Semi-annually: Review, test, and update the entire website.
*Pick the annual dates now!
Set aside time to thoroughly review all pages of the website. Start by just visiting your website, browsing through the main pages, and trying to perform the steps a student/faculty or staff member/member of the public might do if navigating your site. This will help you identify the most obvious errors and catch potential issues. You may find broken links, features that don’t work anymore (or are no longer relevant), and areas that can use improvement. Pay attention to the overall user experience, while looking specifically for missing or outdated content, inconsistent styles or formatting, and typos or grammatical errors. Use the checklist below to keep track of the progress of these essential web maintenance tasks and keep notes to track changes in the website.
Remember, your header and footer are prime digital real estate. They likely include contact information, office address, or the hours your office is open, so make sure that information is up to date! This is also a good opportunity to see if the web pages and categories you include in your header are the most important ones to highlight on your website.
To maintain/improve speed and security of your site, check for needed updates to themes or plug-ins on WordPress. You may have enabled WordPress to update these automatically, but it is always a good idea to double-check!
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Checklist and reminders
| Task | Status | Notes |
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Test all links/hyperlinks and fix if needed
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Read through all web copy and update language/content as needed
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Mark areas where new content is needed
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Review and update general contact information (email, phone number, social media handles)
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Review and update team member names, positions, photos, and contact information
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Review and update footer and header
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Test any forms and fix if needed
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Replace outdated images and graphics
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| Ensure copy is formatted correctly in terms of bullets, photos, and spacing |
Annual updates
Annually: Evaluate website performance and consider if the website needs larger-scale changes, like a design update or change in website strategy.
| Task | Status | Notes |
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Update web graphics and photos to be more current
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Refresh any date-specific content (look for all references of past years and update them to the present year)
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Test the website to ensure that it looks and displays properly on the most popular browsers AND mobile devices
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