15 Monthly Website Maintenance Tips for Peak Performance

A website is like a garden — it needs constant care to flourish. Tend to it with care, and it will reward you with a bountiful harvest.

Neglect it—weeds take over, pests invade, and your precious crops wither away.

Just as a garden prospers with attention, your website thrives on routine maintenance. And the better your space performs, the more curb appeal you gain.

A recent Forbes study found that about 50% of internet users judge a company’s value by its website’s performance. Page speed and design are the top factors.

Implementing a monthly website maintenance routine keeps your site fast, secure, and user-friendly while helping you avoid long-term issues.

With over 15 years of award-winning web design and website maintenance services, our team understands all the tricks to keep your site at peak performance. We’re here to help walk you through the reasons for and process of maintaining your website.

Why Monthly Website Maintenance is Non-Negotiable

Maintaining your website isn’t just about keeping things running—it’s about avoiding issues that impact performance, security, and user experience.

Here’s why regular, monthly maintenance is critical:

• Design Consistency:  A consistent site design is key to brand continuity. Plug-in changes and content updates can compromise the site’s original design without proper oversight. Too many updates, without proper maintenance, can lead to a need for a complete site redesign.
• Added Security: Hackers are always looking for vulnerabilities, and the last thing you need is to expose your customers’ data. Monthly website maintenance helps close security gaps by applying the latest updates and patches.
• Reduces Downtime and Crashes: A poorly maintained website is more likely to crash or face downtime — problems that can frustrate users and lead to revenue loss. Routine maintenance identifies minor issues before they escalate.
• SEO Advantages: Website performance is crucial for SEO, yet it is often overlooked. Search engines favor fast, well-maintained websites. Regular upkeep ensures your site continues to meet all SEO requirements.
• Cost Efficiency: Regularly addressing minor issues is far more cost-effective than waiting for a significant problem to occur. Emergency website fixes are often expensive. Plus, slow and buggy websites can turn away potential customers.
• Enhances User Experience: Broken links, slow loading time, and poor formatting can frustrate website visitors. Regular maintenance keeps your site running smoothly, improving user experience and encouraging engagement.

15 Monthly Website Maintenance Tips to Keep You Up and Running

Regular website maintenance ensures that it remains secure, fast, and functional. Here are 15 essential tips to help you keep your site in top shape each month:

1. Conduct Regular Security Scans

Staying ahead of malware and hacking attempts is critical for keeping your site safe. Countless tools are available to help you run monthly security scans that identify potential threats.

WordPress users can install security plugins, while an online search will direct you to many malware-scanning services. Look into additional security steps, such as using a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate, to ensure the safe digital transfer of customers’ information.

2. Keep WordPress Themes, Core, and Plugins Updated

Outdated software can cause functionality issues and is a top target for cyber-attacks.

To stay protected, make sure WordPress themes and plugins are up to date. Set plugins to automatically update, and check for core WordPress updates monthly through your dashboard.

3. Check Website Backup Systems

Backing up your website every time you update and utilizing automatic backups are essential maintenance steps. Unfortunately, many website owners don’t take the time to ensure their backups function correctly.

Avoid this mistake by regularly verifying that backup copies are up to date and can be restored without issue. Failure to back up your website correctly can lead to costly downtime and valuable data loss.

Most web hosts, like Kinsta and WPEngine, offer daily backups as part of their plans.

4. Optimize Your Database

Improve website performance by cleaning out unnecessary data. Comb your site and delete things like post revisions, unused tags, trash, and spam comments.

You can do this manually or use a plugin. A tidy, clutter-free database boosts load times and keeps your website running efficiently. Be cautious — always back up your website before deleting any data.

5. Analyze and Improve Site Speed

Speed can significantly impact your website’s user experience and search engine ranking. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or Catchpoint’s WebPageTest to assess your site’s performance and follow their suggestions for improvement.

Implement practices such as browser caching, image optimization, and removing excess scripts to speed things up.

6. Clear Website Cache

Clearing your website’s cache regularly is an essential maintenance task.

A cache is essentially a storage area for your site’s static data that helps your page load faster. Clearing it removes outdated items, ensuring users always see fresh content while maintaining consistent site speeds.

