What keeping a website running actually takes

The full list of recurring jobs a live website needs — how often each one comes round, what it involves, and what happens if it gets skipped.

A website is not a thing you finish. It's a thing you run. Once your site is live, a set of jobs comes round on a schedule whether anyone is doing them or not — and most of them are invisible until the day one gets missed.

This page lists all of them honestly, so you can decide which ones you want to handle yourself.

Quick summary

Ten recurring jobs keep a live site safe, fast, and online: content updates, software updates, backup checks, security monitoring, SSL renewal, domain renewal, uptime monitoring, performance checks, browser testing, and email deliverability. Some come round once a year or less and take a minute. Others are monthly and take real time. You can do all of them yourself, or put them on a care plan.

The recurring jobs

Job	How often	What it actually involves	If it gets skipped
Content updates	As needed	Editing pages, swapping images, publishing posts, correcting prices and hours	Stale information misleads customers
Software updates	Monthly	Applying platform and plugin updates, checking nothing conflicts, rolling back when something breaks	Known security holes stay open. Outdated software is one of the most common ways sites get attacked.
Backup verification	Monthly	Confirming a backup actually ran, completed, and is recent enough to be useful	You find out your backups stopped working three months ago on the day you need one
Security monitoring	Ongoing	Watching for malware, repeated failed logins, admin accounts nobody created	A compromise can run undetected for a long time. Google can flag your site and warn visitors away.
SSL renewal	Every few months, usually automatic	Confirming the certificate renewed and browsers show no security warning	Browsers warn visitors that the connection isn't private, instead of showing your page
Domain renewal	Yearly, or when a multi-year term ends	Keeping the card on file current and not ignoring renewal emails	The site and your email go dark. Recovering a lapsed domain can be expensive, and sometimes impossible.
Uptime monitoring	Ongoing	Running a monitor that alerts you when the site goes down	You learn your site is down when a customer tells you — if they bother
Performance checks	Quarterly	Reviewing load times and Core Web Vitals, fixing what's regressed	Pages get slower, visitors leave sooner, and rankings can follow
Browser and device testing	Quarterly	Checking the site still works on current phones and browsers as they update	Something breaks for a slice of your visitors and none of them tell you
Email deliverability	Quarterly	Checking your authentication records still pass and your mail isn't landing in spam	Order confirmations and password resets fail silently

That is a meaningful amount of work on top of running a business. Most owners we work with get the first one done and none of the others — which is not a character flaw, it's just what happens when a job has no deadline attached to it.

Which of these you can genuinely do yourself

Not all ten are equal. Some need no technical skill at all:

Reasonable to do yourself

Content updates — this is your job either way
Domain renewal — set auto-renew and keep the card current
Backup verification — a monthly login and a glance
Uptime monitoring — free tools do this, once configured
Browser testing — open your own site on your phone

Harder than it looks

Software updates — the risk isn't applying them, it's knowing what to do when one breaks the site
Security monitoring — needs tooling and someone reading the alerts
Performance work — diagnosing a slow page is a specialist skill
Email deliverability — silent failures, obscure records
SSL renewal — usually automatic, until it isn't

What changes on a care plan

Our care plan, The Boring Stuff, takes everything in the second column plus the monitoring and testing from the first — uptime, backup verification and browser checks are all easier to automate than to remember. What stays yours is content, because you know your business and we don't, and the domain renewal, because it is registered in your name and paid with your card.

Job	Managing it yourself	On a care plan
Content updates	You	You
Software updates	Yours to apply, test, and roll back	We apply them on a staging copy first
Backup verification	You check	Automated, checked weekly, test restores quarterly
Security monitoring	Needs your own tooling	Included, with malware scanning
SSL renewal	Site breaks if it's missed	We watch it
Domain renewal	Yours either way — we'll remind you	Yours either way — we'll remind you
Uptime monitoring	Most owners never set this up	Included; we usually know before you do
Performance checks	Requires technical knowledge	Quarterly review
Browser and device testing	Manual, quarterly, easy to forget	Included
Email deliverability	Hard to debug without the right tools	Monitored

For what's included at each level and what it costs, see services and pricing and what our care plan covers.

Domain renewal is yours no matter what

This is the one job nobody can do for you, because the domain is registered in your name and paid with your card. Set it to auto-renew, keep the payment method current, and make sure the renewal emails go to an address someone still reads. A lapsed domain is the most avoidable and most damaging failure on this list. See keeping your domain on auto-renew.

If you're doing this yourself

A workable minimum, if you'd rather not put it on anyone else:

Turn on auto-renew for your domain and hosting today. Two minutes, and it removes the worst failure mode on the list.

Set up an uptime monitor. For a WordPress site, Jetpack's Downtime Monitor is free and needs no paid Jetpack plan: install and connect the Jetpack plugin, switch the feature on in Jetpack's security settings, and it checks your site every five minutes. Other platforms have free options too. See uptime monitoring explained.

Put a monthly reminder in your calendar. Use it to run the monthly site check and verify your backups. Half an hour.

Apply software updates on a schedule, not when you notice them. Take a backup first, every time. See software updates explained.

Once a quarter, check speed and email. Core Web Vitals and whether your site's emails are arriving.

Common questions

My site has been fine for two years without any of this. Is this overstated?

Probably not, but the risk is real rather than certain. Most sites go a long time without incident, and then have one bad week. The jobs on this list are cheap insurance against outcomes that are expensive and occasionally unrecoverable — a lapsed domain, an undetected compromise, a backup that turns out not to exist.

I'm on Webflow or Squarespace. Does this still apply?

Some of it drops away. Those platforms handle their own software updates and SSL, which removes two rows. Backups, domain renewal, uptime, performance, browser testing, content accuracy and email deliverability all still apply. See why websites need maintenance.

Can I do some of it and give you the rest?

Yes, and most clients do. The usual split is that you keep content and we take the technical rows. Tell us which ones you want and we'll scope it.

What's the one thing to do if I only do one thing?

Set your domain to auto-renew with a payment method that won't expire. Everything else on this list is recoverable. A domain that lapses and gets bought by someone else may not be.

Need a hand?

If you're stuck, email support@chykalophia.com and we'll help. Include your website address and a screenshot if you can.

What keeping a website running actually takes

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