Website care plans and audits: what they include and when to use them
Published · Updated
Guide / Post-launch
A practical comparison of one-off website audits and ongoing care, including scope, cadence, exclusions, and how to choose.
Websites drift over time. Content changes, performance slips, and pages slowly lose their shape. A form can still work while the page around it becomes less convincing. A service description can still be accurate in parts while no longer matching the way the business sells the work.
An audit and a care plan solve different parts of that problem. The audit finds and ranks what needs attention. The care plan creates a regular way to make updates, run checks, and stop the site drifting again.
Neither should be a vague bundle of “website support”. Before buying either, you should be able to see the scope, output, rhythm, and limits.
Audit, care plan, or both?
| Compare | One-off audit | Ongoing care plan | Audit followed by care |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best when | You know the site is underperforming but not what to fix first | The site is basically sound but needs regular attention | The site has drifted and also needs an owner after the first fixes |
| Main job | Diagnose and prioritise | Maintain and improve | Establish the baseline, then protect it |
| Typical output | Findings and a ranked action plan | Agreed updates, checks, fixes, and next priorities | A ranked plan followed by a recurring work rhythm |
| Important limit | Diagnosis is not implementation | Routine care is not a disguised redesign | The transition between the two still needs a clear scope |
If the cause of the problem is unclear, start with the audit. If the priorities are already known and the site needs consistent attention, discuss ongoing care. If both statements are true, use the audit to set the first care-plan priorities.
What a Martins Works website audit covers
A full website audit reviews the site from several connected angles:
- Structure and navigation: whether people can understand where they are, find the right route, and move through the site without learning the internal organisation of the business.
- Content clarity and hierarchy: whether important pages explain the offer, fit, proof, and next step in a useful order.
- Usability: whether priority journeys and forms are workable, including on mobile.
- Search basics: whether page purpose, titles, descriptions, headings, and internal links give search engines and visitors clear signals.
- Technical quality: checks for the performance, accessibility, and implementation issues that affect real use.
The output is a ranked action plan. That ranking matters more than the number of findings. A long unranked defect list leaves the team with the same decision problem it had before.
A useful priority should explain:
- what the issue is
- who it affects and where it appears
- why it matters
- what kind of change is likely to resolve it
- whether it is urgent, important, or safe to defer
The exact pages and systems included should be agreed before the review starts. A representative template review is different from checking every page, and a public website review is different from testing logged-in or third-party systems.
When an audit is the better first move
Start with an audit when:
- enquiries have slowed without a clear reason
- content has grown and the structure feels cluttered
- editors have been patching around the site for months
- the team no longer agrees on what should be fixed first
- a redesign has been suggested but nobody has established whether the whole site needs replacing
- several different problems are being discussed as if they have one cause
It is also a sensible first step when a team needs evidence for an internal decision. The result may support a larger change, but it may equally show that a smaller set of focused improvements is enough.
What ongoing care covers
A care plan is not just "support hours". It is a way to stop the site slipping back into neglect after launch or after a round of improvements.
Martins Works care plans centre on:
- agreed website updates
- routine quality checks
- maintenance and smaller fixes
- follow-on improvements that fit the agreed scope
- a visible list of what needs attention next
That work is there to keep the site accurate, stable, and actively used. The specific platforms, pages, checks, and kinds of update covered need to be named in the plan rather than left to assumption.
Agree a cadence the team can sustain
“Ongoing” is not a cadence. The plan should say how requests are collected, when checks happen, how work is prioritised, and when the team receives an update.
For a lean team, a monthly review is a useful starting rhythm:
- confirm that priority content is still accurate
- test important enquiry routes and forms
- review key pages on mobile
- check for clarity, accessibility, and performance drift
- complete the agreed smaller updates and fixes
- record larger improvements that need separate scoping
A recently launched or frequently changing site may need closer attention. A stable site with few updates may need less. The right frequency depends on how often the site changes and how costly an unnoticed problem would be; it should be agreed during scoping rather than implied by the words “care plan”.
The first month after a launch is a special case. Forms, analytics, priority pages, mobile behaviour, and early content issues deserve a closer review before the longer-term rhythm settles. Use the first 30 days after launch checklist for that period.
What is not automatically included
An audit does not fix the site by itself. It produces the diagnosis and ranked plan. Implementation can follow, but it needs its own scope.
A care plan is not automatically a full content restructure, redesign, rebuild, new system integration, or campaign build. Those are larger pieces of work even when a care relationship helps identify the need for them.
Do not assume that unlisted items are covered. Before agreeing a plan, confirm:
- which website, environments, and third-party systems are in scope
- which checks and update types are included
- how requests are submitted and prioritised
- the review and reporting rhythm
- expected response arrangements for routine and urgent issues
- how larger work is identified, estimated, and approved
- what access and decisions the provider needs from your team
This is not bureaucracy. It prevents a care plan becoming a queue of mismatched expectations.
A common and practical sequence
Often the best route is an audit first, then a care plan.
That works when the team knows the site is drifting but cannot yet say whether the issue is mostly clarity, technical quality, governance, or all three.
The audit tells you where to act. Once the immediate work is agreed, the care plan gives the remaining priorities an owner and a rhythm. It also creates a place to notice new drift before it turns into another rescue project.
A quick decision checklist
- Choose an audit first if the team cannot agree on the cause, priority, or scale of the problem.
- Choose ongoing care if the site has a sound baseline and the team already knows which recurring checks and updates it needs.
- Choose both in sequence if the site needs diagnosis now and consistent ownership afterwards.
- Discuss a larger project instead if the structure, content, or technical foundation is already too misaligned for routine fixes to solve.
The most useful first conversation is not “Which package do we buy?” It is “What is happening now, what have we already tried, and what decision do we need the review or support to make easier?”
Compare the available audit and care work on the services page. If the site is live and you are unsure where to start, send the current URL and the problem you are seeing; that is enough context for an initial reply.