Listen, I might know what you’re thinking: “Erin, this time of year is too busy. I don’t have time to do a complete website checkup and make updates right now.”
And you know what? If you’re DIYing, you don’t need to do one. Not yet, anyway.
Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room, shall we? The last two months of the year are BUSY. Between wrapping up client work, personal holiday commitments, and trying to actually enjoy the season, no one has time for an intense website audit (or all those other year-end business tasks we assign ourselves). Yet we create this story this story we tell ourselves that everything has to be tied up in a perfect little package once the year ends.
Friend, that is entirely untrue.
A simple end-of-year website checkup is all you really need right now. It’s enough to make you feel confident that everything is secure, current, and ready for the new year without adding too much more work on your plate during this busy time of year.
I’ve been doing these quick New Year’s website checkups alongside my other end-of-year tasks like reviewing my marketing strategy and planning my goals for the future year for quite a while now.
Doing this allows me to save the deeper work of a true marketing audit for springtime, when I naturally feel more motivated to tackle bigger projects and my schedule has a bit more breathing room.
Think of this quick check as your end-of-year security walk-through. You know, like when you check all the doors and windows before bed, except this effort is for your digital business home instead.
What we need to review in our end-of-year website checkup
There are four essential areas we need to check at the end of the year to ensure your website is ready for the new year. And those things are: your footer, legal elements, security settings, and plugins (if you have them).
The best part about this website checkup? If you stay focused (no going down the rabbit hole of complete redesign, please), these tasks will only take you 30 minutes or less.
Yes, that’s it. You with me? Okay, let’s get started.
We’ll start our website checkup with the footer
Let’s scroll allllll the way to the bottom of your website and talk about what needs to get edited on the footer of your site. This section is so important as it is on every single page and users will often scroll down to navigate themselves to another page (which is why site navigation is so important!) or look for other important business information, like your address or hours of operation.
Because this is a highly trafficked, but usually overlooked, space on your website, we’re going to spend a good part of our time here.
First, let’s make sure the copyright dates are correct
Let’s start by tackling that copyright date first. It’s such a small detail, but it’s also the first thing that makes visitors think “huh, when was the last time they actually updated this site?”
I’ve automated mine so that it updates on its own every time that ball drops to bring in the new year. If yours isn’t automated, no stress. You can fix this in less than five minutes once the new year rolls in—just make sure to schedule that time on your calendar NOW.
Heck, better yet, you can automate the update, like me, so you never have to think about it again.
I use Elementor Pro on my site, so I just popped in the “current date time” field in my footer years ago and never looked back. Not sure how to do it on your own site?
- If you’re using Beaver Builder on your WordPress website, here’s a video tutorial from my friend Katie O’Brien, a website designer for interior designers and home professionals.
- Using Squarespace, here’s a tutorial on how to manually update your footer from my friend Chantelle Davis-Gray, a Squarespace website designer
- Or head to Update Your Footer, a site that shares code which automates the year update for you. As they say “Friends don’t let friends look dead on the internet.”
Now that we’ve updated your copyright year, it’s time to move on to the other website footer tasks we have.
Next, we’re going to verify that your navigation items are current
I can’t tell you how often I find links to outdated offers or abandoned social media accounts when I do website audits for my clients. All you need to do is a quick visual review here. If you notice that something needs to be removed, feel free to delete it while you’re working. However, if something is missing—from a site navigation perspective—simply jot a note down about what you need to add later.
Now, it’s time to get clicking. You can’t just assume the footer links work. You need to click into all of your links to make sure that nothing 404s or directs your website viewers to the wrong places. This is especially important if you used a website template and DIYed your own site. I’ve clicked through so many footers to find links that lead right back to the website design company that created the footer.
(Not sure what I mean here? Companies like BluChic, Pix and Hue, Tonic, and Davey and Krista sell website templates you can upload to your site and edit to make the design your own. People just forget to touch ALL aspects of the design when they do this. By the way, those are all companies I recommend to my clients—I’ve bought a couple templates too.)
Again, if you find anything funny happening in your footer navigation, just make a note of it and assign the task of fixing it later. You want to fly through your website checkup and not get bogged down by the tiny tasks you create for yourself while you’re doing it.
Have an opt-in form in your footer? That element is next in our review
If you’ve got an opt-in form in your footer, give it a quick test to make sure it’s still working properly. And yes, I mean using your own name and email to sign up for your newsletter. You want to make sure you get a confirmation that the form went through. And, you also want to confirm that your email welcome sequence kicks off without any issues (you gotta click off your website and check your email for this!).
Come across any issues? I bet you can guess what I’m going to say now. Don’t get distracted by trying to fix anything right, just make a note of what needs fixing when the website checkup is complete.
