How to Check the Health of a Website?

For WordPress agencies and developers, the health of a website is paramount. It’s not merely about functionality; it encompasses performance, security, user experience, and SEO. As custodians of multiple client websites, agencies carry the responsibility of ensuring these digital assets are not just operational but thriving. 

This comprehensive guide is designed for WordPress agencies and developers like you. We will delve deep into the various methods for website health checks, meticulously analyzing their pros and cons, especially in the context of managing multiple sites. 

What Should be Included in WordPress Site Health Check?

Website health is not a singular metric; it’s a holistic concept encompassing several key aspects that directly impact a website’s success and the agency’s reputation. It is essential to know how to check website health to ensure these aspects are in optimal condition.

• Performance: Website speed and responsiveness directly impact user experience, SEO rankings, and conversion rates. Slow websites lead to frustrated users, higher bounce rates, and lost opportunities. A comprehensive website health check must always include a performance analysis.
• Security: A secure website protects client data, user information, and the agency’s reputation. Security breaches can lead to significant financial losses, reputational damage, and legal liabilities. Check website health from a security perspective to avoid these risks.
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization): Search engines prioritize healthy websites. Factors like site speed, mobile-friendliness, security, and proper structure all contribute to SEO rankings and organic visibility. A thorough website health check will incorporate SEO considerations.
• User Experience (UX): A healthy website provides a seamless and enjoyable user experience. This includes fast loading times, intuitive navigation, mobile responsiveness, and error-free functionality, all contributing to user satisfaction and engagement. Regular website health check procedures improve UX.
• Functionality & Uptime: Ensuring all website features work as intended and the website is consistently accessible is fundamental. Downtime and broken features directly impact business operations and user trust. Check website health by monitoring uptime and functionality.
• Client Satisfaction & Retention: Proactively maintaining website health demonstrates value to clients. Healthy websites perform better, are more secure, and contribute to client business goals, leading to higher satisfaction and long-term client relationships. Agencies demonstrate expertise by knowing how to check website health and acting on the results.

How to Check WordPress Site Health? 

Agencies have multiple ways, manual and automated, to check site health. Let’s understand each method in detail. 

Manual Methods for Checking Website Health

Let’s start by examining manual methods for website health checks. While these approaches can provide some insights, they quickly become impractical and inefficient for WordPress agencies managing multiple client sites. 

Manual website health checks involve manually navigating and inspecting various aspects of a website, often using browser tools, online services, and manual processes. While useful for individual deep dives, manual methods to check website health are not scalable for agencies.

Method 1: Front-End Checks – Manual Browsing and User Experience Testing

This method for WordPress site health check involves manually browsing the website as a user would, interacting with different pages and features to assess the front-end user experience. 

Manually browsing is a basic way to check website health from a user’s perspective. It involves different processes.

1. Navigation Testing: Manually clicking through menus, links, and calls to action to ensure they are working correctly and intuitively. As part of a website health check, test navigation manually.
2. Content Review: Checking for broken images, typos, outdated information, and formatting issues on key pages. Manually check website health content for errors.
3. Form Testing: Submitting forms (contact forms, registration forms, etc.) to verify functionality and proper data handling. Forms are crucial, so check the website health of forms manually.
4. Mobile Responsiveness Check: View the website on different screen sizes (desktop, tablet, mobile) to assess responsiveness and ensure proper display across devices. Mobile responsiveness is vital for UX, manually check website health on different devices.
5. Basic Speed Assessment: Manually judging page load speed by browsing, often using browser developer tools (Network tab) to get a rudimentary sense of load times. A manual website health check might include a basic speed assessment.
6. Functionality Testing: Interacting with key website features (e.g., search, product filters, interactive elements) to ensure they are working as expected. Functionality is key to usability, manually check website health features.

As this process is extremely time-consuming and repetitive, only freelancers handling up to 5 sites can opt for this. For them also, this method of checking WordPress site health is prone to human error and subjective interpretations. 

Different team members might evaluate website health differently, leading to inconsistent reporting. Subjectivity reduces the reliability of manual website health check results.

Also, manual checks simply do not scale as the number of client sites grows. It becomes impossible to dedicate the necessary time for thorough manual testing across a large portfolio. Scale is impossible with manual check website health methods. So, this isn’t a wise choice for WordPress agencies. 

Method 2: WordPress Admin Dashboard Checks 

This method of checking WordPress site health involves logging into the WordPress admin dashboard of each website to check for WordPress-specific health indicators. A basic wordpress website health check begins in the admin dashboard.

