DevdwellIn short
Managing many websites comes down to four habits: one list of every site with what’s live, one routine for changing and publishing, access given per site, and a weekly look at the whole list. You can do this with a spreadsheet and discipline, or with an app like Devdwell that keeps the list up to date for you.
Why it gets hard after five sites
Looking after one website is easy. You remember where its files are, how it gets published and who has the password. At three or four sites, you start keeping notes. Past five, you spend more time remembering than changing: which folder is the latest, whether last week’s edit ever went live, which hosting account the café’s site is on, and whether the person who built the dentist’s site still has access.
The work itself doesn’t grow much. The overhead does. A good system removes the overhead.
1. Keep one list of every site
Start with a single list. For each site, write down:
- the name and the live address,
- where its files are,
- how it gets published, and from which account,
- when it was last published,
- who else can change it.
A spreadsheet works. The catch is that it goes stale the moment someone publishes without updating it. That’s the main reason to use a tool that checks the live status for you. In Devdwell, the list is the dashboard: each site is a card with its address and last publish, and the status stays right however the site was published.
2. Know what’s live, and what’s waiting
The most useful column in your list is status. Four states cover nearly everything:
- Live: published and online.
- Changes waiting: edited since the last publish. This is the one that bites; it’s work that’s done but nobody can see.
- Not published yet: only exists on your computer.
- Needs attention: something is broken.
If your list can show these at a glance, most “is this the right version?” conversations disappear.
3. Use one routine for every change
Different sites tend to collect different habits: one is edited on the server, one in a builder, one in a code editor and uploaded by hand. Pick one routine and use it everywhere:
- Open the site’s files.
- Make the change and check it at desktop and phone sizes.
- Publish to a private staging copy if anyone else needs to see it.
- Publish to the live site.
- Note the date.
Devdwell turns this into one screen: each site opens in a tab beside a live preview, you describe the change or click what you mean, and the publish panel has staging and production side by side. See how to publish a website.
4. Give access per site, not per account
Shared logins are the quiet risk of managing many sites. If a freelancer has your hosting password, they have every site on that account. If a client has your builder login, they can see your other clients.
Give each person access to the sites they work on, and nothing else. Use roles: someone who can edit but not publish is a good default for clients and new teammates. When the work ends, remove them from that site. Devdwell does this with an email invite per site and two roles, “Can edit” and “Can edit and publish”. More in how to share a website with a client.
5. Group sites the way you think
Folders by client, by kind of site, or by status. Whatever matches the question you ask most often. “Show me every site for Bloom” or “show me everything that isn’t live yet” should be one click.
6. Check the whole list once a week
Ten minutes on a Monday:
- Anything with changes waiting? Publish it, or find out why not.
- Anything that needs attention? Fix it before a client notices.
- Anyone with access who no longer needs it? Remove them.
- Anything not published in a long time that should be updated, like a footer year or holiday hours?
Doing it by hand vs using a tool
You can run all of this with folders, a spreadsheet and good habits, and for two or three sites that’s reasonable. The trouble is that a hand-made list depends on everyone updating it. A tool that checks status itself, publishes the same way for every site and handles access per site removes the parts people forget. We compared the two honestly in Devdwell vs managing sites by hand.
A checklist to start with
- Every site on one list, with its live address.
- A status for each: live, changes waiting, not published, needs attention.
- One routine for changes, with a staging step when others need to approve.
- Access per site, with roles.
- Folders that match how you think.
- A weekly ten-minute review.