What goes on a website maintenance checklist?
A website maintenance checklist splits the work by cadence so it stays manageable. Weekly checks take about 15 minutes and catch failures early: a backup that did not run, a form that stopped sending. Monthly tasks, roughly an hour, keep the software current.
Quarterly tasks prove your safety nets work. Yearly tasks stop renewals and old software from catching you out.
Copy the items below into a shared sheet with three columns: task, owner, date done. The times are rough guides for a small WordPress business site; a store or a large bilingual site takes longer. If you still want the background on why each area matters, start with what website maintenance is and why it matters, then come back here to do the work.
Every week
About 15 minutes, ideally the same morning each week. None of these change anything; they only confirm the site is still doing its job.
- Confirm the backup ranOpen your backup tool or storage and check the latest file is dated this week and is not suspiciously small. Two minutes.
- Look at pending updatesLog in and note what is waiting, especially anything marked as a security release. Do not install yet unless it is urgent.
- Send a test enquiryFill in the contact form as a customer would and confirm it reaches the inbox, not spam. Five minutes.
- Tap the LINE and WhatsApp buttonsOn your phone, check each chat button opens the right account. A changed LINE account or phone number breaks these silently.
- Review uptime alertsCheck your monitor for outages in the past week. Repeated short drops are an early sign of hosting trouble.
Every month
Around an hour. This is where most of the real upkeep happens, so book it in the calendar rather than fitting it in. An outdated plugin or theme is one of the usual entry points our guide to fixing a hacked WordPress site describes.
- Apply updates on staging firstUpdate WordPress core, theme and plugins on a copy of the site, check key pages, then repeat on the live site. Take a fresh backup before.
- Check for broken linksRun a link checker and fix links to deleted pages, old promotions and partner sites that have moved.
- Speed spot-checkTest the home page and one key page on mobile. A sudden slowdown usually traces back to a new plugin or large images.
- Read Search ConsoleLook at page indexing problems and any security or manual action messages, and fix new errors while they are few.
- Clear spam users and commentsDelete fake accounts and comment spam, and turn comments off if you never use them.
- Compare Thai and English pagesCheck that prices, hours and offers match on both language versions after any edit.
Every quarter
Two to three hours, four times a year. These tasks test the safety nets rather than assuming they work. The one-off hardening steps, such as login limits and file permissions, belong in our WordPress security checklist for business sites; here we only repeat the checks that drift over time.
- Do a full restore testRestore the latest backup to a staging copy and click through it. This is the only way to know the backup is usable.
- Audit users and passwordsRemove accounts for staff and freelancers who have left, lower roles that are too broad, and confirm two-factor login on admin accounts.
- Audit pluginsDelete plugins you no longer use and replace any that have not been updated by their authors for a long time.
- Review content accuracyRead the main pages as a customer: staff, services, prices, addresses, photos. Remove offers that have ended.
- Review the PDPA privacy notice and cookie listCompare the notice and the cookie banner with what the site actually collects today, including any new tracking or form fields.
Once a year
Half a day, once a year, plus reminders set well before each renewal date. Many hosts auto-renew, but card changes and expired accounts still cause lapses. If your yearly review shows the server itself is the problem, our guide to hosting in Thailand covers what to look for, and the steps for moving to a new host without downtime are written up separately.
- Renew the domainCheck the expiry date and the registrant details. A .co.th or other .th domain has its own renewal and document rules set by THNIC.
- Check SSL renewalConfirm the certificate renews automatically and note when it expires. Free Let's Encrypt certificates are short-lived by design and must auto-renew.
- Review hostingCompare speed, uptime and support over the year against the price. Check the plan still fits your traffic.
- Check the PHP versionConfirm the server runs a PHP version that still receives security support, and plan an upgrade if not.
- Accessibility and design reviewCheck text contrast, font sizes on mobile and whether the design still reflects the business.
- Update legal pagesReview terms, privacy notice and refund or delivery policies, and update the copyright year.
Extra checks for online stores
A WooCommerce or Shopify store adds a layer that brochure sites do not have: money moving through the site. Run these weekly during sales peaks such as Songkran, 11.11 and year-end, and at least monthly the rest of the year. For a store with a payment step, our guide to ecommerce checkout optimization explains where buyers drop out.
- Place a test order per payment methodRun a small real or sandbox order through PromptPay, card and COD, and confirm the order email and status update arrive.
- Check shipping ratesCompare the rates shown at checkout with your current agreements with Thailand Post, KEX Express (formerly Kerry Express), Flash Express or J&T.
- Check stock syncIf stock also sells in-store or on a marketplace, confirm quantities still match after a busy period.
- Check invoice outputOpen a recent order and confirm the receipt or e-Tax invoice shows the right company details, tax ID and totals.
- Review abandoned checkoutsA sudden rise often means a payment or shipping step has broken.
Keep a maintenance log
A dated log is the cheapest insurance on this page. When a form stops working, the first question is always "what changed?", and a log answers it in seconds instead of hours. Keep it in the same shared sheet as the checklist.
Record, for each entry:
- the date and who did the work;
- which plugins, theme or core were updated, with version numbers;
- content changes to key pages, prices or legal text;
- anything that broke and how it was fixed;
- renewal dates for the domain, certificate and hosting, with the account each one sits under.
That last point matters more than it looks. Many Bangkok businesses discover at renewal time that the domain is registered to a former employee or an old agency. Write down the registrar, the login owner and the domain type; if you are still deciding between .com vs .co.th for a new project, settle the ownership question at the same time.
When to hand the list over
The checklist works only if someone actually does it. Signs that it is time to pass it on:
- weekly checks keep slipping to "next week";
- updates sit pending because nobody wants to risk breaking the site;
- you have never done a restore test;
- the site has gone offline before and it took a day to find out why the website went down.
A sensible split is to keep content edits in-house and hand updates, backups, restore tests and monitoring to a developer. We offer care after launch for sites we build and sites built elsewhere, priced per site on request. The factors that shape a website maintenance plan are explained on our pricing page, or you can WhatsApp or call +66 93 004 4098 with your site address.
More maintenance guides
Sources
Builds and ranks the websites: the systems behind the 17 client sites whose Search Console numbers we publish. This guide was written by the Website Development Bangkok team. More about us