How should you maintain a website after choosing a CMS?

After choosing a CMS, schedule ongoing website audits, updates, and backups, and check for technical errors, SEO issues, and overall site health. If the system uses themes and plugins, include them in maintenance as well. Depending on the website’s needs, consider lazy loading for media and a CDN to improve speed. The point is not to apply the same checklist to every website, but to determine which tasks are appropriate based on the system’s features, how frequently content changes, and the website’s needs.

Audit regularly so maintenance goes beyond updates

In a 2021 article, Semrush noted that regardless of which CMS you choose, you should conduct regular website audits to identify update and maintenance needs and monitor site health. This is advice for ongoing website management, not a current mandatory requirement for a particular platform.

• Update needs: Keep track of the updates and maintenance your website needs.
• Technical errors: Include technical issues in your checks rather than focusing only on content.
• SEO issues: Choosing a CMS does not mean your search optimization work is complete.

The material does not specify a universal audit schedule, so “regularly” should not be presented as a requirement to audit every week or month. Ongoing maintenance can help lay the groundwork for website growth and reaching new audiences, but it does not guarantee increased traffic.

Maintain themes and plugins while keeping settings consistent

A 2025 article on Neil Patel’s website uses CMS platforms such as WordPress as examples and recommends keeping themes and plugins updated. This task must reflect the actual system: if a website does not use these components, plugin maintenance should not be added to its checklist simply for the sake of it.

Recommendations about SEO plugins also need to be kept in context. In a 2025 comparison of Rank Math and Yoast, Welly recommended choosing just one for a website and avoiding casual switches afterward to preserve consistency in SEO settings. This is practical advice within the context of that comparison, not a statement that every CMS must have an SEO plugin or that switching is never allowed.

Consider speed improvements based on your needs

The same article on Neil Patel’s website suggests considering lazy loading for media when using a CMS, as well as using a CDN to improve load times. A CDN serves content from locations closer to users. This is a separate maintenance measure from updating themes and plugins, and neither replaces the other.

These are options to consider, not fixed settings that every website must enable. The material also does not quantify the improvements, so it cannot support promises about how much faster a website will become after adding a CDN or lazy loading.

Account for content changes when setting backup frequency

Backups should not be skipped just because a website uses a CMS. The 2025 article on Neil Patel’s website recommends backing up at least once a month, with more frequent backups for blogs or e-commerce websites whose content changes often.

This recommendation addresses recovery needs following website downtime, a failed plugin update, a security incident, or human error. “At least once a month” is the article’s suggested baseline, not sufficient protection for every website. The more frequently content changes, the less appropriate it is to rely solely on the minimum backup frequency.