A website stays useful through small, regular checks. Maintenance includes more than software updates: customers need accurate information, working forms and a reliable purchase journey. This Digital Rebellion checklist gives you a repeatable routine and a way to share responsibilities with your team and maintenance provider.
Agree on ownership first List the people responsible for content, enquiries, orders, technical maintenance and billing for domains or services. Confirm what Digital Rebellion handles under your agreement and what remains with your business. A responsibility that belongs to “someone” can easily be missed.
Keep the handover, approved login address and support contact available to the right people. Store passwords and recovery codes in a secure password manager, separately from a general maintenance spreadsheet. Record review dates and outcomes rather than confidential credentials.
Daily checks for active businesses Check the enquiry inbox and any stored form submissions your system provides. Respond to legitimate messages and investigate unusual silence if the business normally receives regular enquiries. A missing notification should not leave a customer waiting indefinitely.
For stores, review new and unfulfilled orders, failed payments, older on-hold orders and low-stock alerts. Compare payment and order exceptions through your normal reconciliation process. Verify that a time-sensitive offer still matches the price and availability shown to shoppers.
A low-activity brochure website may not need the same daily attention as a busy store. Match the frequency to the consequences of missing an enquiry or order.
Weekly checks Open the public website in a logged-out session and on a phone. Test prominent navigation, contact links and the main enquiry path. Review comments and product reviews where enabled. Check a selection of product prices, variations and stock quantities against your business records.
Review backup-success notifications or the backup dashboard, rather than assuming that scheduled jobs ran. Review update notices with whoever manages maintenance. Check that a planned article actually published and that scheduled promotions began or ended as expected.
- Daily: enquiries and orders
- Weekly: journeys and backups
- Monthly: content and access
- Quarterly: recovery and renewals
Monthly checks Review important pages for outdated opening hours, team information, service areas and contact details. Check download links and key PDFs. Review the user list and confirm that former staff or contractors no longer have unnecessary access.
Inspect available analytics and search data through the tools already configured for the site. Focus on outcomes such as relevant enquiries, completed purchases and the pages that support them. Compare similar periods and note campaigns or seasonal changes; one quiet week does not prove that the website needs a redesign.
Check speed on representative pages and an ordinary mobile connection. Large new images, additional scripts or an extension change can affect experience. Do not install several optimisation plugins to chase a score. Have Digital Rebellion identify the bottleneck and test an appropriate change.
Quarterly and major-change checks Review the recovery plan and carry out an authorised restore test where practical. Confirm the backup coverage, retention and maximum acceptable data loss for your current business activity. A growing store may need a different schedule from the one set at launch.
Review renewal dates for the domain, hosting, email services and important extension licences. Confirm the responsible contact and payment arrangements. Check that legal and policy pages still describe the way your business operates; obtain appropriate professional input when the wording requires it.
After any major content, checkout or technical change, repeat the relevant user journey. Check the actual public result rather than relying only on a saved-success message.
Keep a concise maintenance record Record the date, task, outcome, person responsible and follow-up action. For an issue, include the affected URL and the next owner. Close the item only after someone verifies the result. A short, accurate log is more useful than a long checklist filled in automatically.
Frequently asked questions Does maintenance guarantee the website will never fail? No. It reduces avoidable problems and improves your ability to detect and recover from them.
How often should I review this checklist? Revisit it when traffic, sales volume, staffing or the website’s features change.
