace any that are no longer maintained.
- Run an accessibility scan and fix new issues.
- Update content that has gone out of date.
Yearly
- Renew your domain, and check its contact details are current.
- Make sure your server runs a supported PHP version.
- Review your hosting plan against your traffic and needs.
- Run a full website SEO audit.
- Review who has access to hosting, domain, and WordPress accounts.
Do it yourself, or hand it off?
If you’re comfortable in the WordPress dashboard, most of this takes an hour or two a month. If you’d rather not, the checklist doubles as a scope of work: anyone you hire should be able to say how they cover each item.
Either way, it helps to see the results in one place. The Repork dashboard is designed to show backups, security, uptime, speed, and search side by side, so your maintenance starts with what needs attention.
Not on WordPress? See what website maintenance involves for any platform.
