A Monthly Routine for Keeping Your Site Current
By CodexierPublished 5 min read
Technical maintenance keeps a website running. Content maintenance keeps it true. The second is usually nobody's job, so it slips: last year's prices, a staff member who left, holiday opening hours from two summers ago, a news section whose latest post is from 2023. Each of these tells a visitor the business might not be paying attention. This guide gives you a thirty-minute monthly routine and a way to make sure someone actually does it.
Why stale content costs trust
Visitors cannot see your service quality before they buy. They judge from signals, and the website is the most visible one. A wrong price or a dead news section rarely causes a complaint; the visitor simply leaves and chooses someone who looks active. Worse, wrong information creates real problems: a customer arrives at closed doors, expects an old price, or asks for a colleague who no longer works there. Search engines and AI assistants also repeat what your pages say, so an outdated page spreads its errors.
The monthly thirty-minute check
- Open the homepage on your phone and read it as a new customer. Does anything look old or wrong?
- Check the pages listed in the next section: prices, staff, opening hours, contact.
- Open the five most visited pages from your analytics and skim them for outdated facts.
- Look at the news or blog section. Is the latest post older than you would like a customer to see?
- Submit your own contact or booking form and confirm the message arrives.
- Compare opening hours, phone number and address with your Google Business Profile.
- Write down what you changed and what needs someone else's help.
The technical side, such as broken links, updates and backups, belongs in your maintenance plan or in the DIY website health check, not in this routine.
Prices, staff and opening hours
| Content | What to check | Also update |
|---|---|---|
| Prices and packages | Current list, VAT stated correctly for consumers, campaign prices removed after the end date | Price lists in PDFs, booking system, marketplace listings |
| Staff and contact people | People who left or joined, titles, photos, direct numbers | Email signatures, LinkedIn page, booking system |
| Opening hours | Holidays and seasonal hours, especially midsummer, Christmas and summer | Google Business Profile, Eniro, Hitta.se, social media |
| Contact details | Phone numbers, email addresses and address actually in use | Footer, contact page, structured data |
| Company facts | Organisation number, VAT number and legal name consistent with invoices | Terms, privacy policy, invoice template |
Holiday hours are the most common miss. Put the Swedish holiday calendar in the routine and update hours a few weeks ahead, both on the site and in Google Business Profile.
Removing or updating old pages
Over time a site collects pages nobody maintains: past campaigns, discontinued services, events that happened long ago. Deciding what to do with each is quicker with a simple rule.
| Page type | Action |
|---|---|
| Service you still offer, facts outdated | Update the facts and the date |
| Service or product you no longer offer | Redirect to the closest current page |
| Past campaign or event with no lasting value | Remove and redirect to the relevant page |
| Old news post that still gets visits | Keep, add a note that it is from an earlier date, link to current information |
| Duplicate or thin page | Merge into a stronger page and redirect |
Always redirect removed pages rather than leaving them to return an error, so visitors and search engines land somewhere useful.
Assigning an owner
- Name one person responsible, with a stand-in for holidays.
- Book a recurring thirty-minute calendar slot, for example the first Monday of each month.
- Keep the checklist in a shared document and log what was changed each month.
- Agree how the owner hears about changes: new staff, price changes, closures.
- Decide which changes they can make themselves and which go to your web supplier.
Decision rule: if the owner can make most changes in the CMS within the thirty minutes, keep it in-house. If most months end with a list of things they cannot change themselves, bundle content updates into your maintenance plan instead. When you do not need us: most small businesses can run this routine entirely on their own. If you want the technical side handled while you keep the content, our monthly maintenance package covers updates, backups and monitoring. Book a short call to see what fits.
Frequently asked questions
How often should website content be updated?
Facts such as prices, staff and opening hours should be checked every month and changed as soon as they change. Other content, such as service descriptions, can be reviewed once or twice a year.
Is a news section with old posts harmful?
It signals inactivity if the latest post is old and prominent. Either post regularly, move news off the homepage, or remove the section if you have nothing to say.
Does updating content help SEO?
Accurate, useful pages help. Changing dates without changing substance does not. The main benefit is that visitors and search results get correct information.
What if nobody in the company can edit the website?
Then the site probably needs a simpler editing setup or a short training session. A business should be able to change its own opening hours and prices without calling a developer.
Site out of date and nobody can edit it?
In a free 15-minute call we look at how your site is edited today and what it would take for your team to keep it current on its own, or with light help from us.
Book a free 15-minute call