Website Maintenance Checklist for Canadian Small Businesses

Your website is the digital storefront for your small business. Just like a physical store, it needs regular cleaning, upkeep, and repairs to stay in top shape. If you ignore your Website Maintenance Checklist, it slows down, breaks, and becomes a target for hackers. A slow or broken website will quickly send your Canadian customers straight to your competitor. Regular website maintenance is not an expense; it is an investment that keeps your business running smoothly, protects your customers’ data, and helps you rank better on Google.

This article gives you an essential checklist for website maintenance. Follow these steps regularly to keep your Canadian small business website fast, secure, and ready for customers.

1. Weekly Security and Backup Tasks

Security should always be your top priority. Hackers do not just target big companies; they target everyone. A security breach can destroy a small business’s reputation and cost a lot of money to fix.

Run Software Updates

You should update your Website Maintenance Checklist  core software, themes, and plugins every week. Updates often include security patches that fix weaknesses hackers like to exploit. If you use a platform like WordPress, you need to check for updates often. Make sure you only use plugins and themes from trusted developers.

Perform a Full Backup

You need to back up your entire Website Maintenance Checklist  every week. A backup is a complete copy of your website’s files and database. If your website gets hacked or breaks during an update, you can restore it from your backup and be back online in minutes. You should store your backup in two places:

• On your web server (your hosting provider).
• On a separate cloud service, like Google Drive or Dropbox.

Check for Broken Security Features

You should log in to your security plugin (like Word fence for WordPress) and check its firewall logs. You should look for any warnings, repeated login attempts, or blocked threats. If your website uses an SSL Certificate (which gives you the secure “https” in your web address), you need to make sure it is valid and has not expired.

2. Monthly Performance and Functionality Tasks

A fast and perfectly functioning Website Maintenance Checklist  gives your customers a great experience and helps your SEO. Google loves websites that load quickly.

Test All Your Forms

Every month, you need to pretend you are a customer. You should fill out every form on your Website Maintenance Checklist —your contact form, your quote request form, and your newsletter sign-up form. Make sure they work and that you receive the emails or notifications they are supposed to send. A broken form means you are losing potential business.

Clear Your Website Cache

Your Website Maintenance Checklist cache stores temporary data to help your site load faster. Over time, this cache can get bloated and actually slow down your site. You should clear your website’s cache every month to ensure your visitors are seeing the most recent, fastest version of your website. Most hosting companies and speed plugins have an easy-to-use button for this.

Check Your Website Speed

You should use a free tool like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix (a popular Canadian tool) to check your Website Maintenance Checklist  loading speed. This tool will tell you how fast your website loads and give you a list of suggestions for how to make it faster. Faster websites lead to better search rankings and happier customers.

Review Your E-commerce Funnel (If Applicable)

If you have an online store, you need to go through the entire checkout process yourself. Put a product in your cart, go to the checkout page, and check the tax calculations. Make sure the Canadian tax (GST/HST/PST/QST) is calculating correctly for the different provinces. A single mistake in tax calculation can cause major problems for your customers and for your accounting.

3. Quarterly Content and SEO Tasks

Your content and search ranking are what bring new customers to your business. You should review your marketing efforts every three months.

Search for Broken Links

Nothing looks less professional than clicking a link and landing on a “404 Page Not Found.” You should run a tool (like a broken link checker plugin) to find and fix any broken links on your website. You should also check for any links that go to a competitor’s website and remove them.

Update Your Core Pages

You should review your “About Us” page, your services page, and your home page. Ask yourself: Is the information still accurate? Are your prices correct? Do you have new testimonials you can add? Your core pages should always be up to date and showcase your best work and latest information.

Review Your Blog and Content

You should look at your Google Analytics to see which of your blog posts are getting the most traffic. You can then update those popular posts with new information and a better call to action (CTA). This helps your website stay fresh, and Google loves to see content that you update regularly.

Check Your Competitors’ SEO

Every three months, you should do a quick check of what your top three competitors are doing. You should look at their:

• Website: Have they changed their website design?
• Blog: What new topics are they writing about?
• Social Media: What kind of content are they posting?

This helps you stay competitive and find new opportunities for your own marketing.

4. Annual Strategic and Legal Tasks

Once a year, you should step back and look at the big picture of your website and your business.

Review Your Domain and Hosting

You should make sure your domain name registration and your Website Maintenance Checklist hosting are set to renew automatically. An expired domain or hosting account can take your website offline instantly. You should also review your hosting package. If your business has grown, you might need to upgrade your hosting to handle more website traffic and keep your site fast.

Update Your Legal Pages

For Canadian small businesses, you must make sure your legal pages are up to date, especially with privacy laws like PIPEDA.

• Privacy Policy: You should review and update your privacy policy to make sure it clearly explains what customer data you collect and how you use it.
• Terms and Conditions: You should review your terms and conditions, especially if you changed your refund or return policies.

Check Your Conversion Goals

You should log in to Google Analytics and check your main conversion goals. Are you still tracking sales correctly? Are you still tracking form submissions? You should also ask yourself if your business goals have changed. If they have, you need to update your conversion tracking to match your new goals.