1. WordPress Updates: Checking for available updates for WordPress core, themes, and plugins in the Updates section. Part of a wordpress website health check is verifying updates.
2. Site Health Tool (WordPress Built-in): Utilizing the WordPress Site Health tool to review status reports, identify recommended improvements, and note any critical issues. The built-in tool is a basic form of wordpress website health check.
3. Plugins and Themes Pages: Reviewing the installed plugins and themes lists for outdated or inactive items, and sometimes checking plugin/theme details for potential issues. For a wordpress website health check, review plugins and themes.
4. User Management: Checking user lists for any unusual or unauthorized user accounts. User management is a security aspect to check health of website.
5. Comments and Moderation: Briefly review comments for spam or inappropriate content (though less directly health-related). Comment moderation is a minor task in a wordpress website health check.

As this method to check WordPress site health requires logging into each site individually, it’s time-consuming, cumbersome, and password management becomes a challenge when dealing with many sites. 

Checking updates and Site Health on each site individually is highly repetitive and inefficient, especially for agencies managing a large volume of client websites. 

The WordPress admin dashboard checks primarily focus on WordPress-related aspects. They do not cover server-side issues, external performance factors, security vulnerabilities outside of WordPress core/plugins/themes, or wider website infrastructure health. For a comprehensive website health check, WordPress admin checks are limited.

Method 3: Manual Performance Testing Tools

This method utilizes online tools specifically designed to analyze website performance metrics like page speed, loading times, and performance scores. To check website health performance, manual tools are often used.

1. Using Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, WebPageTest: Entering website URLs into these tools and analyzing the generated reports for performance metrics (e.g., Page Load Time, First Contentful Paint, Largest Contentful Paint, performance scores). Tools are available to check website health performance manually.
2. Analyzing Performance Recommendations: Review the recommendations provided by these tools for improving website speed and performance (e.g., optimizing images, leveraging browser caching, minimizing CSS/JS). Performance tools give recommendations on how to check website health for improvement.
3. Testing Key Pages: Running performance tests on the homepage, landing pages, product pages, and other critical pages to get a representative view of website performance. To effectively check website health performance, test key pages.

Running performance tests for multiple pages across numerous client websites becomes extremely time-consuming and resource-intensive. For agencies managing many sites, manually checking website health performance for each page is impractical.

These tools provide a snapshot of performance at a specific point in time. They do not offer continuous performance monitoring or alerts for performance degradation over time, requiring repeated manual testing. Point-in-time analysis limits the effectiveness of manually check website health performance.

Method 4: Manual Security Checks – Basic Vulnerability Scanning and Security Audits

This method involves manually looking for common security vulnerabilities and weaknesses in WordPress websites. Manually checking the health of website security is a basic approach.

1. Checking for Outdated WordPress Core, Themes, and Plugins (Again – but from a Security Perspective): Manually reviewing installed software versions and comparing them to the latest available versions, focusing on security updates. Outdated software is a key security issue to check health of website.
2. Basic Vulnerability Scanning (Using Online Scanners – Limited Scope): Using free online vulnerability scanners (with caution as some can be unreliable or even malicious) to perform basic scans for known vulnerabilities. Basic online scanners can help to check health of website security superficially.
3. Reviewing Security Plugin Configurations (if installed): Checking the settings and logs of security plugins installed on individual sites. Security plugin settings are part of a manual wordpress website health check.
4. Checking for Common Security Misconfigurations: Manually looking for common security misconfigurations (e.g., default admin usernames, weak passwords, file permissions issues – often requires server access). Security misconfigurations are important aspects to manually check health of website.

Manual security checks and basic scanners provide limited security coverage. They often miss complex vulnerabilities, zero-day exploits, or deeper security flaws. For robust security, manual methods to check health of website are insufficient.

Security findings are often scattered across different tools, reports, and manual assessments, making it difficult to get a centralized view of security posture across all client sites. Fragmented data is a drawback when using manual methods to check health of website security.

Automated Website Health Check Methods

As agencies scale, manual methods for WordPress site health checks become unsustainable. Automated tools offer a step towards efficiency, but even some automated approaches have limitations when managing multiple WordPress sites. For agencies seeking efficient ways to check website health, automation is key.

The standard automation approach involves using tools such as uptime monitoring tools, performance monitoring, security plugins, vulnerability scanners, and so on. However, this is a fragmented way to check WordPress site health, often leading to extra expenses for agencies.

This is where InstaWP Site Management service and similar platforms excel for agencies needing to efficiently check health of website across multiple client accounts.

It directly addresses the limitations of manual and fragmented automated approaches, offering a centralized and efficient solution for website health checks. 

And, if you’re an InstaWP Live user, you don’t have to invest in site management separately and this best managed WordPress hosting provides in-built fully automated website health check capabilities. 

Here is how: 

Centralized Site Dashboard

InstaWP provides a unified dashboard where agencies can instantly see the health status of all connected client sites. 

You’ll be able to see uptime, performance, security vulnerabilities, WordPress version, PHP version, and storage usage at a glance.This centralized view overcomes the fragmentation of data from manual checks and disparate tools. InstaWP offers a centralized dashboard to check website health.

Auto-Updates & Scheduling

InstaWP proactively addresses a major source of website health issues – outdated software. You can set up auto-updates to keep your sites secure and running smoothly. Agencies can also schedule these updates so you can pick the time that works best for you, providing control and minimizing disruptions during updates. 

This feature of site management directly reduces the risk of security vulnerabilities and compatibility issues arising from outdated components, making the WordPress website health check more proactive.

Bulk Updates

When warnings do arise, especially related to plugins or themes across multiple sites, InstaWP’s bulk update capability is crucial for efficient remediation. 1-click updates are possible for specific plugins or themes, too, allowing agencies to quickly resolve widespread issues and efficiently check website health across multiple sites.

Vulnerability Scanner

InstaWP integrates a proactive security scanner that constantly monitors your sites for known security vulnerabilities. With alerts shown directly on your dashboard, you’ll always know when something requires your attention, helping you to keep your sites secure.

This addresses the limitations of manual security checks and basic security plugins by providing continuous, centralized security monitoring, essential for a robust website health check.

Performance Scanner

InstaWP’s performance scanner provides ongoing performance monitoring, going beyond point-in-time tests. This offers actionable insights for optimization and maintaining high performance directly contributing to overall website health and SEO. The performance scanner is a vital feature to check website health and optimize performance continuously.

Multiple Staging Sites

When implementing changes to improve website health (updates, plugin changes, configuration tweaks), InstaWP’s staging sites are invaluable. Agencies can test, tweak, and push the perfect one, ensuring changes are thoroughly tested before impacting live client websites, minimizing risks and potential downtime during a website health check improvement process.

Config Manager

InstaWP’s Config Manager simplifies managing WordPress settings from the dashboard. This allows for easy adjustments to configurations that might be impacting website health, without needing to delve into individual site files or admin panels, streamlining optimization efforts when you check website health.

Activity Logs & Alert Rules

InstaWP’s Activity Logs and custom alerts offer enhanced monitoring and proactive notifications. Agencies can stay informed without the need to constantly monitor your sites manually, receiving alerts about critical changes (plugin updates, user additions, security alerts) that can impact website health, allowing for timely responses and enhancing the proactive aspect of website health check.

This way, InstaWP site monitoring service makes checking the health of a site highly streamlined and optimized for agencies and developers alike. The best part? It offers both Basic and Advanced plans to suit different agency needs and budgets. 

• Basic Sites (Free): Offers essential management features, including manual plugin/theme updates, magic login, database editor, purge cache, user management, and basic staging. While helpful for basic management, it lacks the automated and proactive features crucial for robust website health check for agencies.
  
• Advanced Sites (Paid – Scalable Pricing): For WordPress agencies serious about proactive website health checks and efficient management of multiple client sites, the Advanced Sites plan in InstaWP provides the necessary features to truly streamline workflows, automate key health checks, and deliver exceptional website maintenance services. 

The automated vulnerability scanner, performance monitoring, and automated updates, coupled with the centralized dashboard and bulk actions, make it an ideal solution for managing website health at scale and effectively addressing and preventing plugin warnings. Agencies looking to effectively check website health should consider the Advanced Plan.

Why Website Health Checks Are Crucial for WordPress Agencies and Developers

Before we dive into the ‘how,’ let’s solidify the ‘why.’ Why are website health checks so critical, especially for WordPress agencies and developers managing numerous client sites? For those in charge of check website health for clients, the reasons extend beyond basic maintenance.

• Preventative Maintenance: Regular health checks allow agencies to identify and address potential issues before they escalate into major problems. This proactive approach is far more efficient and cost-effective than reactive firefighting. Learning how to check website health proactively is key to preventative maintenance.
• Scalability & Efficiency: For agencies managing multiple sites, manual checks are simply unsustainable. Efficient, and ideally automated, health check methods are crucial for scalability. For efficient scaling, agencies need streamlined processes to check website health across many sites.
• Standardized Service Delivery: Implementing structured health check processes ensures consistent service quality across all client accounts, strengthening the agency’s brand and reputation. Standardizing website health check protocols ensures consistent quality.
• Demonstrating Value & Reporting: Regular health checks provide tangible data to demonstrate the agency’s value to clients. Health reports can showcase improvements, highlight proactive problem-solving, and justify maintenance fees. Reports based on thorough website health check data illustrate agency value.
• Reduced Support Burden: Healthy websites experience fewer issues, reducing the agency’s support burden and freeing up resources for strategic development and client growth. Proactive wordpress website health check routines can significantly reduce support tickets.

Embrace Proactive Website Health Checks with InstaWP Site Management

Checking the health of a website is not a one-time task but an ongoing, critical process for WordPress agencies and developers. While manual and basic automated methods offer limited insights and are inefficient for managing multiple sites, InstaWP Site Management emerges as a game-changing solution for effectively check website health.

By embracing a centralized platform like InstaWP, agencies can move from reactive problem-solving to proactive website health management.