WordPress Maintenance Tips for Busy Agency Owners

How do you fit WordPress maintenance into a busy week?

Give it a fixed slot, and do every site in one sitting. Here's how to keep it small.

1. Book the time. Put the same block on your calendar every week or every month, and treat it like a client call.
2. Batch the sites. Run every site's updates in that one block, not whenever a notice shows up.
3. Set up caching once. WordPress.org says caching gives the biggest speed gain for the least effort. Set it up on each site, then leave it alone.
4. Keep a short note per site. Write down the plugins that need extra care when they update.
5. Pass on what you don't need to do yourself. Write down each job so someone else can run it.

For the full list of WordPress tips and how often to run each task, see WordPress maintenance.

How do you maintain many client sites without missing one?

Keep every site on one sheet, and work down it in the same order each time. With a row per site, you can see a skipped site at a glance.

1. List every site. Put the client, the address, the host and who has the logins.
2. Note the WordPress version. Older versions of WordPress don't get security updates, so flag any site that's behind.
3. Back up before each round. WordPress.org says to back up the database regularly, and always before an upgrade.
4. Update to the latest version. WordPress.org says to always update WordPress to the latest version.
5. Tick the row when it's done. Leave a note on any site you had to skip, and why.

You can also hand the whole sheet to a team. DeskTeam360, as one example, covers updates, backups, speed work, security monitoring and uptime monitoring as part of website maintenance. A North American account manager assigns each task, manages it, and checks the work before the client sees it.

To hand client requests to a partner under your name, see white label WordPress support.

How do you keep a record of what changed on each site?

Write one line per site, per round, in the same place every time. When something breaks later, check the log for the last update first.

1. Use one log for all sites. A shared sheet works, with a tab per client.
2. Write the date and what you updated. Name the plugin, theme or WordPress release.
3. Note anything that broke. Say what you did to fix it.
4. Note the backup. Write down when it ran and where it's saved.
5. Read the log before the next round. Look for plugins that break more than once.

If a client asks what the upkeep covers, point them to what website maintenance is.

For doing it yourself versus buying a plan, see WordPress maintenance plans.

To pick the sites and jobs to pass on first, get DeskTeam360's Task Delegation Template. To see each stage of handing work out, read how to outsource, step by step.

Get the Task Delegation Template