A website that’s being properly looked after should have regular updates and security checks, working forms and key pages, recent backups, and someone clearly responsible for keeping everything running.
You shouldn’t need to understand every technical detail. But you should be able to tell that the important work is being done and know what happens if something goes wrong.
Key takeaways:
If someone else looks after your website, how do you actually know they’re doing what they’re supposed to?
And if you’re handling it yourself, how do you know you haven’t missed something important?
Most business owners don’t want to become WordPress experts. They just want to know the website is being maintained properly, someone is keeping an eye on it, and help is there when something needs attention.
There are a few clear signs that tell you whether that’s actually happening.
WHAT'S INSIDE:
If you’re looking after the website yourself, it’s easy for updates and security checks to slip when work gets busy.
And if you’re paying someone else to handle it, you may not really know how often those things are being checked.
Either way, regular maintenance should be happening in the background, not only when something goes wrong.
If you log into WordPress and see a long list of updates waiting, that can be a sign the site hasn’t been maintained as regularly as it should be.
WordPress itself needs updating, along with the plugins and theme that run on it. Those updates often include bug fixes, compatibility improvements and security patches.
But keeping everything updated doesn’t mean clicking “update all” and hoping for the best.
Updates can sometimes clash with other parts of the site, so they need to be handled properly and checked afterwards to make sure everything is still working as it should.
A website can be fully updated and still have security issues. Regular security checks matter too, not just software updates.
Vulnerable plugins, suspicious files, malware or old user accounts can all become a problem if nobody is checking for them.
The problem is, you usually can’t tell whether those checks are happening just by looking at the website.
A website can look fine at a glance while something important has stopped working. That’s why the parts people actually use still need checking.
The most important things to check are the parts that directly affect enquiries and sales. That means testing forms, buttons, links and key pages to make sure they still work properly.
A contact form that looks normal but isn’t sending is a good example. The website appears fine, but the business can still be missing leads.
Those checks don’t need to be complicated. They just need to happen regularly enough that problems aren’t left sitting there unnoticed.
You shouldn’t have to find out there’s a problem because a customer tells you.
If the site goes down, a page starts throwing errors or something important stops working, someone should be alerted or checking for it.
That doesn’t mean every issue will be caught instantly. But obvious problems shouldn’t be sitting there for days or weeks before anyone notices.
The longer they go unnoticed, the more chance they have to affect enquiries, sales or trust.
Even with regular maintenance, things can still go wrong.
An update can fail, a site can be hacked, or something can break unexpectedly. What matters is whether there’s a recent backup to fall back on and a clear way to get the website working again.
A backup is most useful when it’s recent enough to limit data loss and you know there’s a reliable way to restore it. That means having copies of the website and database taken regularly, not relying on one old backup from months ago.
It also helps if those backups are stored somewhere separate from the live website. If the site or hosting account has a problem, you don’t want the only backup sitting in the same place.
Having backups is one thing. Being able to restore the website from them is another. If something goes badly wrong, there should already be a plan for getting the site back online.
That means knowing where the backups are, which one to use, and who can actually restore the site if needed.
If you’re paying someone to look after your website, you shouldn’t be left wondering who’s responsible when something needs attention.
You should know who’s managing it, what they’re actually looking after, and what happens when there’s a problem.
Website problems get harder to deal with when nobody really owns them.
The developer assumes the host is handling it. The host assumes the developer is. Someone else looks after content, but not updates or security.
There should be a clear person or team responsible for the website, so if something needs attention, you already know who’s dealing with it and you’re not left chasing different people for an answer.
You should still have some way of knowing the work is actually happening. That could be a maintenance report, a simple summary of what was checked, or an update when something important needs your attention.
You should also know if something falls outside the usual support arrangement, rather than finding out only when the problem has been sitting there for weeks.
When a website is being looked after properly, you shouldn’t need to think about it very often.
The routine work gets done, problems are picked up, and there’s someone responsible when something needs attention.
That’s the point of good website management: the site keeps doing its job without becoming another thing you have to manage.
If you’d rather have someone handle this properly, take a look at our website support plans and see what’s included.
Not sure what you need? Send us an email at [email protected] and we’ll point you in the right direction.
There isn’t one schedule that suits every website.
A simple brochure site may need less attention than an ecommerce site, but maintenance still needs to happen regularly.
WordPress, plugins and themes should be checked regularly, security checks run consistently, and backups taken often enough that you wouldn’t lose a large amount of recent work if the site had to be restored.
The more important the website is to the business, the more closely it should generally be monitored.
A basic maintenance plan will usually cover WordPress, plugin and theme updates, security checks, backups and some form of monitoring.
There should also be a clear process for dealing with problems when they’re found.
Beyond that, plans can differ quite a bit. Some include content changes, performance improvements, development work or ongoing optimisation. Others only cover the technical maintenance.
The important thing is knowing exactly what your plan includes, rather than assuming something is being handled when it isn’t.
You shouldn’t need to log into WordPress and check everything yourself.
A good provider should be able to tell you what they maintain and give you some visibility into the work. That might be through maintenance reports, updates when something needs attention, or simply being able to explain when the last checks were done.
You can also ask straightforward questions: when was the site last updated, are backups running, are security checks being done, and what happens if the website goes down?
If nobody can give you a clear answer, it’s worth finding out exactly what you’re paying for.
Yes. There’s nothing stopping a business owner from maintaining their own WordPress website.
The bigger question is whether you have the time and confidence to stay on top of updates, backups, security and the occasional problem.
For a small site, that may be perfectly manageable. But if the website is important for enquiries, sales or day-to-day operations, the cost of missing something can become more significant.
If you decide to manage it yourself, the main thing is to make it a regular responsibility rather than something you only deal with when the website breaks.
Justin Meadows is the founder of TunedWP and creator of the Topic Domination Method. Since 2009, he’s worked across SEO, WordPress, website performance and conversion optimisation, helping businesses get more from their websites.
His work now includes AI search, where he focuses on helping businesses build the content, authority and online presence needed to be understood and recommended by tools such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini.