Oh, and while this isn’t part of our work today, I want to remind you to keep an eye on your email over the next couple of weeks to make sure that your complete email welcome sequence gets sent out, and that your email address gets removed from the onboarding sequence and transitioned into your “normal” newsletter segment when it’s complete. Schedule something in your calendar now so you don’t forget to do this (Oh, fine…you can add it to the to-do list if you’re worried about getting distracted!)
In a few weeks, your calendar will give you a nudge to review your ESP. If all goes well with the process above, you have two options. You can either delete your email address so that you can do this process again next year, or you can stay subscribed to keep an eye on your own newsletter throughout the year.
If you do choose to stay subscribed, I just want to point out that you’ll need to use a different email address next year to test your opt-in form. (ESPs won’t let you subscribe over and over again for the same thing with the same address.) For a while this process annoyed me, but I have a simple workaround for you. All you have to do is use the + sign and an identifier after your name, but before the “@” symbol in your email address, and your ESP recognizes it as something new.
For example:
- Year one I use test@erinollila.com
- Year two I use test+2@erinollila.com
- Year three I use test+3@erinollila.com
- And so on and so forth
The emails from your ESP continue coming to your normal email inbox, but your ESP treats them as individual subscribers. The only downside to doing this is you’re going to be subscribed to your own email list a bunch of times, so you might want to consider deleting the second year’s email address after the process completes and reusing it in the next year.
Side note: Here is an older Talk Copy to Me episode about email tech with Bev Feldman if you need a refresher on setting up your email service provider (ESP) to better serve your email marketing needs. I worked through her Kit Accelerator program, and would definitely recommend joining one of her cohorts if you want to DIY this or just hire her to do it for you!
Let’s not forget the important legal elements
Since we’re already hanging out in the footer, let’s stay in that general area by making sure we’ve got some of the most important (but most often forgotten) website elements covered—your legal documents.
I know, I know. Legal stuff isn’t exactly thrilling. But having these documents on your site isn’t just about following the rules—it’s about protecting your business and building trust with your visitors.
Every website needs a Privacy Policy and I also recommend having a few other things as well.
And that privacy policy? It’s not optional. It’s actually legally required, especially if you’re collecting any kind of data. Hint: if you have a contact form, opt-in of any kind or you use any type of analytics tool, you’re collecting data.
But depending on what you do, you might need some additional documents too. For example, if you’re attracting visitors from certain areas of the world you need to be compliant with their laws.
Think: GDPR for European visitors or CCPA, the California Consumer Privacy Act, which is somewhat equivalent to GDPR. And those two things aren’t the only other consumer protection laws out there, either. They’re just the only two I’ve mentioned in this article!
Remember, you don’t know who is visiting your site, so it’s important to make sure you’re following global requirements, like having a cookie banner or requiring explicit permission for joining your email list, etc.
And there’s more, for example, if you’re:
- Teaching about mental health topics? You’ll need a disclaimer to clarify you’re not providing therapy
- Offering legal education or even addressing legal topics? Make it crystal clear you’re not providing legal advice in a disclaimer
Y’all let’s stop for a moment to acknowledge that while I am talking about the legal aspects of your website, I am certainly not your lawyer, and I am not providing legal advice of any kind.
But back to what I was talking about before…if you’re:
- Selling courses or products? You need solid terms of purchase and refund policy. If those products are physical, you’ll also need a shipping policy
- Making income claims or sharing client results? You need FTC-compliant disclaimers about typical results and earnings
So that I don’t get you all flustered (Sorry! I get pretty excited about this kind of stuff!), here’s what I want you to do right now: Just check if these exist in your footer. Don’t read through them (you can save that for a full spring cleaning website audit!), just confirm they’re there and accessible.
Need these documents but don’t want to sell a kidney to afford a lawyer? I’ve got you. I personally use and love two affordable options:
- Braden Drake’s Contract Club is a $200 investment that pays for itself in peace of mind. You get all the essential templates you need just by paying one lifetime cost. The best part is that new templates are usually added monthly, and you can put in requests for contract templates you’d like to see added in the future.
- The Contract Shop is great if you prefer to buy templates individually or need something that is more specific that you have to manipulate less.
Both of those links are affiliate links, and I use them both in different ways for my own business.
Remember, these legal pages aren’t just random pages cluttering up your footer. Having them prominently displayed shows visitors you’re a legitimate business that takes their privacy and rights seriously.
This is all you really need to do with your website footer, but remember that not all websites are the same. If you notice something in your own website that wasn’t mentioned here (but you did take a moment to review), add it to your year-end checklist so you don’t forget to do it again next year.
Security time (I promise this is painless)
It’s so easy to go on with your business and not even consider how secure your website actually is. But what if I told you that ignoring a security review makes your website—actually, let’s be real here…your entire business—vulnerable to hackers, thieves, and just regular ol’ bad guys. Let’s knock these security checks out rapid-fire style so you’re better protected in the year ahead.
