Website Maintenance
Website Maintenance Tracker
Many organizations are guilty of launching their new website and then forgetting about it. However, the user experience of your site deteriorates over time when you do nothing.
Stewardship means care and responsible management. By proactively maintaining your website, you will keep pace with the needs of your audience and continue to deliver a satisfying user experience that is aligned with your audience’s journey.
As a result, you’ll keep conversions high, extend the lifespan of your website, and stay off the good-sucks cycle.
Explanation of columns on the Maintenance Tracker sheet
FREQUENCY
Frequency is based on how often the items change. CMS updates happen all the time so it’s important to check more often. Depending on the size of your site, and your team, you may want to drag a row to a different frequency section to better suit your needs. For example, if your business is seasonal or cyclical, content reviews should coincide with your cycle.
ACTION ITEM
This describes the activity that should be carried out. The actions vary in terms of how long they take. For example checking to see if plugins are all current and updating them might take 10 minutes. In contrast, auditing the pages on your site to ensure the content is still relevant might take several days. Some of these tasks will spawn more work – particularly if you find something is broken. It’s recommended you have budget set aside for these maintenance tasks. Delete or hide the rows that don’t pertain to you.
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT
This column details the role that each action item plays in the user experience and performance of your site. I’ve made this column collapsible, since you probably only need to see it a few times. Just click the minus sign [-] over the A column.
EXTERNAL TOOLS
There are lots of 3rd party tools that can help you carry out some of these tasks – some paid and some free. I’ve listed a few but there are more to be found. Try a few out. When you find one that works for you, update this cell and link to the tool for easy access.
NEXT DUE DATE
When does the activity need to be carried out next? Note you should stagger the activities to spread out the effort. For example, all annual actions don’t need to take place in September. Maybe you audit content every June and run accessibility reviews in October.
DATE COMPLETED
It’s always good to keep track of when an item was finished. Schedule your next due date appropriately.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE
Ideally you have a bit of help on your website. Here you can keep track of who does what.
NOTES
Free space! Maybe you learned something the last time you carried out the activity that you need to remember. Link to your measurement framework, or document the steps of your archival process.