By carollcOn

Hello checklist! Bye, bye post-its!

A checklist for WordPress maintenance? Why?

I was so tired to count on my poor memory! Or having to count on bookmarks, articles, calendar reminders, or a wall full of post-its! The checklist is an easier way to check and share the items (and the tasks!) needed to keep my WordPress websites happy and healthy.

Creating tasks

Using the checklist as a starter, you can create recurrent tasks on your task manager (Asana, Jira, Basecamp, etc.) and do not worry to create it all manually.

The tasks

Daily

  • UPTIME
    • Check if the website is up and running and if it had any issues in the last 24 hours.
  • BACKUP
    • Check if the website backup was executed correctly.
  • SECURITY UPDATES
    • Check if any security updates were released and if so, install them.
  • SECURITY REPORT
    • Consult the security log and check if the website had any major issues in the last 24 hours.

Weekly

  • GENERAL UPDATES
    • Check if any regular plugin or theme updates are available and execute them.
  • REVIEW GSC
    • Review the last week of data from Google Search Console and check any error or problem mentioned.
  • HEALTH CHECK
    • Run a health check on the website and take action, if needed.

MONTHLY

  • VISUAL INSPECTION
    • Access the website and look for problems, test different devices, and browsers.
  • VERIFY BACKUP
    • Make a full backup recovery in a testing environment and check if the backup works as it should.
  • BROKEN LINKS/ 404 ERRORS
    • Use GSC or a similar tool to verify broken links and 404 errors and report to the designated person or fix them.
  • REVIEW LICENSES
    • Review all required licenses and check if they have any issues.
  • CLEAN UP MEDIA LIBRARY
    • Remove unused media, check the image optimization numbers and if needed, run a bulk optimization.
  • SPEED AUDIT
    • Run speed tests on your home and most visited pages.
    • Verify and list problems and possible improvements.
  • CHECK USER LIST
    • Check and remove inactive users. Minimize the number of administrators on the website.

Quarterly

  • PASSWORD CHANGE AND EMAIL CHECK
    • Enforce the change of new passwords for all users, including all users with admin roles. Verify the email(s) to be used in case of an outage occurs.
  • DECLUTTER
    • Remove all unused, outdated, and abandoned plugins and themes. The same for the uploads and media section.
  • TEST ALL FORMS
    • Validate all forms on the website, verify their recipient information and test their operation.
  • OPTIMIZE DATABASE
    • Run a health check and an optimization database tool to declutter and improve database performance.
  • WEBSITE SETTINGS
    • Check the website settings, like visibility rules, timezone, URL format, and identity information to make sure everything is as should be.

Download

Open the WordPress maintenance checklist in PDF here.

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