Update your website whenever something customers rely on changes. Check business details and important pages at least monthly, review the wider site each quarter, and apply security fixes as soon as they are safely tested. There is no useful rule that says every page must be rewritten on a fixed date.
A Perth service business with seasonal offers will need a different rhythm from a small brochure site. The right schedule follows the risk of leaving something wrong, not the urge to make the site look busy.
Start with information that could cost you an enquiry
Check your opening hours, phone number, contact form, service areas and calls to action every month. If a customer drives to an old address or sends a form that nobody receives, the problem is immediate. Do the same check after a move, a staff change or a new service launch rather than waiting for your calendar reminder.
Open the site on a phone. Make one test enquiry, then confirm it arrives in the right inbox and that someone can reply. This takes a few minutes and catches a problem an editorial review might miss. If your site has booking links, test the booking from the customer’s side too.
Customer-facing content needs a reason to change. A new price, a finished project, an updated qualification or a changed process qualifies. Replacing a useful paragraph with a different version of the same paragraph does not. If a service page no longer describes what you sell, fix it now, whatever the page’s age.
Keep software updates on a separate schedule
For WordPress, check core software, themes and plugins regularly, commonly each week or within a managed care routine. A security update may need quicker attention. Take or confirm a recent restorable backup before a change, then test the site’s important pages and forms afterwards. Installing every update at once without a rollback plan is not maintenance.
The correct timing depends on the change and your hosting setup. An urgent vulnerability needs prompt action; a major version release may deserve a staging test first. Ask whoever manages your site who checks update notices, how failures are spotted and who restores a working version if something breaks. Hosting alone does not answer those questions.
Backups should run at a frequency that matches how often the site changes. A static five-page site and a busy store cannot usefully share the same recovery expectation. Check that backups are stored separately from the live site and occasionally test a restore. A backup you have never tried to recover is a promise, not a plan.
Review important pages quarterly, not by vanity date
Every quarter, look at the pages that bring in enquiries. Are the services current? Are the photographs and examples representative? Do your internal links take people to the right next page? Check search queries and real customer questions for gaps, but do not change wording merely because a dashboard moved. Use evidence to decide what deserves attention.
In the same quarterly check, open the site on a phone. Is the text readable? Do link labels say where they go? Can a new visitor understand the offer without hunting for it? Keep a short change log: what changed, why, when it was tested and by whom. It saves the next person from guessing.
An annual review can tackle bigger questions. Has the business shifted into new areas? Do the site’s structure and examples still fit the people you want to reach? Sometimes the answer is a few targeted edits, not a new design. Refreshing content and rebuilding the whole website are different decisions.
Give each job an owner
A workable schedule names a person as well as a date. The owner can be you, someone on your team or a provider. Assign one person to business facts, one to technical changes and one to checking that enquiries arrive. They may be the same person, but the responsibilities should not vanish between two suppliers.
Write down how to request an urgent change, which changes need approval, and what counts as an emergency. If a care provider is involved, ask exactly what their website hosting and maintenance covers. A monthly plugin update is not the same thing as rewriting a service page, and a content retainer is not a substitute for backups.
Frequently asked questions
Should I change the date on a page if nothing has changed?
No. A newer date without a meaningful update can mislead readers. Change the content when there is a real correction, new evidence or a better answer, then use an accurate update date.
Who should approve a plugin update?
The person responsible for the site should agree on the update process and recovery plan. Routine changes may be delegated to a care provider, but someone still needs to know what was changed and tested.
What if my site only has five pages?
You still need to check contact details, forms, backups and software. You may have less editorial work than a large site, so focus on accuracy and a reliable enquiry path rather than publishing for the sake of it.
Do I need a new design every time the content changes?
No. A service description, example or contact detail can usually be edited within the existing design. Review the whole design separately when the site no longer serves the business or its customers.
Make the next update useful
Start with the page a customer would trust most, then fix the first stale fact or broken step you find. If you need someone to own the technical routine as well as the checks, see how website maintenance works and agree on the responsibilities before the next issue arrives.
