Many businesses treat their website as a one-off expense. Pay, launch, done. Then one day the site won't load, or it shows strange ads, or the contact form stops sending anything and nobody notices for weeks.
Maintenance is the small, regular work that prevents all of that. It isn't complicated, but it has to happen continuously, and that's exactly why it gets forgotten.
What maintenance actually involves
- Backups. A full copy of the site and its data, stored somewhere else. When something goes wrong, a backup is the difference between "we restored it in an hour" and "we have to rebuild it".
- Updates. The platform (e.g. WordPress), plugins and theme get updates that close security holes. Sites that aren't updated are the easiest target for automated attacks.
- Monitoring. A service that checks the site every few minutes and alerts you if it goes down. Without it, you find out the site is down when a customer calls you, or when they stop calling.
- Form checks. It sounds minor, but a form that doesn't send emails is one of the most expensive problems there is, because it's invisible from the outside.
- Speed. New images get added without being optimised, plugins pile up, and the site slows down a little at a time.
- Small changes. Opening hours, prices, a new photo, a new service. The things that keep the site true.
How often?
A reasonable rhythm for most businesses:
- Continuously: monitoring (automatic).
- Weekly or daily: backups, depending on how often the site changes. An online store taking orders every day needs daily backups.
- Monthly: updates, form checks, a look at speed.
- As needed: content changes.
Can you do it yourself?
Yes, if you have the time, the discipline and a bit of technical knowledge. Many business owners start with good intentions and drop it after two months, because the business has more urgent work. The honest question isn't "can I do it?" but "will I do it every month, even when I'm busy?"
If the answer is no, outsourced maintenance usually costs less than a working day lost when the site goes down, or than rebuilding an infected site.
What to ask when you hand it over
- How often are backups made, where are they stored, and how quickly can they be restored?
- Who gets alerted when the site goes down, and within how many hours do they respond?
- How many hours of changes are included per month, and what happens to unused ones?
- Do you get a report, and what does it say?
Be careful with promises like "24/7 support, immediate response" from small providers. A clear, realistic timeframe like "within 24 hours" is worth more than a promise nobody can keep at 3 a.m.
How we do it
Our maintenance plans start at €49 a month, with automatic monitoring, backups and updates, and go up to plans with daily backups, hours for changes and regular reports. We respond within 24 hours when a site goes down. New websites on the Business and Premium packages come with 3 months of free technical maintenance.
Details are on our website maintenance page. It also covers sites we didn't build.
Hasn't your site been checked in a while?
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