The Monthly Website Health Check

A monthly website health check should include content accuracy, broken links, forms, downloads, images, SEO metadata, heading structure, accessibility basics, mobile experience, page performance, analytics patterns, backups, updates, and dependencies.

Start with content. Check dates, prices, opening hours, staff names, contact details, old announcements, service information, event details, and downloadable files. Outdated content weakens trust.

Then check internal links, external links, navigation links, buttons, footer links, download links, and links inside posts or tutorials. When recording a broken link, include the page, link text, broken URL, what it should link to instead, and whether it can be removed.

Forms deserve another check during monthly maintenance. Test required fields, error messages, success messages, notification emails, spam protection, and where submitted data goes.

Images affect performance, accessibility, and trust. Check whether images are loading, too large, meaningfully named, and supported by useful alt text where needed. Also check whether PDFs or downloads are current.

Monthly SEO maintenance does not mean chasing every search engine rumour like a caffeinated meerkat. Start with one clear H1, sensible H2 and H3 headings, descriptive page titles, useful meta descriptions, clear internal links, readable URLs, relevant image alt text, and content that matches the page purpose.

Accessibility maintenance helps more people use the site. Check heading order, text readability, colour contrast, recognisable links, keyboard access, visible focus, useful alt text, clear form labels, and respectful motion.

Monthly mobile checks should go deeper than the weekly glance. Test key pages on a real phone if possible, including navigation, heading line breaks, tap targets, forms, images, cards, tables, code blocks, and page speed.

For performance, focus on common causes: oversized images, too many scripts, unused plugins, large videos, heavy fonts, uncompressed files, and unnecessary third-party embeds. Do not obsess over a perfect score. Ask whether the site is fast enough to use comfortably.

Monthly analytics reviews are about patterns: top pages, traffic sources, device types, search queries, exit patterns, traffic drops, traffic spikes, and important pages with little traffic. Analytics are not a report card on your worth as a human. They are a torch.

Backups matter most when something has already gone wrong. That is precisely the worst time to discover they do not exist.

For static Git-based sites, check that the repository is up to date, recent changes have been committed, important branches are protected where needed, environment variables are documented safely, and deployment history is available.

For WordPress sites, check database backups, upload backups, theme and plugin file recovery, safe storage, and restore instructions. For traditional hosted sites, check website files, database backups, hosting access details, and configuration notes.

GitHub is not always a full website backup. If your database, uploads, form entries, or environment variables live somewhere else, they need their own backup plan.