7. Resize Images and Files

Large images and files can bring website speeds to a crawl. Compressing images, using WebP file formats, and creating responsive images helps reduce load times.

Regularly review your media files and resize them as needed to keep your site fast and efficient.

8. Check and Fix Broken Hyperlinks

Broken links frustrate website users and can hurt your SEO by increasing your bounce rate.

Run monthly link checks to ensure all internal and external links function properly. Tools like Ahrefs and Semrush both provide popular options for checking links.

9. Check for 404 Errors

Clicking on a broken link often redirects to a 404 error page, which appears when the server can’t find the linked page.

Use tools like Google Search Console to find 404 errors on your website and fix them by redirecting users to the correct page. Tools like Google Analytics or a backlink auditing tool like Semrush can help you find broken backlinks and provide appropriate redirects. 

10. Review and Update Website Content

Review your site regularly to ensure it is up-to-date, relevant, and aligned with your brand. Check content for compliance with current SEO best practices.

Maintaining updated content builds user trust and can improve your search rankings.

11. Test Forms and User Interactions

Faulty forms and other interaction issues can quickly degrade the user experience. Routinely test forms, buttons, and other interactive features to ensure they work smoothly across all devices.

Common issues like broken submission forms and faulty calls to action should be fixed promptly. Also, review your site navigation to ensure it’s running smoothly for optimal user interaction.

12. Check Mobile Responsiveness

Optimizing your site’s mobile responsiveness is key as more users browse on tablets and smartphones. Perform monthly mobile-friendliness checks to ensure that your site functions well across all devices and provides a seamless experience for mobile users.

13. Monitor Analytics

Analytics are like your website’s health report. Use tools like Google Analytics to monitor conversion rates, page visits, bounce rates, session duration, and more.

This data helps you pinpoint performance trends, traffic changes, and user behavior so you can make updates to your site’s layout, content, or features as needed.

14. Audit User Permissions

Audit your website’s user roles and permissions regularly to ensure only authorized personnel can access sensitive areas. Remove inactive users or unnecessary roles to improve your site’s security.

15. Review Hosting Performance

Your hosting provider can greatly affect your site’s speed, security, and performance. Review your hosting plan regularly to ensure it meets your site’s needs.

If your site is growing or experiencing more traffic, consider upgrading to a plan that can handle the volume or changing providers. Free hosting might work for a small hobby site, but a high-traffic site needs a more robust solution.

DIY or Hire an Expert Web Designer?

While it’s possible to maintain a website on your own, learning and implementing all the proper tricks and tools can take precious time away from running your business. Plus, improper maintenance can lead to major security and performance issues.

Hiring a professional web designer comes with many long-term benefits:

• Advanced Expertise: Professionals bring specialized knowledge and experience to handle complex issues, advanced security measures, and intricate optimizations beyond the average site owner’s capabilities.
• Time Efficiency: Outsourcing site maintenance frees up your time, allowing you to focus on core business activities rather than spending hours on technical tasks and troubleshooting.
• Proactive Problem-Solving: Experts can proactively identify and resolve potential issues before they become serious problems, using advanced tools and techniques not always accessible to business owners.
• Enhanced Security: Professionals are well-versed in the latest security protocols and can provide robust protection against evolving cyber threats, reducing the risk of breaches and data loss.
• Comprehensive Support: Having a professional on standby ensures quick resolution and reduces downtime in case of emergencies or unexpected issues. This is crucial for maintaining your site’s performance and reliability.
• Optimized Performance: Experts have access to advanced optimization tools and techniques that optimize your site performance — improving load times, ranking, and user experience.
• Consistent Updates: Maintaining a regular schedule of updates and checks can be challenging to manage on your own. Hiring a professional ensures that your site stays updated with minimal effort on your part.

Website Maintenance Services to Fit Your Business Needs

Whether you DIY monthly maintenance or invest in website maintenance services, one thing is clear—optimal website performance is key to business success.

If you’re unsure where to start or dealing with existing maintenance issues, our web design experts at JS-Interactive are here to help. We tailor our services to each customer’s needs and keep your business on track.

Contact us today for a free consultation.