WordPress Maintenance Guide: 12 Tasks to Keep Your Site Running Smoothly
Running a WordPress site isn’t a “set it and forget it” situation. Without regular maintenance, you accumulate security vulnerabilities, slow performance, broken links, and eventually a broken site.
Daily Maintenance (Automated)
Set these up once and let them run.
1. Automated Backups
Set up daily backups with UpdraftPlus, storing copies off-site (Google Drive, Dropbox, or Amazon S3). Never rely solely on your host’s backups.
2. Security Monitoring
Wordfence and Sucuri offer real-time monitoring with email alerts for suspicious activity, malware, or blocked attacks.
3. Uptime Monitoring
Use UptimeRobot (free) to check your site every 5 minutes and alert you if it goes down.
Weekly Maintenance (30 minutes)
4. Check and Apply Updates
Apply pending updates for WordPress core, plugins, and themes. Always have a fresh backup before updating.
5. Review Security Logs
Check your security plugin’s activity log for suspicious login attempts or file changes.
6. Moderate Comments
Review the moderation queue to approve legitimate comments and remove spam.
Monthly Maintenance (1–2 hours)
7. Clean Up Your Database
Use WP-Optimize or WP Rocket to delete post revisions, spam comments, expired transients, and optimize database tables.
8. Check Site Speed
Run your site through Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix. A sudden drop in speed often indicates a plugin conflict. See our speed guide.
9. Fix Broken Links
Run Broken Link Checker or Screaming Frog monthly to find and fix broken internal and external links.
10. Review Google Search Console
Check Google Search Console monthly for coverage errors, Core Web Vitals issues, and security warnings.
11. Delete Unused Plugins and Themes
Deactivated plugins still pose a security risk. If you’re not using it, delete it.
Quarterly Maintenance
12. Audit Your Plugins
Review every installed plugin. Is it still actively maintained? Is there a better alternative? Remove anything that hasn’t been updated in 2+ years.
Maintenance Checklist
Daily (automated): Backups, security monitoring, uptime monitoring
Weekly: Updates applied, security logs reviewed, comments moderated
Monthly: Database cleaned, speed tested, broken links fixed, Search Console reviewed
Quarterly: Full plugin and theme audit
Consider a Maintenance Service
If you don’t have time, many agencies offer affordable monthly maintenance plans. For help finding one, see our guide to the best WordPress SEO agencies.
Useful tools: