Use NetNav for a Monthly Website Health Check

Your website is your hardest-working employee. It answers questions at 2 AM, handles enquiries whilst you're on holiday, and processes orders whilst you sleep. But here's the uncomfortable truth: if you ignore it for months, it will break—and you won't know until a customer tells you your contact form doesn't work or Google stops sending traffic because of a security warning.

Most micro-business owners only check their website when something goes visibly wrong. By then, you've already lost enquiries, sales, and search rankings. The fix? A simple 30-minute monthly health check that catches problems before they cost you money.

This isn't about optimisation or growth. This is maintenance insurance—the digital equivalent of checking your car's oil level. You're not rebuilding the engine; you're making sure nothing's leaking.

In this guide, you'll establish a repeatable 7-point monthly routine using NetNav to check the four things that break most often: broken links, speed regressions, security vulnerabilities, and conversion path failures. By the end, you'll have a documented checklist and a calendar appointment that protects your website from silent failures.

Jump to Section:

• •Quick Start (5 Minutes)
• •Complete Step-by-Step Guide
• •Troubleshooting

Quick Start (5 Minutes)

Not sure if your initial setup is robust enough for these checks? NetNav can run a foundational audit of your entire site structure, including key security and accessibility pillars, in 60 seconds.

This builds on your monthly review process, but focuses exclusively on technical health rather than marketing performance.

The 5-Step Express Version:

1. Schedule the recurring time block now (first Monday of each month, 30 minutes, non-negotiable).
2. Run a fresh NetNav audit to capture current health metrics across all pillars.
3. Test your core conversion path manually (submit your contact form, add a product to cart, test your booking system).
4. Review high-priority errors only (critical security warnings, broken links affecting key pages, speed regressions over 1 second).
5. Log the top 3 required fixes in your task manager and schedule 60 minutes next week to address them.

✅ Completed the quick version? Move on to The "1-Hour a Month" SEO Maintenance Routine or continue below for the detailed walkthrough with the complete 7-point checklist.

Complete Step-by-Step Guide: The 7-Point Health Check

This is your full monthly routine. Print the checklist, work through it systematically, and you'll catch 95% of website problems before they affect customers.

Step 1: Schedule Your Time & Gather Last Month's Logs

Why this matters: The biggest reason health checks fail isn't complexity—it's inconsistency. If it's not in your calendar, it won't happen.

What to do:

1. Create the recurring appointment now. First Monday of every month, 9:00-9:30 AM (or whatever time works for you). Title it "Website Health Check" and set it to repeat monthly.
2. Block the follow-up time immediately. Schedule 60 minutes the following week titled "Website Maintenance Fixes". Do not mix checking time with fixing time—they're separate activities.
3. Review last month's fix list. Open your task manager or last month's checklist. Did you complete the fixes you identified? If not, why? (This accountability loop is what makes the routine stick.)
4. Prepare your workspace. Open these tabs:
5. Your NetNav dashboard
6. Your website's admin panel
7. Your task manager or a blank checklist document

Time for this step: 5 minutes

Step 2: Check Conversion Path Integrity (The Non-Technical Test)

Why this matters: All the technical monitoring in the world is useless if your contact form silently breaks and you don't notice for three weeks. This is the single most important check.

What to do:

1. Test your primary contact form. Go to your website as a customer would. Fill out your contact form with a test enquiry. Use a real email address you control. Submit it. Did you receive the confirmation email? Did it appear in your inbox/CRM?
2. Test your e-commerce checkout (if applicable). Add a product to your cart. Proceed through checkout as far as you can without actually paying. Does every step load? Are there any error messages?
3. Test your booking system (if applicable). Try to book an appointment or reserve a service. Does the calendar load? Can you select a time?
4. Check your phone number and email address. Visit your Contact page. Click your phone number (does it trigger the phone app?). Click your email address (does it open the mail client?). These seem trivial, but they break surprisingly often after theme updates.

What you're looking for: Any step that fails, loads slowly (over 3 seconds), or produces an error message.

Time for this step: 5 minutes

Step 3: Fix Critical Broken Links (404s)

Why this matters: Broken links frustrate users and signal poor quality to Google. Internal 404s (links to pages on your own site that no longer exist) are the most damaging because they're entirely within your control.

What to do:

1. Open your NetNav Broken Links report. Navigate to the SEO or Technical Health section of your NetNav dashboard.
2. Filter for internal 404 errors. Ignore external link warnings for now (you can't control other people's websites). Focus exclusively on internal links—links from your pages to other pages on your site that return 404 errors.
3. Prioritise by page importance. A broken link on your homepage or a key service page is critical. A broken link in a blog post from 2019 is low priority. Fix the critical ones first.
4. Fix or remove each broken link:
5. If the target page has moved, update the link to the new URL
6. If the target page no longer exists, remove the link or replace it with a relevant alternative
7. If it's an image 404, re-upload the missing image or remove the broken image reference

Manually checking every link is a nightmare. This is the single biggest time-saver: NetNav automatically scans for broken links and crawl errors monthly, providing the exact fix location, meaning you skip the tedious manual checking process entirely.

What you're looking for: Any internal 404 errors on pages that receive traffic or are part of your conversion path.

Time for this step: 5-7 minutes

For detailed repair instructions, see our guide on tackling broken link fixes.

Step 4: Monitor Performance for Regression

Why this matters: Website speed doesn't usually break suddenly—it degrades gradually. A new plugin, larger images, or hosting issues can slow your site by 2-3 seconds over a few months without you noticing. But your customers notice, and Google definitely notices.

What to do:

1. Check your NetNav Speed score. Look at your overall performance score and compare it to last month's baseline (this is why you need the historical data).
2. Review your three most important pages:
3. Homepage
4. Your primary service/product page
5. Your contact page
6. Look for regressions over 500ms. If any page is loading 0.5 seconds slower than last month, investigate. If it's over 1 second slower, this is a high-priority fix.
7. Check the specific recommendations. NetNav (or PageSpeed Insights) will tell you what's causing the slowdown. The most common culprits:
8. Unoptimised images (usually the top 3 largest images on the page)
9. Poor caching configuration
10. Too many plugins or scripts loading

What you're looking for: Any significant speed regression (500ms+) or a performance score drop of more than 10 points.

Time for this step: 5 minutes

For detailed speed optimisation, see addressing website speed issues.

Step 5: Security & Software Updates

Why this matters: Outdated software is the number one cause of website security breaches. WordPress, plugins, and themes release security patches regularly. If you're not updating, you're leaving the door unlocked.

What to do:

1. Review NetNav's security scan. Check for any critical security warnings (malware detection, SSL certificate issues, known vulnerabilities).
2. Check your CMS for updates:
3. WordPress: Go to Dashboard → Updates. Update WordPress core, all plugins, and your theme. (Take a backup first if you're nervous.)
4. Shopify/Squarespace: These update automatically, but check your app/plugin list for any that require manual updates.
5. Verify your SSL certificate is active. Visit your website. Does the address bar show a padlock icon? If not, your SSL certificate may have expired.
6. Check your backup system. When was your last automatic backup? If it's been more than a week, investigate why your backup system isn't running.

What you're looking for: Any critical security warnings, outdated software, or SSL certificate issues.

Time for this step: 3-5 minutes

Step 6: Review Indexing Status (Search Console)

Why this matters: If Google can't crawl or index your pages, you don't exist in search results. A sudden drop in indexed pages or a spike in crawl errors usually indicates a technical problem that needs immediate attention.

What to do:

1. Open Google Search Console. Go to the "Pages" report under "Indexing".
2. Check your indexed page count. Has it dropped significantly since last month? A drop of 10-20% or more is a red flag.
3. Review crawl errors. Look at the "Not indexed" section. Are there new errors? Common issues:
4. "Crawled – currently not indexed" (usually low-quality pages)
5. "Discovered – currently not indexed" (Google found the page but hasn't crawled it yet)
6. "Blocked by robots.txt" (you've accidentally blocked important pages)
7. Check for manual actions. Go to "Security & Manual Actions" → "Manual Actions". If you have a penalty, this is critical priority.

What you're looking for: Sudden drops in indexed pages, new crawl errors affecting important pages, or any manual actions.

Time for this step: 3-5 minutes

For detailed crawl error fixes, see Fix Crawl Errors in Search Console.

Step 7: Log Tasks and Re-Schedule

Why this matters: The health check is useless if you don't act on what you find. This step closes the loop.

What to do:

1. List every issue you found. Don't try to fix them now—just document them.
2. Prioritise by impact:
3. Critical: Broken conversion paths, security warnings, major speed regressions (over 2 seconds)
4. High: Broken links on key pages, indexing drops over 20%, SSL issues
5. Medium: Minor speed issues, low-priority broken links
6. Low: Cosmetic issues, broken links in old blog posts
7. Select your top 3 fixes. You scheduled 60 minutes next week for maintenance. Pick the three highest-impact issues that you can realistically fix in that time.
8. Add them to your task manager with specific deadlines (e.g., "Fix contact form submission error – by Friday").
9. Save this month's checklist. Keep a record (digital or printed) so you can compare next month's results.

🎉 Completed? You're ready for The "1-Hour a Month" SEO Maintenance Routine, which builds on this foundation with specific ranking and visibility checks.

Troubleshooting

Go Deeper on Technical Fixes

This monthly health check catches problems early. But if you want to understand the underlying technical concepts or conduct a more comprehensive annual audit, these guides provide the next level of detail:

• •The Ultimate Small Business Website Audit Guide (2024 Action Checklist) – For a deep, annual, comprehensive audit framework that goes beyond the monthly quick check and covers content, UX, and conversion optimisation.
• •Technical SEO Fundamentals – To understand the advanced technical concepts (like indexing, canonicalisation, and structured data) that underpin the issues NetNav flags in your health reports.

What's Next

You've established a consistent monthly website health routine. This protects you from silent failures and keeps your digital storefront stable.

Next Blueprint Step: The "1-Hour a Month" SEO Maintenance Routine

Now that you're confident your website isn't breaking, the next step is to ensure it's maintaining and improving its search visibility. This guide walks you through a focused 60-minute monthly SEO check that complements your health routine.

Other Optimise Guides

Once you've established your monthly health check, these related guides help you build a complete optimisation system:

• •Pick a Handful of Numbers That Matter – Define the 5-7 core metrics you'll track monthly to measure real business impact, not vanity metrics.
• •Weekly Marketing Check-In (15-Minute Routine) – A lightweight weekly review process that sits between your daily work and monthly deep checks.
• •Fix Pages with High Traffic But Low Conversion – Identify and repair pages that attract visitors but fail to convert them into leads or customers.
• •Monthly Search Console Review Routine – A focused monthly process for reviewing your Google Search Console data to catch ranking drops and indexing issues early.
• •When to Kill a Marketing Channel – The decision framework for knowing when to stop investing time in a marketing channel that isn't delivering results.
• •Automating Repetitive Marketing Tasks – Identify which routine marketing tasks can be automated to free up your time for strategic work.

You've successfully established a consistent monthly website health habit. This routine ensures stability and catches problems before they cost you money. Want to identify areas for growth, not just stability? Run a full NetNav audit to benchmark your progress across 9 marketing pillars and discover which areas have the highest potential for improvement.