Remove unnecessary user access
Remember when you gave your old virtual assistant access to your website? Or that time you hired a website designer for a quick project? Yeah… you need to clean up your website’s user list. Think of it like changing your locks after moving into a new house. It’s just good security hygiene.
First, head to your user list and remove anyone who no longer needs access to your website. (Are you so excited that I’m not telling you to add this to a task list for later?!) You’ll want to remove people like:
- Former team members
- One-time contractors
- That friend who wanted to help by “taking a look” at your backend
- Anyone you don’t recognize (yikes, but it happens!)
Update your login password
Come on, be honest with me for a moment. When’s the last time you updated the password you use to log into your website? Chances are, it was a long time ago!
I make this part of my annual website checkup because, well, otherwise it would never happen. I also make my password long, complicated, and full of nonsense symbols to make it tougher for those aforementioned bad guys to steal my info.
My recommendation is to use a password manager, like 1Passwords or another brand because trying to remember all these passwords is like trying to remember where you put your keys. If you don’t have a specific spot for them, they’re bound to keep getting lost.
Check your site security and domain registration
The next step is to check your SSL certificate expiration date. For most of us, this renews automatically, but it’s worth verifying at least once a year. No one wants to wake up to a “not secure” warning on their site that prevents customers from purchasing for you—or just makes you look completely unprofessional.
Finally (and this is super important), check your domain renewal date while your at it. Add it to your calendar right now. Yes, even if it’s not due for months. I had my previous host for 12 years and never once had a panic moment about my site disappearing because this date was always in my calendar with plenty of reminders ahead of time.
Pro tip: Set your SSL and domain registration to auto-renew if possible, but still keep the dates in your calendar. Think of it as your backup for your backup.
Now that wasn’t so bad, was it? Both of these tasks take literally one minute, but they’re like a security blanket for your website. Plus, you can skip the middle-of-the-night panic about whether you remembered to renew your domain.
Add a plugin cleanup to your website checkup
Here’s a fun fact for you—one weak plugin can make your entire website vulnerable. Remember the house alarm example I gave above? It’s like having a top-notch security system but still choosing to leave one window complete open. So let’s take a couple of minutes (tops!) to check on your plugins.
I should probably point out here that you only need to do this task if your website runs on WordPress. Actually, I just quickly researched this to make sure I was correct, and Google’s AI Overview tells me that “other CMS platforms like Joomla, Drupal, and Magento” also use plugins, so do with that information what you will. I’m not familiar enough with these types of CMS to advise you on where to look.
Reminder before we begin, I am also not your website developer, so if you don’t know what the plugins are controlling, don’t touch anything I mention below. Just add them to your task list, and check in with your website developer before touching anything.
Now, if you’re logging into your WordPress dashboard for the first time in a while, you might see a sea of red notification dots. Don’t panic! Here’s your quick checklist:
First, look at your installed plugins. If you spot any you haven’t used since… um… forever ago, just get rid of them. Deactivate first, then delete. Unused plugins are just sitting there taking up space and potentially creating security risks.
For the plugins you’re keeping, check that they’re:
- Compatible with your current WordPress version
- Actually being used (no “maybe I’ll need this someday” plugins allowed)
- Consider whether you want to set anything to auto-update (there are pros and cons to this!)
And before we end, you also want to make sure your website theme is updated as well. Sure, it’s technically not a plugin but it’s just as important. So click over to the Theme section on your right side panel and update if necessary.
That’s it! You’re done with your annual website checkup
See? I told you this wouldn’t take too long. Shoot, it probably took you just as long to read this blog post as it did to do the work I mentioned in here.
But before you close this tab, take a moment to add this website review to your calendar as an annual November or December task. If you’re worried you’ll forget what to do next year, just paste the link to this guide in the reminder!
Trust me, Future You will thank you. Now, it’s time to celebrate your efforts. You’ve just:
- Updated your footer by checking your copyright date, legal requirements, opt-in form and process, and site navigation
- Cleaned up your site security by updating your password, removing unnecessary users, confirming your SSL certificate is current, and ensuring your domain is registered
- Updated your plugins by removing anything that you weren’t using and updating anything necessary (and don’t forget about your main theme, too!)
Your website is now ready for the upcoming year, and you can tackle the deeper stuff when spring cleaning season rolls around. Speaking of which…
If you want to join me for a more thorough website audit and cleanup, hop on the waitlist for my Spring Clean Your Website workshop. You can sign up at any point in the year, and I’ll notify you as soon as registration is ready.
When March rolls around, we’ll dig into all those notes you just made and really make your site shine. (And I hate to tell you this, but there are even more website audit tasks we’ll work through together in the spring!)
Plus, waitlist members get a special early-bird discount code before we kick off.
For now, though, go celebrate! You’ve just knocked out some really important website maintenance, and you did it without falling down the rabbit hole of “complete website redesign at 2am.” I call that a win!
