Year End Website Audit Checklist For Business Owners

A year end website audit is a one afternoon check of the things that quietly break: your phone number, your forms, your hours, your renewals, your speed and your search setup. Do it in late November or December and you start January with a site that works, instead of finding the problem after a slow month.

We audit a lot of business websites for owners who are sure the site is fine. A good share have at least one thing broken that costs them leads. A form that does not send. A domain that renews in two weeks. A page that says "2023." None of it is dramatic. All of it is fixable.

Key points

• Start with the money items: phone, forms, hours and the first screen.
• Then check renewals: domain, hosting, SSL and software.
• Test on a real phone, not just your desktop.
• Check Google Search Console for errors and Google Business Profile for accuracy.
• Make a backup before you change anything.
• Write down what you found and what you fixed. Next year you will want the list.

Part 1. The Money Checks

These are the ones that directly cost you customers. Do them first.

1. Call your own number from the site. On your phone, tap the number. Does it dial the right line? Does someone answer?

2. Submit your contact form. Use a different email and phone than the ones you usually use. Does it arrive? How fast? Does the customer get a confirmation?

3. Check the first screen. Open the home page on your phone. Does it say what you do, where you do it, and how to call? See why most small business websites don't get calls if it does not.

4. Check hours everywhere. Site, Google, Apple Maps, Facebook. Add holiday hours now. See holiday marketing for local service businesses.

5. Check prices and offers. Old promos, expired coupons, old rates. Remove or update them.

Part 2. Renewals And Access

Nobody looks at these until they break.

6. Domain renewal date. Log in to your registrar and check when it expires and where. Turn on auto renew. Make sure the account email is one you still read.

7. Hosting renewal. Same thing. Note the date and the payment card.

8. SSL certificate. The padlock should show. Most hosts renew it for free, but check that it does.

9. Who has the logins? You should have the registrar, hosting, website admin, Google Analytics and Google Business Profile logins. If your old web guy owns the domain, fix that now.

10. Remove old users. Delete accounts for former staff and former agencies.

Part 3. Content And Trust

11. Update the year. Footers that say "Copyright 2021" make people wonder if you are still in business.

12. Check your photos. Real, recent, yours. Add a few new ones from this year.

13. Check team and about pages. Remove people who left. Add new hires.

14. Look for dead links. Click through your main pages. Fix any that lead to 404 errors. A free crawler like Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) can scan for you.

15. Read your top three pages out loud. If you stumble, your customers will too.

Part 4. Speed And Mobile

16. Run a speed test. Use Google's PageSpeed Insights on your home page and top service page. Look at the three Core Web Vitals: largest contentful paint, interaction to next paint and layout shift. I explain them in website speed for local businesses.

17. Test on a phone. A real phone on mobile data, not Wi Fi. Is text readable? Do buttons work with a thumb? Does a pop up cover the page?

Part 5. Search And Tracking

18. Open Google Search Console. Look for coverage errors, manual actions, and your top queries. If you have not set it up, do it. It is free and it tells you what Google sees.

19. Check Google Business Profile. Right category, right hours, current photos, services filled in, replies to recent reviews. See how to pick your primary category.

20. Check tracking. Is Google Analytics working? Are calls tracked? See call tracking for local businesses. If you cannot say where last month's leads came from, fix that first.

Quick Reference Table

Add it up and you have a three hour job. Block an afternoon.

Security And Backups

Do these last, but do them.

• Back up the site before you touch it, and store a copy off the server.
• Update plugins and software. Old plugins are how many small sites get hacked. Delete ones you do not use.
• Use strong, unique passwords and turn on two factor sign in where it is offered.
• Look for odd pages. Search Google for "site:yourdomain.com" and skim. Spam pages sometimes sneak in on neglected sites.

We have cleaned up enough hacked sites to say this plainly. Neglect, not bad luck, is usually the cause.

What To Fix First

If you only have an hour, fix in this order.

1. Contact form and phone
2. Domain and hosting renewals
3. Hours and holiday hours
4. Mobile first screen
5. Search Console errors

Everything else can wait for January.

Keep A Record

Create a simple document with the date, what you checked, what you changed and the renewal dates. Next year, repeat it in half the time. If you want me to look at your site with you, you can book a strategy call.

Questions

How often should I audit my website?

Do a full check once a year and a quick check each quarter on the phone number, form and hours. After any redesign or platform change, do another one right away.

Can I do a website audit myself?

Yes. Everything on this list works with free tools: your phone, PageSpeed Insights, Search Console and a spreadsheet. If you find things you cannot fix, take the list to your web person.

What is the most common problem you find?

A contact form that does not send, or sends to an email nobody checks. It is easy to miss and it costs you leads every week.

Should I redesign my site at the end of the year?

Not automatically. Fix what is broken first. If the site is slow, hard to edit or does not work well on phones even after fixes, then a redesign may make sense.