Website maintenance checklist for 90 days after launch

A website launch is not the end of the project. It is the moment the site starts meeting real users, real campaigns, real editors, and real tracking data. The first 90 days usually reveal issues that did not appear in design review or staging QA.

This website maintenance checklist is for founders, marketing teams, B2B teams, ecommerce teams, and content editors who need a practical post-launch rhythm. Use it after a redesign, Shopify theme update, WordPress theme build, headless commerce launch, or multilingual website release.

Start by recording the baseline while the launch is still fresh. Save the sitemap, priority URLs, page templates, form destinations, tracking events, analytics views, Search Console property, CMS roles, plugin or app list, hosting plan, and backup settings.

This baseline prevents guesswork later. If traffic drops, a form stops sending, a section breaks, or a plugin update changes layout, the team can compare against a known launch state instead of relying on memory.

• Save the launch URL list and redirect map.
• Record analytics events, form destinations, and conversion goals.
• Export the active plugin, app, theme, and integration list.
• Capture Core Web Vitals, page speed, indexation, and crawl status for priority templates.

Most maintenance reviews look at pages one by one. That is useful, but it misses path-level problems. A visitor does not experience the site as isolated templates. They move from search result to landing page, from service page to case study, from product page to cart, or from article to inquiry form.

Pick the paths that matter commercially and test them on desktop and mobile. For a B2B website, that might mean homepage to service page to proof to contact. For Shopify, test collection to product to cart to checkout. For a multilingual site, test language switching, localized forms, and translated metadata.

SEO maintenance should begin after search engines have had enough time to recrawl the updated site. Check whether priority URLs are indexed, canonical tags are stable, redirects are working, titles and meta descriptions are showing as expected, and structured data is valid.

Then check measurement. A successful launch can still fail the business if analytics stopped capturing inquiries, purchases, campaign traffic, or consent behavior. Review the events that support decision-making, not only pageviews.

• Search Console: indexation, coverage, sitemap processing, top queries, and unexpected 404s.
• Analytics: form submits, checkout events, CTA clicks, scroll events, source data, and conversion paths.
• SEO metadata: title patterns, descriptions, open graph previews, image alt text, and canonical output.
• Redirects: old priority URLs should resolve to the intended new destination.

The editor workflow often changes after launch. Teams create new pages, duplicate old layouts, paste long headings, upload inconsistent images, add scripts, or install apps to solve small problems quickly. None of those decisions are wrong by default, but they need review.

Open the CMS and check what has changed since launch. Look for unused drafts, duplicated sections, broken image crops, missing alt text, unclear field names, unapproved layout workarounds, and pages that require developer help every time they change.

This review is especially important for WordPress and Shopify because small editing choices can become long-term maintenance debt. The goal is not to stop teams from editing. The goal is to keep editing safe, predictable, and documented.

Functional checks should be boring and repeatable. Submit every important form. Confirm notifications, CRM routing, email deliverability, calendar links, checkout flows, subscription widgets, review widgets, search, filters, and tracking scripts.

Also check the less visible systems: backups, uptime monitoring, SSL, plugin updates, app billing, abandoned integrations, user permissions, spam protection, and access for former contractors or employees. A polished front end cannot compensate for broken operations.

• Forms: submit test inquiries and confirm the right team receives them.
• Backups: verify that restoration is possible, not only that backups exist.
• Security: review admin accounts, roles, passwords, plugins, apps, and API keys.
• Integrations: confirm CRM, email, ecommerce, analytics, and consent tools still exchange data correctly.

A maintenance checklist only helps if findings become action. Create a small backlog with severity, owner, page or system affected, proposed fix, and review date. Separate urgent bugs from quality improvements and strategic changes.

Use a simple priority model. Fix broken forms, checkout issues, security gaps, indexation problems, and tracking failures first. Schedule content cleanup, CMS improvements, speed work, and design refinements next. Save larger structural issues for a planned redesign or rebuild discussion.