Website maintenance checklist for clients

Every month

• The homepage answers. On the digest: Homepage, under At a glance.
• The checks that reached the site, and the ones that missed. On the digest: Uptime this period.
• Certificate days left, the expiry date, and the issuer. On the digest: TLS. It is flagged when fewer than 21 days remain.
• Domain registration days left, from the public RDAP record. On the digest: Domain. It is flagged when fewer than 30 days remain. If the lookup fails, the card says Unavailable, not expired.
• The link sample. On the digest: Links, and a table when something failed.
• The work that was actually done. On the digest: Work this period. If nothing was changed, that section is left off.
• A mobile Lighthouse snapshot, when one was run. On the digest: Lighthouse scores. It is not a security audit.
• A screenshot of the homepage, and whether it changed. On the digest: Visual proof.
• The next action. On the digest: Recommended next steps.

Every quarter

• Read the last three digests together. On the digest: Snapshots.
• Confirm the domain date is still comfortable. On the digest: Domain.
• Test the form or the checkout the client cares about. That test is not automatic. If it was done, it is a line under Work this period.
• Ask whether the hours still match the plan. The digest does not invent that answer. Minutes appear only if they were typed into the work log.

Once a year

• Decide to keep the plan, change it, or end it. Bring the digests. The page does not send the renewal. A script for that conversation is the annual review.
• Confirm the domain and the host are in the client's name. That fact is not on the digest. The handover emails are where it should have been written down.
• Read the certificate issuer. On the digest: the issuer line under TLS.

Printed from retainerproof.com/website-maintenance-checklist. The sample page these lines refer to is the sample digest.